Writing Great Fiction

Lecture 15: Seeing through Other Eyes—Point of View

Finn, and Nabokov’s /ROLWD. In all three, there are at least hints of the

narrator’s awareness that he or she is addressing the reader of the book.

o Jane Eyre narrates her story as if she were writing her memoir

for posterity. In the most famous line from the book, she

makes it clear that she knows she’s writing a book when she

says about Mr. Rochester, “Reader, I married him.” This is a

PHPRUDEOHH[DPSOHRID¿FWLRQDOFKDUDFWHUVSHDNLQJGLUHFWO\

to the real readers of her book.

o +XFN)LQQEULGJHVWKHJDSEHWZHHQ¿FWLRQDQGUHDOLW\LQKLV

¿UVWVHQWHQFH³<RXGRQ¶WNQRZDERXWPHZLWKRXW\RXKDYH

read a book called 7KH$GYHQWXUHVRI7RP6DZ\HU by Mr. Mark

7ZDLQ ́+HUHZHKDYHD¿FWLRQDOFKDUDFWHUVSHDNLQJGLUHFWO\

to the reader and referencing a real book by a real author, in

ZKLFKKH+XFN¿UVWDSSHDUVDVD¿FWLRQDOFKDUDFWHU

o /ROLWD RSHQV ZLWK DQ LQWURGXFWLRQ E\ D ¿FWLRQDO SV\FKLDWULVW

and the rest of the book is pitched as a confession written by

Humbert Humbert in prison. Unlike Jane Eyre and Huck Finn,

ZKRFURVVWKHGLYLGHEHWZHHQWKH¿FWLRQDOZRUOGDQGWKHUHDO

world, Humbert Humbert remains more constrained within the

pages of his book because he knows he’s writing something that

may only ever be read by the authorities who locked him away.

z This question becomes even more complicated when we consider

¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWRUVZKRVSHDNLQWKHSUHVHQWWHQVH6XFKDQDUUDWLRQ

contributes to the pace and immediacy of an exciting story, but there’s

something fundamentally improbable about it: Are we to understand that

the character is silently narrating his or her own actions in the moment?

z The uses of the third person can be just as diverse. The 19th-century

third-person omniscient voice of George Eliot and Leo Tolstoy is very

much a public, authoritative voice. The more feverish voice of Dickens,

however, sounds more like a particular person, even though he often

writes in the third person.