Narrative Perspectives Flashcards
1
Q
First Person
A
- Participating role (although may not fit into the main plot)
- Reader given specific character’s interpretation of events
2
Q
Third Person
A
- External to world of story
- 3rd person narrator can still have a personality
- Scene has been processed before it reaches the readers, adding things that aren’t exactly part of the story
3
Q
Omniscient Narrative Style
A
- Easiest to follow as not unreliable/biased
- Narrator is all seeing + all knowing, as if they’re God looking on the world + telling a story about a select few of the world’s inhabitants
- Reader is given information about a range of characters/situations, so they can understand an event from multiple perspectives
- Particularly notable in 18th + 19th century novels
- Modernist literature sought to break free from this to offer a more realist narrative perception
4
Q
Alternating Narrative Perspective
A
-The narrative perspective changes e.g. 3rd person might become 1st person
5
Q
Intrusive Narrative Voice
A
- Authorial voice ‘intrudes’ on events of the narrative, potentially dispelling the illusion that what we’re reading is true
- Popular until 20th century, until making a comeback in post-modern writers
- Might include direct address e.g. ‘you’
- Often expresses their own ideas on what’s taking place in the narrative
- Can sometimes evaluate characters + actions in the story + give a view about the world in general
- Establishes a 1:1 relationship between writer + reader; reader becomes the main subject of the author’s attention
6
Q
Stream of Consciousness
A
- First used in 20th century in response to growing interest in psychology
- Tends to use less punctuation + grammatical structure
- Images + ideas flow + tend to interrupt one another
- Readers are given the impression of being inside the mind of the voice/character; read what they’re thinking as they’re thinking it
7
Q
Direct Discourse
A
- Told by the character
- e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and said, “This is it, James. You have to choose.”’
- e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and thought, “This is it, James. He’s going to have to choose.”
8
Q
Indirect Discourse
A
- Told by the narrator
- e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and said that it was time for James to make his decision.’
- e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and thought that the time had come, that he was going to have to choose.’
9
Q
Free Indirect Discourse
A
- 3rd person narrator but the character’s thoughts come out in the narration
- Narrative voice takes on the voice of the character without saying ‘he said’ etc
- Narrator becomes a ventriloquist for characters
10
Q
Focalisation
A
- Through whose eyes we’re looking
- Narration takes on the perspective/PoV of a character within the novel
- Different from free direct discourse as it doesn’t relate to stated speech or thoughts