Lecture 16: I, Me, Mine—First-Person Point of View

I, Me, Mine—First-Person Point of View .........................................

Lecture 16

T

KHLQKHUHQWLPSUREDELOLW\RI¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWLRQZDVVXPPHGXSE\

Henry James in the preface to one of his novels, when he remarked

KRZVWUDQJHLWZDVWRPDNHD¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWRUERWK³KHURDQG

KLVWRULDQ ́RIKLVRZQVWRU\,QRWKHUZRUGV¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWLRQFDQEH

peculiar because it often (though not always) must accomplish two goals at

once: tell the story and evoke one of the story’s characters, often the most

LPSRUWDQWFKDUDFWHU%XWLW¶VDOVRWUXHWKDW¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWLRQFDQEHRQHRI

the most intimate, seductive, and natural-seeming ways to tell a story. In this

OHFWXUHZH¶OOORRNDWVHYHUDOYDULHWLHVRIWKH¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWRUDQGKRZ

you can use each of them.

Objective First Person

z 7KHREMHFWLYH¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWRULVSUHVHQWLQWKHVWRU\EXWLVQRWWKH

most important character. This kind of narration is halfway between the

FORVHWKLUGSHUVRQDQGDPRUHLQWLPDWH¿UVWSHUVRQ

z 2QHRIWKHPRVWREYLRXVH[DPSOHVRIREMHFWLYH¿UVWSHUVRQQDUUDWLRQ

is Ishmael in 0RE\'LFN. Ishmael, of course, introduces himself in the

¿UVWOLQHRIWKHQRYHODQGIRUPXFKRIWKHERRNZHKHDUDJUHDWGHDO

about his experiences. But the book is more about Captain Ahab than it

is about anyone else, and indeed, Ahab and many of the other characters

are more interesting than Ishmael. Further, Ismael doesn’t develop in the

way that characters in modern novels often do.

z In 7KH*UHDW*DWVE\, Nick Carraway takes much more of a role in

the story than Ishmael does, but on the whole, he serves mainly as a

recording eye. He is also an outsider to the world he depicts; thus, he’s

able to record the story of the wealthy characters around him with more

objectivity and distance than Gatsby or Daisy could.