上海交通大学：《20世纪英美短篇小说选读》教学资源_point of view（2）

【4.2】 A Brief Summary As you analyze point of view in a story,you will find the following summary helpful. 1.First Person ("I")All these first-person narrators may have (1)complete understanding,(2)partial or incorrect understanding,or (3)no understanding at all. a.major participant i telling his or her own story as a major mover i telling a story about others and also about herself or himself as one of the major inter-actors iii. telling a story mainly about others;this narrator is on the spot and completely involved but is not a major mover b.Minor participant,telling a story about events experienced and/or witnessed c.Uninvolved character,telling a story not witnessed but reported to the narrator by other means 2.Second person ("you")Occurs only when speaker has more authority on a character's action than the character himself or herself;for example,parent, psychologist,lawyer.Occurs only in brief passages when necessary. 3.Third person(“she”,“he”,“it”,“they") a.Omniscient.Omniscient speaker sees all,reports all,knows inner workings of minds of characters. b.Limited omniscient.Action is focused on one major character. c.Dramatic or third-person objective.Speaker reports only actions and speeches. Thoughts of characters can be expressed only as dialogue. The use of point of view has been an extremely fruitful source of experimentation for the modern writer.The variations and shadings are infinite.Readers of this book may come to feel that of all the elements of fiction,the point of view of a story most readily leads them into a consideration of the meaning of the work.Certainly this book is a rich variety of the different ways to tell a story

【4.2】 A Brief Summary As you analyze point of view in a story, you will find the following summary helpful. 1. First Person (“I”) All these first-person narrators may have (1)complete understanding, (2) partial or incorrect understanding, or (3)no understanding at all. a. major participant i. telling his or her own story as a major mover ii. telling a story about others and also about herself or himself as one of the major inter-actors iii. telling a story mainly about others; this narrator is on the spot and completely involved but is not a major mover b. Minor participant, telling a story about events experienced and/or witnessed c. Uninvolved character, telling a story not witnessed but reported to the narrator by other means 2. Second person (“you”) Occurs only when speaker has more authority on a character’s action than the character himself or herself; for example, parent, psychologist, lawyer. Occurs only in brief passages when necessary. 3. Third person (“she”, “he”, “it”, “they”) a. Omniscient. Omniscient speaker sees all, reports all, knows inner workings of minds of characters. b. Limited omniscient. Action is focused on one major character. c. Dramatic or third-person objective. Speaker reports only actions and speeches. Thoughts of characters can be expressed only as dialogue. The use of point of view has been an extremely fruitful source of experimentation for the modern writer. The variations and shadings are infinite. Readers of this book may come to feel that of all the elements of fiction, the point of view of a story most readily leads them into a consideration of the meaning of the work. Certainly this book is a rich variety of the different ways to tell a story