Narration and Point of Viewby Bill Bowler |
Part 1 Part 2 appear in this issue. |
| part 3 of 3 |
Final Words |
Hybrid Narrative Modes
Shifting Between First and Third Person
It must be noted that the modes of narration are not completely discrete and mutually exclusive. Hybrid modes are common and readily employed.
The third-person narrator can easily shift into first person plural without disrupting the narrative flow (the italics are mine):
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...”
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Likewise, the first-person narrator can readily shift to third person and narrate events or actions of a third party,
“I did not think I should tell Fat that I thought his encounter with God was in fact an encounter with himself from the far future... Fat had remembered back to the stars, and had encountered a being ready to return to the stars, and several selves along the way, several points along the line. All of them the same person... On some level Fat guessed the truth; he had encountered his past selves and future selves...”
— Philip K. Dick, Valis
The first-person narrator can also digress in third person on some subject of interest (italics mine):
“I need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster... To be buried while alive is, beyond, question, the most terrific of these extremes, which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague...”
— Edgar Allan Poe, “The Premature Burial”
Quasi-Direct Narration
Another hybrid form is quasi-direct narration. It is also called “indirect free style,” a term coined by Flaubert.
Quasi-direct is not a shift but a blend of third and first person. Quasi-direct is in the grammatical form of third person, but the POV shifts to first and the reader understands that the thoughts or words are those of the character even though they are conveyed in third person by the narrator.
Emma’s eyes kept coming back to this pendulous-lipped old man as though he were someone extraordinary, someone august. He had lived at court! He had slept with a queen!
— Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Indistinct Narration
Dostoevsky’s narrative tour de force, The Possessed (discussed above in the section on “the character-narrator”), is a superb example of the dissolution of the boundaries between modes of narration.
The novel is narrated in the third person by a tertiary character, Mr. G-v. Like a first-person narrator, he personally knows all of the main characters. He appears in some of the scenes, but usually on the periphery and, like a third-person narrator, he rarely participates.
In the course of narration, he also slides from first to third person, narrates scenes he has not observed, and conveys the characters’ private thoughts. That is, the narrative POV is indistinct and not strictly consistent:
“I must add, as characteristic of the man, that the chief cause of his leaving the army was the thought of the family disgrace which had haunted him so painfully since the insult paid to his father (...) four years before at the club. He conscientiously considered it dishonorable to remain in the service, and was inwardly persuaded that he was contaminating the regiment and his companions, although they knew nothing of the incident...”
Like a first-person narrator, Mr. G-v finds it impossible to understand what is happening. His judgment is dubious and faulty, and the whole story unfolds as if in some kind of fog. He is an unreliable third-person narrator.
“It was a peculiar time; something new was beginning, quite unlike the stagnation of the past, something very strange too, though it was felt everywhere... Rumours of all sorts reached us. The facts were generally more or less well known, but it was evident that in addition to the facts there were certain ideas accompanying them, and what’s more, a great number of them. And this was perplexing. It was impossible to estimate and find out exactly what was the drift of these ideas.”
Infodumps: War and Peace
The editor says, “delete the ‘infodump’ or you’ll lose the reader.”
The author knows that lengthy and digressive third-person narration has been the vehicle of some of the greatest works in the history of literature. And yet, the editor is right. The reader’s interest is piqued by plot tension and held by action.
Any politics, religion, philosophy, poetry or other baggage the author wishes to foist on the reader must be spooned out in small doses. It is simply a fact that readers grow bored if they have to plow through long sections of prose that do not advance plot, even when the author is Tolstoy.
One of the most notorious infodumps in the history of literature is the second epilog to War and Peace, the novel Henry James called “a loose, baggy monster.” After reading some 1,500 pages of Napoleon invading Russia, the reader arrives finally at the epilog. Tolstoy tidies things up nicely, ties up the loose ends; this character got married; that one had a baby, etc.
The reader, exhausted, reaches to turn out the nightlight but turns the page and gasps, as he stumbles on the SECOND epilog, a fifty-page essay on the theory of history tacked on to the end of the novel. No plot. No characters. Just theory. Out goes the nightlight. There is no doubt that the number of readers who have read the second epilog is substantially smaller than the number of people who have read the body of the novel.
What is this second epilog? It’s a lengthy digression placed not in the midst of the plot action but after its denouement. The second epilog has no plot, but it is connected to the plot. The theory of history outlined in the epilog is implicitly contained in the fictional story of the novel.
The theory of the epilog is the underlying “reality” of the way in which history unfolds and historical forces act in the body of novel. Whether the digression works, especially its unusual placement after the story is over, is an open question. Many readers do skip it. A writer of less than Tolstoy’s abilities had best take heed.
Final Words
The editor says, “Show, don’t tell.”
The author knows he has only words and can only tell. And yet, again, the editor is right, if only this piece of good advice is construed as metaphor.
By “show,” the editor means:
- Stick close to the action.
- Mix narration with monologue and dialogue.
- Report the characters’ direct speech.
- Don’t wander off into lengthy expositions and digressions.
- Don’t put distance between the reader and the story; don’t make him peel through layers to get to the action.
The reader wishes to immerse himself in the fictional world. Anything interposed between the reader and that world — such as a third-person narrator who is not part of the story; who knows and explains everything; who tells the reader this is right and this wrong, this is good and this bad, this is important and this is trivial; who tells the reader second-hand that the hero said this and the heroine thought that; who tells the reader what to think — all this can hinder the reader’s immersion.
Such devices must be used exceedingly sparingly, only when absolutely necessary, and always, of course, begging the reader’s indulgence.
Copyright © 2006 by Bill Bowler
