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Summary of Norman Friedman’s Point of View in Fiction In our time, one of the most significant changes in fiction, is the disappearance of the author. Compared to Victorian novels, in which the author was very present, today a story should rather tell itself through the impressions of the characters and not by the author. This way of telling a story is, according to Schorer, the only way for the author to create an aesthetic relationship between him and his work. Today, the technique of “Point of View” is becoming one of the most useful distinctions in fiction. Literature uses language as its medium, and because of that, it expresses more ideas and attitudes, than other arts, but also does it show weaker images. The author is constantly concerned with the problem, what effects his own attitudes and values have on the reader. That is why the question of point of view is so important in fiction. Every different way of telling a story has a different effect on the reader. There have been two opposite points in time, between which the history of the concept of point of view can be plotted. Already Plato distingushed between two different ways of telling a story: simple narration and imitation. In simple narration the author can appear anywhere and at any time within the story, as in imitation the author speaks through one of his characters. The main distinction, to Plato, is the dialogue. To Joyce the voice of the author loses itself more and more in the different types of writing. So he says that in lyric the poet is very present in what he is writing. It is very personal. Drama is to him the most unpersonal. The author is almost not present at all. Epic lays to Joyce in between lyric and drama. Using these theorys with the problem of point of view another problem arises. The problem of the relation between the author, the narrator, and the story subject. James, who always tried to find a focus for his storys, solved this problem by putting the action inside the consciousness of one of the characters within the plot. Lubbock applied the general distinction between direct and indirect presentation.
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