this as a means to explore different forms of subjectivity and divergent cul-
tural viewpoints. For this exercise the incident stays the same, but the
perspective on it changes.
In our scenario about Sophie, we saw how different narrators had con-
flicting perspectives on the situation: we were rewriting the same story in
different ways which were alternatives to each other. However, a very stim-
ulating way of structuring a fictional text can be to make it pivot on several
perspectives.
Multiple focalisations are likely to occur where there are several narrators.
In Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) the narration moves between
Rochester’s first wife and Rochester himself, so sections of the book are
related by different people. Similarly, in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
(1963), the story is told by several people, with their names at the top of
the section they are narrating. And the same technique is used in Julian
Barnes’s Love, etc , (2001) where three characters give their perspectives on
a love triangle in short alternating monologues. Multiple focalisations can
result in complex texts in which narratorial control is loosened, and objec-
tive reality is difficult to ascertain: the story becomes competing versions
of events which can never be verified. Multiple focalisations also present
the possibility of producing hybrid texts in which opposing cultural view-
points (for example, different ethnicities, sexualities and generations) can
clash or complement each other.Sophie has problems because she is
female, and tends to have a more bohemian/artistic outlook than the other
board members. However, her problems are still the relatively minor ones
of an affluent white, middle-class person (she has a well-paid job and
although she might lose it can almost certainly replace it with another).
Such problems might be thrown into sharp relief by the perspective of
the indigenous artist whose work she has represented in the gallery, or the
disabled assistant who works part-time for her during the week.
The easiest way to create multiple focalisations is to construct two or
three different versions of the same incident which follow each other
consecutively:
- point of view A
- point of view B
- point of view C.
Initially, don’t chop and change between perspectives, which will compli-
cate matters, but learn how to sustain one point of view without moving
onto the next. You can entitle each section by the name of a character, such
as Joan or Sally or Ross, or you might want to give each a more subtle,
oblique title.
Narrative, narratology, power 99