Effects of Point of View on Narrative Style

Before writing, great novelists must decide which point of view to implement. The option chosen will simultaneously allow for and limit how the author shares information with the reader. For example, a first-person perspective limits the reader to what the main character can see. The writer must find a different way to let the reader know about events the first-person character does not witness. Clever authors tinker with these rules, or find unique ways to apply them. Jane Austen shifts focus to minor characters in Sense and Sensibility. Mary Shelley wraps first-person within epistolary form to create new storytelling techniques in Frankenstein. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley quickly switches through and weaves together multiple points of view as a musician combines instruments or a film director combines scenes. In addition, the first-person stream of consciousness in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians literally ensures that the reader cannot know what will happen next. It is obvious that each point of view has a different way of affecting how the author pens their story, but when an author gets clever, sensational breakthroughs in narration can occur.

In Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen writes with a third-person omniscient point of view. While the narrative mainly lies with Elinor, by keeping third-person, Jane Austen can switch to other characters she deems necessary to provide information to the reader, even if Elinor is not present. This is vital for Austen’s usage of two main protagonists: Elinor—the “sense”—and Marianne—the “sensibility.”

Austen takes this a step further, switching away from the main protagonists to characters relatively unimportant to the bulk of the narrative. The whole of Chapter 2 has neither Marianne nor Elinor present. The characters involved never mention the information discussed within earshot of the two protagonists for the entirety of the story. Since Austen did not limit herself to a single character’s perspective, she can employ this method of telling the readers about Fanny’s reflection of the Dashwood girls’ situation: “Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters” (Austen 10). Austen goes on to give us the logic behind Fanny’s stance on the matter, followed by a conversation where she manipulates her husband—quite expertly—into agreeing with her. Austen helps the reader understand why the Dashwood girls are in the situation they find themselves in, and manipulates the reader into feeling compassionate for them.

Playing on a strength normally found in a first-person narrative, Austen ensures that the reader does not experience the most emotional scenes directly, but rather by a more distant point of view. For example, the engagement between Edward and Lucy is, in itself, not something witnessed directly by the protagonists but rather informed after the fact. In Rosalind Ballaster’s introduction to the Penguin Classics publication of the novel, she says:

It is only through the establishment of narrative distance through the device of either hindsight on the part of a protagonist or the displacement of the narrative voice from the protagonist to an observer that events acquire the sort of perspective which can promote judgement [sic] rather than identification on the part of a reader. (Ballaster xv)

By creating this kind of distance between the reader and events, it promotes intellectual reflection on how this affects the protagonists—namely Elinor—as opposed to a reflexive emotional response to events occurring in the present time.

Later in the novel, Austen plays with the perspective to create comic relief when she describes an event occurring between Elinor and Colonel Brandon from the vantage point of gossip Mrs. Jennings—also shedding light on how Mrs. Jennings gathers her "information." This would have been impossible in any other point of view. Just out of earshot from the two characters, Mrs. Jennings goes off bits and pieces of the conversation she manages to overhear combined with her visual inspection of the pair and her overactive imagination:

Still farther in confirmation of her hopes, […] some words of the Colonel’s inevitably reached her ear, in which he seemed to be apologizing for the badness of his house. This set the matter beyond a doubt. She wondered indeed at his thinking it necessary to do so;–but supposed it to be the proper etiquette. What Elinor said in reply she could not distinguish, but judged from the motion of her lips that she did not think that any material objection;–and Mrs. Jennings commended her in her heart for being so honest. (Austen 263)

Not just used for comedic effect, we also learn that Mrs. Jennings is actually incredibly observant, if a little quick to jump to conclusions. Austen is better able to round out Mrs. Jennings as an important character while entertaining the reader.

While she uses it effectively, Austen does not do anything extravagant with third-person omniscient. Mary Shelley uses first-person narration predominantly throughout Frankenstein, but unlike Austen, takes some liberties to allow experiences for the reader that would not otherwise be possible. On the highest level, Shelley actually writes the novel in the epistolary form; the novel is Victor relating his story—as well as the story of the monster that was related to him—to Captain Walton, who, in turn, is writing it in letters to his sister. Anne K. Mellor, Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that it is this unique narrative structure that allows for such extensive self-reflection: “[…] one important effect of this structure is to slow down the narrative, allowing time for extended meditations by both the creature and Frankenstein on the nature of morality, the responsibilities of God and parents, and the very principle of life itself” (Mellor 14). Starting the story with a Victor who has already lived through the tragedies he is about to relate to the Captain, Shelley is able to weave references to his beliefs and emotional state throughout the narrative that would not otherwise be possible with a standard first-person account. Many of these include personal reflections on his choices at the time compared to where he was with Captain Walton: “Thus ended a day memorable to me: it decided my future destiny” (Shelley 50). There are many examples of this throughout Frankenstein, both from Victor’s and the monster’s point of view.

Using this narrative structure, Shelley can avoid giving information normally disclosed in a first-person account of events. For example, when referring to bringing life to the monster, Shelley decides to suppress that information: “I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be” (Shelley 54). The unique narrative frame Shelley has erected allows for the occasional usage of second-person narrative. This method brings more reality to the character that is Victor by putting the reader in the shoes of Captain Walton, conversing with Victor and listening to his near-grandiose tale of tragedy.

Most importantly, the framing of Victor’s tale allows the reader to experience what happens after Victor dies. Since the story was from Walton’s point of view the whole time, it is neither distracting nor unrealistic for the reader when Walton relays the details of Victor’s final moments and beyond, treating us to the one story Victor could not relate. It would have been a very different ending if the book ended when Victor died, with the monster still maliciously on the run.

Moving forward from the time of Sense and Sensibility and Frankenstein, the early 1800’s, the novel evolved alongside the ideals of humanity. We also see the narrative perspective choices evolving as humans expose themselves to new forms of art. In the early 1900s, music was no longer limited to those who had access to musical orchestras; recording devices, record players, and radios allowed people to tune in and experience music of their choosing, becoming better acquainted with aspects of music theory. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World emulates some of this, combining storylines together as a choir combines various voices.

In order for this to function, the book must be in third-person omniscient voice, as Huxley switches focus from character to character, similar to Jane Austen. However, unlike Austen, Huxley does so at an accelerated rate, as an orchestra might switch between focusing on one instrument group and then another. Dr. Theo Garneau of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, holding degrees in Literature and Music, explains some of the similarities between Brave New World and music theory: “With its experimental narrative structure, its gradual descent into what one might term textual cacophony, chapter III is surely the most overtly polyphonic, the most explicitly ‘musicalized’ chapter of Brave New World, yet it opens as might any chapter in any traditionally fictive text” (Garneau 139). The chapter Garneau refers to begins with standard third-person narration from the point of view of the Director, walking his students through the hatchery garden. Then, the Controller, Mustapha Mond, interrupts. One can imagine a grand accompanying sound as Huxley zooms out: “In the four thousand rooms of the Centre the four thousand electric clocks simultaneously struck four” (Huxley 33).

Huxley begins with three distinct groups—the Director and Mustapha, Henry and Bernard, and Lenina and Fanny, each holding their own conversation. Huxley’s narrative starts slowly, but “by systematically decreasing the length of time each speaker or chorus speaks as the chapter progresses, Huxley creates the illusion of an increasing tempo, an illusion of voices speaking rapidly and sounding simultaneously” (Garneau 140). This creates the harmony of information between the three until it becomes one solid stream, its pieces nearly indiscernible from each other: “As the passages become progressively shorter, the ever-changing voices—generally without being identified by the narrator—will appear to sing simultaneously, in pure polyphonic fashion” (Garneau 139). This frantic narrative technique transforms an otherwise mundane telling of background information, spinning the reader until he or she feels dizzy from the impact of the quickly dealt information. In this way, Huxley provides an emotional tie—strange, new, and dizzying—to the background information of this chapter that would not be possible with the simple spoken dialogue of one storyline at a time.

Movies are another art form of the early twentieth century that influences points of view. Huxley could have used a cinematic technique in the previous example, switching between three scenes quickly in a visual montage. However, a prime example of theatric effect occurs later when Lenina has her advances rejected by John in his rooms. After quickly retreating to the bathroom, Lenina sits in silence, “listening to the footsteps in the other room, wondering, as she listened, how long he was likely to go tramping up and down like that” (Huxley 196). The wait is suspenseful: nowhere to go, the footsteps her only company. Then, the reader is privy to half of a telephone conversation, followed by “the click of the replaced receiver, then hurrying steps” (Huxley 197). All along, the “camera” is in the bathroom with Lenina. The reader is unable to perceive anything beyond its range, ending with the solid door, and the reader can identify with Lenina’s fear as the suspense culminates in her risking a peep outside her small prison. By using this cinematic technique, not only is Huxley able to infuse emotion into Lenina’s situation in a way readers can identify with, he subtly manipulates the readers into sympathizing with her, even though she is portrayed as a part of this world that is “wrong.”

With a few exceptions, these points of view are largely external; the reader is listening to audible narration either by an unnamed speaker or by one of the main characters. When the reader is privy to a character’s internal thoughts, it is mostly in summary form, as if the character is putting a voice to their final decisions and not to their internal debate. In J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee forgoes all of this narrative framing and packaging to give us a solid stream of consciousness from the point of view of the Magistrate. Gillian Dooley, author of J. M. Coetzee and the Power of Narrative, writing that while realism was a common way to tell stories at the time, “[r]ealism was not of enough concern to Coetzee for him to set up fictional framing scenarios—a story being told to someone else, or a diary, for example—in these early first-person narratives, which makes this [habit of parenthetically interrupting his own narration] particularly interesting” (Dooley 42). What the reader gets in Waiting for the Barbarians is pure, unfettered access to the train of thought that runs through the Magistrate’s mind, including his self-doubt.

Coetzee reveals his choice of point of view with the first few sentences:

I have never seen anything like it: two little discs of glass suspended in front of his eyes in loops of wire. Is he blind? I could understand it if he wanted to hide blind eyes. But he is not blind. The discs are dark, they look opaque from the outside, but he can see through them. (Coetzee 1)

This point of view is very similar to first person, except it is internal, instead of external. The magistrate is not recounting this story in the past tense for the benefit of some other listener. Coetzee tells the in the present tense, as if the Magistrate is simply listing each of his actions and thoughts in turn. If the Magistrate is unsure of something, he questions himself, along with the mental flow that arrives at his resolution. Because of this “in the moment” method of storytelling, we get to watch each step of the Magistrate’s thought process: the point becomes less what the Magistrate does and more how the Magistrate arrives at his conclusion to do it.

However, Coetzee does not leave it as simple as this; he plays with it, sometimes creating situations where the thought process in no way matches up with the actions taken. This is possible because, in stream of consciousness just as in one’s true mind, neither the reader nor the Magistrate can actually know what the next train of thought will be. For example, when Colonel Joll brings in the barbarians to put on display, the Magistrate has a passage in which he considers the situation and decides that he is going to return to his cell instead of participating in any way in this debacle: “For me, at this moment, striding away from the crowd, what has become important above all is that I should neither be contaminated by the atrocity that is about to be committed nor poison myself with impotent hatred of its perpetrators” (Coetzee 102). He states proudly that history should at least know “there existed one man who in his heart was not a barbarian” (Coetzee 102).

Then, he turns around, goes back to force himself to the head of the crowd, and calls out Colonel Joll.

In no other narrative style is this achievable. It takes Coetzee’s stream of consciousness to experience written immediate instinct, without thought, in the way readers experience it in life. Even standard first-person would contain some kind of narration that he “moved without thought” or “did not know what came over me.” Even though the reader is following along within the thought process of the Magistrate, Coetzee knows this does not preclude the human fault of acting without thinking, and carries the reader along for the ride, just as confused as man who thinks to himself, “What am I doing?” The stream of consciousness does not necessarily have to make sense, and as analytical as the Magistrate seems to be, Coetzee shows how humans cannot be perfectly analytical all of the time.

Every point of view naturally limits the flow of information, and it is up to the author to determine how to ensure the reader does not miss anything. Many authors understand the angle they have chosen and stick to the rules; great authors play these point of view games so the rules can be bent without sacrificing realism—unexpected character focus, framed narrative, connecting with other familiar styles of art, and streams of unfettered consciousness are only a few of these. The greatest authors did something “different” with their narrative, providing new ways to experience a story. In the end, they provide more details, more emotions, and more realism, allowing the reader to identify more easily with the story the author is telling. These are the ultimate goals: to pique the interest of the reader, to manipulate the reader’s emotions, and to provide as many avenues as possible for the reader to become engrossed in the story.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.

Ballaster, Ros. "Introduction." Introduction. Sense and Sensibility. London: Penguin, 2003. XI-XXXI. Print.

Coetzee, J. M. Waiting for the Barbarians. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.

Dooley, Gillian. J. M. Coetzee and the Power of Narrative. Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2010. Print.

Garneau, Theo. "Brave New World as Prototypical Musicalized Fiction." Ed. David Garrett Izzo and Kim Kirkpatrick. Huxley’s Brave New World: Essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2008. 132-44. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.

Mellor, Anne K. "Making a ‘Monster’: an Introduction to Frankenstein." The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. By Esther H. Schor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003. 9-25. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.