Point of View - Narrative Perspective

In the previous lesson, we looked at aspects of narrative, points of view. we have already established that 'The Kite Runner' is told in the first person point of view by the main character Amir who tells us his life as a child 'til a specific event happens that changs his life.

‘IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all, I'm not saying that-but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything.’ The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger.

This is told in a first person point of view, as the narrator uses 'I' alot and straight away starts to tell us small parts of his/her life. We can also tell that it is being told by a younger person (teenager.) 1. Because they mention there parents 2. The languaged used " And all that David Copperfield kind of crap" is something s typical teenager would say. We could also say, if we were to read the entire story, we as the reader would go through the narrators life as he/she does and neither one would know what is to happen next.

‘LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.’ Bleak House, Charles Dickens.

This is told in Third person. we can tell becuse the word 'I' is not used. We are told at the very beginning, where we are, London. The entire extract is a very descriptive, painting us an image of what is infront of us when we read. unlike the other extract, being told in Third person gives us a different view on the story. either knowing whats going to happen before it eventully does happpen. A first person story might not be as descriptive as a Thrid person story, mainly because we are concentrated on one or more character, for instance 'The Kite Runner.' We follow the story of one main character, every other character we have mett so far has been described and introduced to us from our main character. We have not heard directly from the other characters.

Jack