point of view
this article needs to be broken into sub articles because it is to long.
If is often somewhat of a problem, too, to know in what form Pto cast one's story; to find out what Mr. Paid!' dkiils the "angle of narration. " Here, as elsewhere, one's best guide is commonsense aided by an instinct foil propriety. A story may be told objectively as if by "an external omniscient personality. " This means has long been popular. It has, of course, its disadvantages; it may at times lead to a lack of naturalness and vividness. Yet it allows one to see what is happening in all places and at all times; it permits one to know the inner thoughts and the hidden impulses; to analyze a situation or a character. From no other angle could Markheim have been told so effectively. The objective angle makes it easy to treat Everyone impersonally, and it allows one to concentrate all attention on the story and utterly to ignore the presence of a narrator. 0. Henry's After Twenty Years might have been told by a witness, but it
would thus have lost in directness and have gained nothing for the extra trouble. Sometimes the objective is the only possible angle of narration. The Outcasts of Poker Flat could never have been related with propriety in any other way. Four of the participants died within the story. Of the two who survived, Uncle Billy made his escape before complications became serious. The Innocent, through the loss of Piney, was too deeply concerned to have acted as narrator. He might, perhaps, have related the story to a friend who in turn would have acted as narrator. Even this method would have been unsatisfactory. Piney would have been the main character; the outcasts, but friends and sharers of misfortune. He could never have told just what the Duchess and Piney did after the departure of Mr. Oakhurst. The story would have been incomplete. This objective angle of narration, moreover, has the virtues of completeness and of simplicity.
A story may be told from the angle of participant or of a witness. This angle makes for vividness and plausibility. One is always more eager to hear and more ready to believe the narration of what an acquaintance has seen or done than one is to hear and believe an impersonal, objective narration. A narrator of a story becomes temporarily an acquaintance, and the story takes on the proportions of the actual. Especially vivid is an adventure story told from the angle of the main character. Of course, this angle precludes, as has been suggested, the possibility of catastrophe. Yet one can still allow the narrator to be shipwrecked, to drift about on a piece of wreckage for a week, and finally to be picked up by a tramp steamer. The possibility of catastrophe makes the story more thrilling, but the certainty of hairbreadth escapes makes it more satisfying.
Although the angle of main participant may be good in stories of action, it is ill adapted to the character story. The main character cannot discourse on his own merits and peculiarities; he must become known entirely through his actions and manner of speech. For this reason, an accessory or minor character is often used as narrator. Thus a story may combine the possibility of characterization with the vividness of actual participation. They is fittingly told from this angle. The blind woman could not have told the story with propriety. We should never have known her, never have heard her cry, "Children, children, " or listened to her
singing, " In the pleasant orchard-closes. "
Nor could the story have been told objectively. The atmosphere is too refined, too unreal. We could never believe, even for the purposes of fiction, in such a blind woman, in such spirit children, unless, through the eyes of one who had seen and known, we, too, might see. This story — as are most others of its kind — is narrated in the first person. The "I, " though making for vividness, must be used with care. It may at times become obtrusive,
it may seem egotistic, and draw to itself more than its due of attention. At times, too, it may go outside its limit and seem to look at the story objectively. There are several ways of telling every story, and one should search diligently for the best.
Sometimes, the participants are made to tell their story by a series of letters or by entries in a diary. This method is rarely used and is exceedingly difficult. A good letter is supposed to be newsy and full of detail of one kind and another. The letters of a story are allowed no such freedom. They must admit no detail which does not contribute to the story, yet they must still keep their easy naturalness. It is hard, too, by means of letters to maintain interest and movement. One feels that, at best, letters are but a record of events, and they seem to lack vivacity. If they are all written by the same person, they must each time suggest what has been written back in answer. The diary method is subject to the same difficulties. It is likely to seem yet more flat than letters; for it must be written by one person, and it is addressed to no one in particular. Marjorie Daw is an example of the successful story told by letters. It is subject to frequent adverse criticism because it does not continue the letter form throughout. The climax is written from the objective angle. Thus the story lacks singleness of form. However much it is to be desired, singleness of form is not absolutely required of the Short-story. The change of form
need not destroy unity of impression. Indeed, in this story the change is required. The point of the story is that John Flemming should be so influenced by letters that he would go in person to The Pines. His going must be actual, if the story is to reach a climax. Between letters there is expected to be a time interval in which things have been happening. The break which comes from change of form — in a story told mainly by letters — is, therefore, not particularly noticeable. Of course, when possible, singleness of form as well as singleness of impression is to be desired.
When the narrator is himself a witness or an auditor, the story usually, though not always, ' is a story within a story. There is a narrative introduction of one or more paragraphs after which some one, generally reluctantly, tells a tale which he, in turn, may have witnessed, or may have experienced as main or minor participant. This introduction may be told objectively or by an impersonal "I. " An example or two may make the method more clear. The Man Who Would Be King begins with the impersonal "I" as narrator. In the introduction, he tells of his meeting Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, who is to be the narrator of the real or inner story. Ordinarily, he would have relapsed then into the passive listener and Peachey would have taken up the story. It is not so in this case. Peachey Camehan is to be an active participant only a little less import
character, Dravot. Furthermore, he does not tell his story as a story, but as the recital of his adventures in Kafiristan with his friend. Moreover, he is half crazed. Under these 'conditions, he can characterize neither his friend nor himself. Yet one needs to know the two characters and to be interested in their adventure before the real story begins. The impersonal "I" introduces, therefore, not only Carnehan but Dravot, and tells something of his own experience with them. The structure is thus somewhat complicated.
The Madonna of the Future illustrates a slightly different and more usual type. The introduction is again told by the impersonal "I. " This time there is presented the conventional group of talkers, one of whom makes a remark which leads the others to demand of him the suggested story. He then begins, and, since he is a minor participant, hardly more than a witness, is free to describe fully the main character and comment upon him at will. There are, of course, still other methods of varying this device, which has been in use since the times of Boccaccio and Chaucer. Of course, the device adds vividness and plausibility, but it fails in several respects. It is hard to find an introduction fresh and original. At times there may be ambiguity as to just who is talking; too many details may be introduced at the beginning. The device may detract attention from the story to the manner of its telling, and it may — it frequently does — rise to a dramatic height in the telling which seems
unnatural for an oral narrator. The story may thus fail to convince of its reality. '
1 It is worthwhile to note the relative frequency of use of these "angles of narration" by several of the great Short-story writers. In 136 stories of Maupassant, the objective angle is found in 61; that of participant, in 21; of witness or auditor, in 4; of the story within a story, in 17 + 33. For 72 stories of Kipling the record is: objective angle, 40; participant, 9; witness or auditor, 13; story within a story, 0 + 10. For 135 stories of 0. Henry, it is: objective, 100; participant, 13; witness or auditor, 10; story within a story, 0+ 12. For 33 of Poe, it is 3, objective; 23, participant; 5, witness or auditor; 0 + 2, story within a story. Out of 10 stories of Stevenson, 7 have the objective angle; 2, that of participant; 0, that of witness or auditor; 0 + 1, that of the story within a story. For 26 stories of Henry James the record is; 14, objective; 5, participant; 3, witness or auditor; 0 + 4, story within a story. When two numbers are given for a story within a story, the first signifies those whose introductions are objective; the second, those which have an introduction by an auditor or witness. Not all the stories examined conform to the strictly modern Short-story form.
THE POINT OF VIEW
THE POINT OF VIEW
The confusion on this subject. This is the most neglected of all technical questions, and the most confused. The strangest medley of conflicting and vague opinions on the subject fills the textbooks. At one extreme, we hear that 'the best method of narration, the simplest and most natural, is to tell the story in the third person, as if you were a passive observer. ' And at the other extreme: 'Any way is good, if it is artistic; but some ways are harder than others. '2 Now, the former extreme is false in every adjective; the third person is neither the best nor the simplest nor the most natural point of view, as will shortly be proved. And, as for the second extreme, it is an empty phrase. It means nothing to say that any way is good, if artistic; for 'good' means `artistic' here, so that the assertion comes to this: any artistic way is artistic, and any good way is good. Of course, what the critic is trying to say is that the point of view depends upon the writer's personal taste and skill. But this is demonstrably false, at least in most instances. Truth is, the point of view is inextricably bound up with the specific material and the desired single effect of each particular story, and hence only an analysis of these latter will throw light upon the angle from which the story is to be told.
Two meanings of 'point of view. ' Though the risk of confusion is slight, it is well to distinguish at once two senses in which one may speak of a point of view. People say that Thomas Hardy's point of view is artificial, Hawthorne's ultra-puritanical, and Maupassant's cynically
pessimistic. And they mean that. what Hardy himself sees and depicts is unreal, what Hawthorne observes is a world mercilessly dominated by a cruel monster called Virtue; and what Maupassant notes is that man belongs to the animal kingdom. Now all this, of course, is not what we refer to when we say that A Coward is narrated from an objective point of view. It is the angle of narration which we are here thinking of, and not the effect of the things which the author depicts. The difference, as well as the relation, between these points of view is precisely that which we find in painting; and as the latter is much more visible and simple, it may well serve as a leading string into a sharper comprehension of the other.
Corot loved the blues and grays of springtime dawns and rain washed glades. Only where he found these colors in all their freshness was he wont to stand his easel. Now, in our fancy, let us follow him some soft morning until he comes upon a dip in the land framed with young poplars and cherishing the last wraiths of night mist. The sight halts him, and he drops his kit on the wet grass. In this act he expresses the first point of view. He is doing what Hardy, Hawthorne, and Maupassant do; he selects from the world those things toward which he is acutely sensitive. Seeing them as other men do not, he strips them of all those many entangling qualities which obscure them and reports them as they are 'in themselves. ' But does he place his easel wherever he happens first to perceive the view? Hardly. He saunters around the dale, goes a way into it, then withdraws to a considerable distance, climbs a nearby hill and perhaps watches through all the morning hours. He is hunting for the one best perspective. He knows that the poplars and the tilt of the land, and the angle of light and the mist and everything else combine in an infinite variety of ways, according to the vantage of the
observer; and that slime few of these combinations bring out the pure values of the much-sought blues and grays much more faithfully than all the others. In seeking one of them, the artist is doing the very same thing that Maupassant does when he tells the story of the Horla as the victim of the monster experiences it; and the same thing that Hawthorne does when he narrates The Birthmarkas he himself senses the episodes.
The difference between the two points of view is profound, and yet they are intimately related, as different things often are.
The first point of view expresses the artist's sensitivity, wish or belief toward a subject. The second point of view expresses the arrangement of some particular material which makes conspicuous some quality of the latter which the artist wishes to report. This quality may or may not happen to be one of those chosen by the artist for expression. It may merely serve to express something else.
For clarity, then, we must give names to each. The first I shall call the artist's attitude, and the second the angle of narration. Concerning the former something will be said in sections 5 and 6 below. We now turn to the angle of narration.
3. The angle of narration. There are three typical angles of narration:
• The pure objective. • • The angle of the inactive witness or hearer. • c. The angle of a participant.
• A subordinate character. • • A dominant character. • a. The objective. This might be called the photographer's point of view, did not the epithet suggest mechanical accuracy and inartistic realism. The truth of the metaphor, however, is illuminating. In the first place, like the working of a camera plate, objective
narrative seems wholly impersonal; and, secondly, the narrator stands at a distance from the events he records, no less than the photographer does. These are the sure
marks of the angle, and there is no other.
Few stories have been told in this manner from start
to finish, though a host are predominantly. Maupassant's
The Piece of String and The Necklace nowhere reveal the events or characters as they might have appeared to some
eye-witness or active participant in the action. The feelings, thoughts, and deeds of Maitre Hauchecorne and the Loisels are chronicled as a physician on a filing card might record the temperature, pulse and delirium of a fever patient. Indeed, the ending of The Piece of String might well be an excerpt from a hospital report:
He gnawed his nails, and exhausted himself in vain efforts.
He grew perceptibly thinner.
Now the jokers asked him to tell the story of The Piece of String for their amusement, as a soldier who has seen service is asked to tell about his battles. His mind, attacked at its source, grew feebler.
Late in December he took to his bed.
In the first days of January he died, and in the delirium of the death agony he protested his innocence, repeating:
"A little piece of string—a little piece of string—see, here it is, m'sieu' mayor. "
In all this you are not aware of the onlookers, nor do you
see the tragedy through Hauchecorne's eyes. You get only the bald facts, and they speak for themselves.
Their intrinsic and immediate power is the measure of the appropriateness of the objective angle of narration. This
is the almost invariable rule. The more obvious and the more intense a story's events are, the more natural and successful the objective treatment will prove (if it can be employed at all). This becomes almost self-evident, once you scrutinize an instance. A plot whose every development is as clear as day certainly calls for no interpretation, no posing, in order to sharpen it. And if its single effect is intense, what need is there of adding somebody's feelings and thoughts toward it? The story tells itself .
It is not strange, then, that the best authors have seldom chosen the objective treatment without recourse to some other perspective in conjunction with it. This casts no reflection upon their technical skill; it only means that they do not conjure up or at least dislike to write about the obvious and the terrific. They are more interested in complications and aspects of human nature which call for diagnosis. Such affairs, not being self-evident, must be put in their true light; they must be shown up by somebody who perceives them from the one angle which most effectively reveals their bearings.
A story told objectively throughout develops a speed and a directness rarely attained in any other way. It has no philosophical overture, no interpolations by the narrator, and very few elaborate descriptive passages. It also tends to employ only those events whose full significance is visible or audible to any witness. Hence it portrays no more of an emotion or a thought tha* straightway manifests itself unequivocally in outward action. For just so would a reporter write who had no inner, secret knowledge of what was passing in the characters' minds.
The limitations of the objective treatment now appear. The consequences of fortune or misfortune upon a, fixed human type it can present with matchless brilliancy. And the instinctive behavior of a fixed human type it can also render well. But it cannot depict the great crises of character. The invisible forces of life which do battle against one another in the mind of one who stands at a crossroads, the countering of impulse with impulse, the still reasoning against vain pride or empty panic, the trembling anticipations, and the sting of memories— all these lie beyond its power.
Once more, for corroboration, turn to Maupassant. Beyond dispute he is the master of masters in the realm of the dramatic story; also he champions the objective treatment with unreasonable pertinacity. He and all his disciples extol the impersonal manner above every other. And yet the master himself forsakes it, every time he dips into psychological analysis. Look once more to A Coward, and you will find many passages like these:
A single thought hovered over his mind—' a duel'— without arousing any emotion whatsoever. He had done what he should have done; he had shown himself to be what he ought to be.
He examined these assembled letters, which seemed to
him mysterious, full of vague meaning. Georges Lamil!
Who was this man? What was his business? Why had he stared at that lady in such a way? Was it not disgusting that a stranger, an unknown, should cause such a change in one's life . . . ? No, of course he was not afraid, as he had determined to carry the thing through, as his mind was fully made up to fight, and not to tremble.
Is it the narrator who says the viscount has done what
he should have done? No, that is the viscount's own interpretation. Does Maupassant call it disgusting that
a stranger should upset another's life? No again. The coward so construes the affair. And, what is still more
to the point, these are thoughts which no objective narrator could observe or even infer, inasmuch as they find no expression in the viscount's outward acts.
Maupassant wisely sacrificed his theory for art's
sake; he shifts here back and forth from impersonal narrative to the viscount's point of view, to meet the
demands now of visible drama and now of the inner
conflict. And so too does every skilled writer of psychological stories.
The objective treatment also is ill suited to the atmosphere story, though not incompatible with it. Unlike other types, the atmosphere story demands a certain
wealth and delicacy, of descriptive detail, inasmuch as it
secures its strongest effect in a unified sensuous impression. Now, whether we are sharply aware of it or not, there is in us a natural tendency to associate such an impression \. with a person who is impressed; for the emotions that are woven into every well wrought Description of places or people aro thoroughly human, which is to say highly individual. Only one man in the world could experience that particular and unique blend of colors and flitting shadows and portentous little noises which filled the shop after Markheim slew the dealer. Only one man in the world could see and feel what Ligeia's husband did in his will haunted bridal chamber. And so it fits in best with our long habituated expectations to let the report of such opulent sceneries come from a character in the story or, less appropriately, from an inactive witness. I cannot recall any famous atmosphere story which has been objectively told. And again let me cite the high priest of the objectivistic cult: in Moonlight Maupassant narrates the atmospheric movement (just before the denouement) from the Abb6 Marignan's point of view.
b. The angle of the inactive witness or hearer. This treatment is that which commonly yields an opening like that of Turgenieff's The Jew:
"Pray tell us a story, Colonel, " we said at last to Nikolai Ilitch. The Colonel smiled, emitted a stream of tobacco smoke through his moustache, passed his hand over his gray hair, stared at us, and meditated. . .
"Well then, listen, " he began.
"It happened in the year '13, before Dantzig. I was then, " etc. , etc.
In contrast to the highly artificial, sophisticated objective treatment, this one is naïve and instinctive. In a state of nature no man who has lived through an adventure, waking or dreaming, detaches himself from it in the telling. He says: 'I saw the man strike down his wife, and I heard her cry as she fell. I tell you! I went faint at the sight!' As literature has grown out of just such spoken narrative, it has inevitably brought over into the more deliberate printed form this habit.
Being natural, the treatment is supposed to lend an air of reality to the narrative; and doubtless it does so when you know and trust the narrator, or when you have some other reason to suppose that the report is a matter of fact. A newspaper account of, say, a fire is likely to be more convincing, if it quotes an eye-witness at length; but it is, only because it purports to be true anyhow. Once forsake this intention, though, and the device loses all force. Thus it happens in literature. A novel or a story does not pretend to give straight facts, and only very young children fancy that it does. Fiction is fiction, and need not bolster itself with pretenses. If, then, the writer is to tell his story from the angle of the inactive witness or hearer, he must do so, not for the sake of creating the illusion of reality, but only in order to bring opt the genuine story values, namely the dramatic action or the single effect. Now, under what circumstances are these heightened or clarified thereby? There are four conspicuous cases.
i. The surest case is that in which the narrator's mannerisms are an integral part of the single effect. Joel Chandler Harris'Uncle Remus Stories illustrate this perfectly (though most of them are not genuine short stories). Half the charm of his queer tales from folklore
resides in old Uncle Remus, his dialect, and his quaint asides. So too with Kipling's Mulvaney stories, though in less degree; and, were Mulvaney wholly inactive in them, they would be a more pertinent instance for us.
ii. A second case is detective and mystery stories. One of the method's gravest defects here becomes a virtue. The defect is its tendency to break up the main action, either by shifting the point of view back and forth between that of a character and that of the narrator, or else by cluttering the pages with the narrator's explanations and personal interpolations. Insufferable as all this is in most stories, it serves the mystery-monger well. It confuses and distracts the reader by shunting his attention frequently from the plot events to the thoughts of the narrator. Thus the connection between events is obscured, and they become more of a mystery than if they were given bald and direct, —which is precisely what the writer desires. We have already discussed this matter under the head of indirect plot action; but it is well to consider again the famous stories which exemplify the above principle. In Ligeia, which, though vastly more than a mystery story, is overhung with mystery, the narrator is almost an inactive witness of the events. The Gold Bug is narrated by Legrand's friend, who plays such a trifling part in the plot action that we scarcely have the right to esteem him a character. The Purloined Letter is told by Dupin's acquaintance, who is an absolute zero in the tale. Conan Doyle brings in the passive Dr. Watson to twist and obfuscate the problems of crime which Sherlock Holmes confronts. William J. Locke, too, lets himself narrate many of the Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol. The list might be lengthened indefinitely, with some of E. W. Hornung's Witching Hill ;Stories well toward the bottom of it.
Unfortunately, this method is too easy; for the inactive
narrator may jumble up the circumstances of the story so that all the great detectives in Christendom could not unravel it on his evidence alone. Realizing this, many good writers are tempted to fall back upon it, just to spare themselves the hard work of making the complications themselves mysterious. Probably half the stories so told could be handled otherwise, and to great advantage. How simple it would have been for G. K. Chesterton to have cast his Father Brown stories in that mould! And how refreshing to find them in another. How easy for Henry Sydnor Harrison to have put his story of Mrs. Hinchiinto the mouth of a wayfarer who overheard these amazing women in the Subway and followed them curiously! And what a wonderful thriller he has produced by not doing that!
iii. A third instance of the method's utility is that of the story in which the dramatic quality of the plot can be brought out only by an impartial interpretation of the characters. The objective treatment will not suffice here inasmuch as it does not interpret; and the point of view of an active character will fail because, if consistent and true, it will not be fair to the other characters. There remains then only the method we are now considering.
A flawless specimen of this type is James Hopper's Memories in Men's Souls, which the student is advised to study closely. Its theme does not appear directly in the plot incidents; it is a thought which the romance awakens in the narrator. Hence, if the story were told objectively, we should get the romance, but not its import; and it is this import which contributes heavily to the single effect. On the other hand, were the romance told as it was seen by the business man or his sweetheart or her malevolent uncle, it would cease to be romance.
To the first two it was a sickening catastrophe from start to finish; and from the uncle's point of 'view, only the first brief movement could have been told at all, for he did not witness nor hear of the climax. Half the power of this exquisite narrative springs from the delicate veiling of the lovers' feelings at the climax. They are not suppressed—on the contrary, they are as clear as day. They are revealed by the narrator's personal conjectures as to what they must have been; and as he conjectures, he recalls the manner of the hero when the latter laid bare to him the whole adventure. No other device could vie with this here.
iv. The fourth and last story type admitting of this treatment is the atmosphere story. As we have seen, descriptive events integrate best when frankly narrated from the point of view of somebody who witnesses the places and people described. The inactive witness or hearer may be that somebody, whenever the atmosphere does not figure so intimately in the plot action that its part cannot be understood save from an active character's point of view. For instance, the atmospheric effect in A Descent into the Maelstrom is not a dynamic factor in the adventure. That is to say, the fisherman was not sucked into the vortex by the hypnotic power of its appearance; nor is his behavior in any other way influenced by the color of the insane waters, or their roar, or the horrible shape of the gigantic funnel. Not these sensuous qualities but the thought of the consequences of his position finally brought him to that calm, almost disinterested contemplative reflection which lies beyond fear and which delivered him from the peril. Hence the atmosphere is painted largely by the fisherman's visitor. In Markheim, on the contrary, the ticking of the clocks in the shop and the patter of rain on the attic roof and the scurrying shuffle of wayfarers' feet outside are not mere scenic
trimmings. They lay hold of the murderer, they stir up vague fears in him, they prod him to think hard over his plight; and, of these thoughts the vision is born on which the action of the whole story hinges. How impossible, then, to portray the fantastic interior save through Markheim's own eyes and ears—and conscience!
c. The angle of a participant. In choosing the point of view of an active character, the writer who has grasped the principles above set forth will readily decide whether he ought to see the events through the eyes of a minor personage or in the dominant character's perspective. For, once it is clear that some active character should be chosen, the very reasons which settle that will also designate the particular character to be employed. Therefore we may discuss this narrative method without regard to the status of the character in the story.
As usual, the ultimate criterion is the double ideal of the short story. The aim being to bring out both the dramatic quality and the single effect, is it not self-evident that an active character's point of view shall be chosen only when it best reveals the particular swing and flavor of the plot? And all we have to ask is: when and where does it do that? We find two cases.
i. First and most conspicuously, it does it in every story which aims primarily to depict the actual workings of character in a moral crisis. For only the character himself can know and feel the forces at work; and it is nothing but that interplay of forces which constitutes the story material. Once more, Markheim may be passed out as a perfect sample.
u. The second type calling for this angle is the complication story which turns upon an active character's ignorance or misunderstanding. In The Tragic Years, by B. Paul Newman, ' the main action is thus told, because
every consequential turn in it happens as a result of the lawyer's being ignorant of his son's nature. In that charming piece of sentiment, The Poet Who Saved His Youth, by Helen Sterling Thomas, ' it is Peter's ignorance about the one fervent admirer of his verse which helps mightily to save his youth. And the whole point of Old Johnnie, by Barry Benefield, 2turns upon Johnnie's mistaking a dressmaker's dummy for a live and wicked man. Hence again the participant's point of view is correctly taken.
4. Angle of narration and grammatical form. In the leading textbooks on story technique the angle of narration and the grammatical form of narration (that is, the use of the first or the third person) are hopelessly confused and discussed as though they were identical. Esenwein even goes so far as to classify the angles of narration as varieties of the grammatical form, —which is about as absurd as to classify the story characters with respect to the number of syllables in their names. The truth is, there is no significant connection whatever between the perspective and the use of'I' or 'he'. And the absolute proof of this is given in the fact that both the second and the third angles of narration may be correctly indicated in either the first or the third person. For instance, suppose that Jones' valet saw Jones kill Smith, and that, for some dramatic reason, the happenings that culminated in this tragedy are best told from the valet's point of view. Then the narrative may run thus:
Yes, I was Jones' valet when he killed that scoundrel, Smith. A mysterious affair, sir; and though it's ten years gone, I've not stopped wondering yet why my master did it, etc. , ad lib.
1
Or it may with equal accuracy run thus:
As he laid away Jones' shirts in the mahogany dresser, the valet let his eyes wander to the half-open door through which the sound of angry voices drifted. Yes, that was Mr. Smith in there, swearing. Why had he been coming so often of late? And why did Mr. Jones rage for hours after the fellow had gone? The valet shook his head . . . etc. , and also ad lib.
The reader may perform a similar expeiiment with the third angle. And he may do so even with the purely objective story too, which, one might reasonably suppose, could be narrated only in the third person. It is conceivable, for instance, that a witness or minor participant in an episode might recount the latter impersonally and yet speak in the first person. He might say: "I was standing on the drug store steps when the messenger came up. He thrust the letter into my hand and fell exhausted . . . " This use of 'I' is quite objective and impersonal; it is merely a way of naming a participant in the story. It does not bring with it the slightest distortion or artificial arrangement of circumstances. It does not express feeling or opinion. It is as colorless and transparent as 'John Smith' or `he'. Cases like these prove that it cannot be the perspective which decides the grammatical form. On the contrary, the latter is properly determined by the material of the particular story, even as the perspective itself is.
EXERCISES
Find the angle of narration which will best bring out
the seriousness of the following episode. Find the angle that shows up, the harshness of the legal technicality which holds a poor man under such circumstance. Find
the angle which emphasizes the negro's foolishness.
Frank Ayers, a negro driver of the Street Cleaning Department, wearing his uniform, was arraigned in the Men's Night Court last evening on a charge of petty larceny, and declared that the city's delay in paying employees had driven him to steal. He pleaded guilty to the theft of a bottle of catsup, three bottles of Oxford sauce, one box of herring, a jar of jelly, and a package of macaroni.
His wife and children were starving and he had also been forced to go without food, he told Magistrate House, because he could not get the money the city owed him. His story so impressed Magistrate House that he asked the complainant, William H. Dillon, a store detective, if he intended to press the charge.
Magistrate House told Ayers he felt sorry for him, but could not do otherwise than hold him for trial in Special Sessions.
Street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards said last night that there had been a delay of a week or two in paying the employees of his department, because of a new system which required the approval of the Civil Service Commission before the pay rolls go to the Controller. Commissioner Edwards said the men would get their pay in a day or two.
What is the angle of narration in each of the following? Is the angle well chosen? Explain your answer accurately. Is the artist's attitude discernible at all? If so, describe it.
Hamlin, Pauline Worth—The Gold Pot. (American, July, 1912. )
Child, Richard Washburn—The Eyes of the Gazelle. (Harper's, April, 1912. )
Freeman, Mary Wilkins—The Steeple. (Hampton's, Oct. , 1911. )
Dudeney, Mrs. Henry—The Secret Shelf. (Harper's, July, 1912. )
In Vol. 8 of the collection entitled Stories by American authors (Scribner's) you will find a story by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps called Zerviah Hope, which is hopelessly botched because the author has not duly regarded the angle of narration. Find what this angle should be and rewrite the story from it, taking pains not to modify the incidents and character traits.
5. The artist's attitude. We have now to consider briefly that other kind of point of view which, at the close of section 2 above, we distinguished from the angle of narration. About it we cannot say much, for it and its problems lie far beyond the province of this book. The artist's attitude is not a matter of technique. It is what it is, and all attempts to guide it by formulas are futile. I do not mean that a teacher cannot profoundly influence a student's tastes and even his natural manner of expression. He certainly can. But this influence cannot be charted, and still less can it be located anywhere in the materials or the methods of fiction. It works through discussions about the nature of things, through debates over ideals, through study of rights and wrongs. In short, it is an influence of culture; and, like culture, it is neither reading, writing, nor arithmetic, nor any other body of fact or technique. It is the directing of appetites, likes and dislikes, sensitivities and prejudices.
This cultural influence may be insignificant or enormous, as we see from a comparison of the two types of literary genius, the genius from within and the genius from without. The former, of whom Poe is the perfect specimen, is endowed with a unique fancy and a preference for certain thoughts and emotions to which his environment neither adds nor takes away appreciably. The latter type, which is best exemplified in our own country by Hawthorne, likewise possess great native gifts; but these, under the influence of his training and surroundings, are directed toward the familiar ideals and beliefs of early New England. How far one's aptitudes may thus be guided depends entirely upon the individual and the themes to which he is to be turned. And, as his choice of themes inevitably precedes his writing about
them, so his attitude precedes all literary manipulation.
6. The artist's attitude and his style. In ordinary discourse `style' is a blanket term covering at least three things: (1) the qualities of a narrative which are determined by the theme and the plot action; (2) the qualities of grammar and language, as such; and (3) the qualities which express the author's attitude toward the theme or plot action. In most cases these three may be distinguished readily enough; but an illustration is not amiss. Suppose you are writing a story in which, at a critical moment, the heroine dropped her eyes demurely under the gaze of a jealously suspicious admirer; and he, misunderstanding her act, hurled an accusation or stalked off or caught her hand or did something else which complicated affairs vitally. If, now, you write: `The girl gazed at the carpet, feigning modesty'—the mere mention of the act would be a case of the first `style'. If you write `feigning modesty', instead of the neater adverb, `demurely', this is the second 'style'. And if, finally, your scorn for the heroine runs away with you, and you let it speak out in the sentence, thus: 'The slyboots gazed at the carpet feigning modesty'—then you are exhibiting `style' number three, provided that there is, in the plot itself, no dramatic necessity for your calling the girl names.
The student may have been wondering throughout this book why it does not preach style and tell how to attain it. The explanation is now at hand.
Style, in the first sense, is the result of mastering story technique; in the second sense, it is the result of mastering grammar and rhetoric; and, in the third sense, it is the result of the artist's attitude toward his material and all that pertains to it.
Now, this book is devoted to the problems of technique; hence, what of style derives from the manipulation of dramatic material is to be attained only by becoming
skilful in that manipulation. For, to repeat with another accent, style is not a quality in the material, but aconsequenceof handling the latter. In the second place, linguistic style lies beyond the present undertaking. The pursuit of it should largely precede technique, inasmuch as many structural problems—and, above all, the producing of the single effect—call for considerable facility with words. Finally, style that expresses the author's point of view is gained only through that point of view. But this is the result of natural disposition and culture. To seek these in technique would be as foolish as to seek, in elocution and stagecraft, the power of composing Hamlet's soliloquy.
THE POINT OF VIEW
THE author who has mentally blocked out his story, determined definitely its objective point, and selected some, if not all, of the incidents which shall comprise the action, is confronted, before proceeding farther, with the problem of the point of view. Just what is meant by the phrase? in simple terms we may put the question thus: who is to be the supposed narrator of the story? We say of a story that it is written from the point of view of a participant, of an observer, or of the author; that is, it is seen through the eyes of one of these. We must consider the disadvantages and advantages to the story of one or another of these points of view. Our range of selection is really wider than at first sight we should deem possible.
The simplest and most obvious point of view is that of the chief participant. The story centres in him; he was concerned in all the important incidents. Thus we may imagine Cinderella recounting to her grandchildren the romantic tale of her youth, the story of the crystal slipper. It is from this point of view that many of the world's famous stories, both long and short, have been written. To mention but a few at random, there are in English such novels, as David Copperfield, Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, and Robinson Crusoe. Many of Poe's short stories, such as The Cask of Amontillado, already cited in another connection, The Black Cat, and The Telltale Heart, are written from this point of view. A fine modern illustration (slightly modified by the author) is Joseph Conrad's Youth. In the work of almost any voluminous writer of short fiction one may find examples of stories in this manner, though some writers have far more predilection for it than have others. Let us see what are its advantages and limitations.
Its chief advantage, I think, is that it carries with it a certain plausibility. It resembles in form, autobiography, and, if it is well managed, the reader is apt to accept the story as true, a fragment of real life. John Ridd is as real to me as many a person I have known, for I first read Lorna Doone at anage when one readily surrenders his imagination to an engaging tale. This reality with which the author has endowed his story is due in considerable part to his choice of the hero as the supposed narrator of events. Had the author told these in his own person, the action would have been at a further remove, and so, perhaps, less real. Robinson Crusoe appeals in like fashion. The prosaic Robinson is one hard to disbelieve, despite the surprising nature of his experiences. Almost we forget we are reading a romance, and not a page of autobiography.
Yet, plausible as it is, and frequent as is its employment, the method is fraught with dangers and limitations. The narrator, if the hero and doer of brave deeds, must excite our admiration and respect. He should not appear unduly boastful in telling his own exploits, or we shall have small use for him On the other hand, if his deeds are evil, as in the case of the narrator actor of The Cask of Amontillado, we must not be repelled, but find his personality fascinating, if not admirable. The author's problem is twofold: to tell the incidents of the story effectively, and, as well, so skillfully to delineate the character of the narrator that our interest will be held throughout.
There are yet other difficulties. The actor narrator can tell only those events which can reasonably come within his emperience, or be told him by someone else. If the action is complicated, trouble will inevitably arise here. Some event significant in the action of the story is witnessed by another than the hero, and at
some place remote from him. He could not possibly see it himself. How, then, is the reader to be informed of it, and the story made intelligible? The author, to give us the necessary information, is forced to the employment of various devices, such as messengers and letters, and weakens thereby the vividness of his story. More often he will outrage plausibility, and take his hero upon wild and inexplicable journeys, simply that the narrator may be on the spot when something important happens.
In Treasure Island, Stevenson at one point meets the difficulty which his choice of a point of view involves, by adopting for a time another point of view altogether. Jim Hawkins has stolen away from camp on adventures of his own. Meanwhile events happen with which we must be acquainted. To tell of these the author drops the boy hero for a time and gives us the Doctor's narrative of events in the camp. Later he returns to the story of Jim Hawkins.
The point of view hero illustrated, that of a composite narrative told by various actors in the story, will be better appreciated if we consider the novels of Richardson. Clarissa Harlowe is told entirely in le$* f^rm. The various actors of the story reveal their experiences by letters to one another, some of great length. If we may suppose all the characters confirmed
letter-writers, there are certain excellences in this method. Every incident is told with fullness of detail by a participant and eyewitness. Moreover, there is a fine opportunity here to differentiate character. This same incident may be variously reported by several witnesses, and in the discrepancies may be laid bare fundamental differences of personality. But it is a method obviously lacking in conciseness, and so almost certainly unfitted for short narratives. It is conceivable that a short story might be told by an exchange of letters, and, indeed, a few stories so written may be found, but it is a method unlikely to be often successful, in part for reasons which will be apparent as we proceed. Meanwhile we may note that the composite narrative, though infrequent, is sometimes employed in the novel. Detective stories often resort to it. We have the hero's narrative, the heroine's narrative, that of the butler, the nurse, and the doctor. Wilkie Collins employed the device frequently, as in the Moonstone, and Stevenson in The Master of Ballantrae.
Closely akin to the point of view of the chief actor or the combined points of view of various actors is that of the minor character who, though given a small part in the story, serves chiefly as an observer of events. This device of story-telling involves, usually, most of the defects of the points of view previously considered, and yet achieves few compensating virtues. The tedious Watson of Conan Doyle's detective stories is an admirable example of this. He must be present at all the chief episodes of the story, and what he cannot himself witness he must learn from the hero. He must be sufficiently stupid not to anticipate the correct solution of the mystery, and his personality must be so colorless as not to divert our attention from more important characters. The reader tolerates him only of necessity. It is doubtful if the stories gain sufficiently in credibility and naturalness to compensate for these defects. That is not to say that this point of view is impossible, for one might readily find excellent examples of its employment. The Little Minister is told from this point of view. Turgenieff resorts to it, and Balzac. But it is at best a leisurely and awkward method of narration, and the writer should carefully weigh its defects before employing it in any instance.
It should be noted that all points of view are mere devices by virtue of which the story comes to be. They are conventions which readers accept as they do a three-sided room upon the stage. By reason of conventions only is any art possible. They are limitations upon that art, but none the less a means to its accomplishment. No one criticizes a picture because it is painted with pigments upon canvas rather than with sunlight upon trees and water. No more does the reader criticize the adoption of any point of view the author may choose, provided that point of view does not obstruct the story.
This would appear self-evident. Yet to many, apparently, it is not. Amateur writers frequently hesitate to tell their stories from the point of view of the author. "How can it be that I, the author, know all these things?" they ask. "1 must trick my reader to the belief that someone has told me this, that I am in possession of some other's manuscript. " The reader goes to no such bother. "Give us the story, " says he, "and with as little delay as possible. " For this reason the point of view of the author is usually the most swift and least awkward of all methods of storytelling. Just what is it?
In Cinderella some anonymous person in possession of all the facts recounts the tale for the benefit of the reader. It is as though a disembodied personality or someone clothed in the mantle of invisibility of fairy lore were an eyewitness to all the important incidents. The author can observe happenings at widely remote points and times as well as here and now. He knows what occurs simultaneously at separated 'laces. He is, in short, omniscient.
Complete omniscience includes the ability to see into the hearts of characters and lay bare their secret motives. Novelists whose interest is chiefly character analysis, usually adopt this point of view. Not only do they present their creatures in speech and action, but they reveal also the hidden processes of thought and emotion. The method is justified to the reader in so far as the analysis proves interesting and enlightening. We make no question of the author's assumption of insight, but we may justly criticize the result for its truth to human nature as we know it.
The author may, however, if he choose, make no pretension to godlike powers of omniscience. He may, instead, content himself with a record of deed and word by means of which we shall ourselves come to an understanding of character. Ostensibly the author is, in such a case, scarcely more than a sensitized recording instrument which turns back the flight of time and reveals to us the sense impressions of a past scene. When the author pretends to insight we say he is omniscient. When he limits himself to purely human powers of observation, though possessed, if need be, of seven league boots and the power of invisibility, we call him the authorobservant. These are the two points of view of the author, and before we consider any subtle variants upon them we should consider the possibilities and limitations of each.
The omniscient point of view includes the lesser or merely observant. The author not only sees but explains. It is a method well adapted to stories of psychological interest in which the dissection of motive is important. writers upon ethical problems, such, for example, as George Eliot, depend largely upon it. George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, of modern novelists, write usually from this point of view. But not only must the author analyze effectively, he must also make his characters act and speak appropriately. To be sure, his power of interpretation permits him to make speech and action which in themselves seem but colorless and trivial, significant of something more profound. Yet the problem is, nevertheless, considerable. No action or word may be without its reasonable and characteristic implication. If well contrived, the two, action and analysis, are complementary and mutually illuminating, and the reader feels a genuine intimacy of understanding. Its limitation is that it demands, usually, rather more space than the purely objective method of the author-observant, and its passages of analysis may easily become tedious. Many readers prefer speech and action solely, and are content there from to draw their own interpretations.
To such readers the observant or objective method is preferable. The term "objective" means simply that the narrative shall concern itself solely with sense-impressions-word, deed, and the various appeals to sense which we include under the term " Description. " This in distinction from the " subjective " method, which includes analysis. Objective narrative is analogous to the drama. In a play we see a story acted out by the dramatist's creations. From their speech and action we get not only a story, but also knowledge of them as persons, and some suggestion of motive. The writer has here to do a difficult thing; he must make his puppets reveal themselves. Everything they say and do must be in character. This implies, really, that he know the motives which prompt them to word and deed. They will not, otherwise, be uniformly consistent and, so, convincing. And it is a difficult thing to make action and speech always significant, for oftentimes two or more interpretations are possible unless we are very sure of the actor's intent. Also, in common speech, it is not easy so to differentiate characters that they seem individual. But this the author must do, for he has cut himself off from the help of analysis. He has so limited himself, of course, in the belief that the gain is greater than the loss; that his story will move the faster and with
a greater effect of reality; that the reader may not be bored by the author's own interpretations.
The analogy of this method to that of the drama is further borne out if we consider the author not only as playwright, but also stage manager and audience. In a play there are certain accessories known as setting. In a story the authorobservant describes circumstances of place and dress to aid our visualization of the scene. Further, he may describe the groupings of his characters, the play of feature, tones of voice—those things in short which the spectator at a play gets for himself by watching the actors.
That the point of view of the author-observant is a popular one in modern fiction is apparent. If well handled, it is particularly adapted, by reason of its swiftness, to the short story. If. produces the maximum of effect in the minimum of space. This we may assume without discussion to be a highly desirable characteristic of short narratives.
We cannot, however, dismiss the problem of the point of view without some further comment. There are variations of method within the field already outlined. Suppose, for illustration, that the writer wishes to be in part, but not wholly, omniscient; that is, he may desire to reveal one character analytically and all others objectively. There may be advantages in this method. The
reader in such a case will view the story through the eyes of the character so interpreted, gaining not only the necessary record of story-action, but in addition an understanding of the motives of one of the participants. He will put himself in the place of the character analyzed, and experience, vicariously, not only his emotions, but also his speculations as to the motives which prompt other characters in the story to action. Apparently this method has in it something of the illusion of reality which we noted in the case of the story told by a participant; but this accompanied by a detachment which makes possible our understanding of the character as the author sees him. A fine illustration of the method is to be found in the two novels of Arnold Bennett, Clayhangerand Hilda Lessways, in which much the same series of incidents is viewed first through the character of the hero, and then through that of the heroine. In each case we look into the character as though we analyzed our own motives. It is an interesting point of view, and one admirably adapted to much short fiction.
Again observe the method of Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter. The author is here omniscient only at times. Into some characters he sees deeply; of others he professes often to be uncertain, and is merely observant. The reason for this sellimposed limitation is that, despite his
general desire to dissect character, he wishes to surround his story with an atmosphere of mystery. If he revealed clearly every hidden motive the result would be too obvious. As it is, we see but a part and guess the rest. The chief charm of the book is that it provokes to speculation. It is suggestive: that is, it induces the reader to think and collaborate with the author. *
One further point and we have done for the moment with the point of view. Many authors, omniscient and observant, boldly take the stage and comment upon their characters, the story, or upon life in general. An author thus obtrusive we like in so far as he entertains or enlightens us. Thackeray is one of the most obtrusive authors in English fiction. Openly he discusses his "puppets, " or anything the story suggests, and many readers find in this mannerism one of the chief charms of his books. Jane Austen, on the contrary, remains always unobtrusively in the track ground, letting the story tell itself. There are various middle grounds. An omniscient author usually intrudes to some degree upon his reader's attention, and an author-observant may do so if he choose. Fielding, who in Tom Jones keeps himself well out of the story as it runs, permits himself occasional short interchapters of personal comment.
These, he advises the reader, may be omitted without detriment to the story. The modern tendency is generally in the direction of self-effacement. The author tells his story impersonally, and if he comments at all upon it does so in casual remarks of not too individual a tone— generalizations in keeping with the theme, and such as the reader might himself give utterance to. There is, however, no reason at all why an author should refrain from gossip upon his own story if he is certain his readers will enjoy his comment. It is the uncertainty as to their attitude that deters. The author's personality must be of interest, must enrich his story, if it is to be tolerated. The modest author, recognizing the obligation, is therefore slow to intrude.
In conclusion, we may say that, important as is the choice of a point of view in any story, it is yet more important that the one selected be undeviatingly maintained. A shift of the point of view is certain to modify the character of the story and to bewilder the reader, as the shift at the end of the third chapter of The Old Curiosity Shop well illustrates. The skilful writer indicates at the outset the point of view he has adopted, and never departs from it. A change from the point of view of the authoromniscient to that of the actor-narrator would, it is obvious, be bewildering. The entire story would be
changed. Less flagrant shifts are equally reprehensible. The clearness of the story is thereby clouded and its effectiveness impaired.
THE CENTER OF INTEREST
Closely related to the problem of the point of view is that of the centre of interest. A story may tell the fortunes of a group of characters, yet of these but one or two will be of superlative interest and importance. Upon them the author concentrates his attention. These it is which the reader follows with the most concern, and it is essential that they be always dominant. Other characters are of importance chiefly as they affect these major characters. For the writer to shift the spotlight of his attention to the lesser characters is to invite disaster, for the reader's interest becomes then divided and so weakened. The effect is to make the story's emphasis uncertain, if not indeed to make two or more stories of what should be but one. The chief characters must hold the centre of the stage from the first; and the story's action should never necessitate their withdrawal from it for any length of time. To them should fall the best lines and the most interesting experiences.
In a long novel the author may, it is true, divide his attention somewhat and drive several related stories four-inhand—as do Dickens,
George Eliot, and Thackeray. The shorter the story the greater the necessity for concentration, so that in a truly " short " story but one character, or at the most two closely related characters, should focus our attention. With every division and dissipation of interest follows an inevitable weakening of effect. An examination of the recognized masterpieces of short-story writing will show this to be true. The point is, however, one to be considered again in the next chapter, under the head of unity of action. We note here the close association of the centre of interest with the point of view, and at times its dependence upon it. Thus, if the writer is omniscient in the case of but one of his characters, and of the rest merely observant, he is almost certain to keep the one constantly before us. If he is observant or omniscient of all, he is sometimes tempted to side issues which distract his attention from the true centre of interest. Whatever his point of view, he will, if he is wise, select the central figure of his story and keep that character always uppermost in our attention.
The Point Of View In Narrative
The Point Of View In Narrative
The Importance of the Point of View—Two Classes, The Internal and the External—I. Subdivisions of the First Class: 1. The Point of View of the Leading Actor; 2. The Point of View of Some Subsidiary Actor; 3. The Points of View of Different Actors; 4. The Epistolary Point of View. —II. Subdivisions of the Second Class: -1. The Omniscient Point of View; 2. The Limited Point of View; 3. The Rigidly Restricted Point of View—Two Tones of Narrative, Impersonal and Personal: 1. The Impersonal Tone; 2. The Personal Tone—The Point of View as a Factor in Construction —The Point of View as the Hero of the Narrative.
The Importance of the Point of View. —We have now examined in detail the elements of narrative, and must next consider the various points of view from which they may be seen and, in consequence, be represented. Granted a given series of events to be set forth, the structure of the plot, the means of character delineation, the use of setting, the entire tone and tenor of the narrative, are all dependent directly on the answer to the question, Who shall tell the story?
For a given train of incidents is differently seen and judged, according to the standpoint from which it is observed. The evidence in most important murder trials consists mainly of successive narratives told by different witnesses; and it is very interesting to notice, in comparing them, how very different a tone and tenor is given to the same event by each of the observers who recounts it. It remains for the jury to determine, if possible, from a comparison of the various views of the various witnesses, what it was that actually happened. But this, in many cases, is extremely difficult. One witness saw the action in one way, another in another; one formed a certain judgment of the character of the accused, another formed a judgment diametrically different; each has his separate sense of the train of causation that culminated in the act; the accused himself would disagree with all the witnesses. if indeed he were capable of looking on the facts without conscious or unconscious self-deception; and we may be certain that an infallible omniscient mind, cognizant of all the hidden motives, would see the matter differently still. The task of the jury is, in the main, to induce from all these tragic inconsistencies an absolute outlook upon the real truth that underlies the facts so differently seen and co variously judged.
Such an absolute outlook is hardly possible to the finite mind of man; and though it is often assumed by the writer of fiction in the telling of his tale, it can seldom be consistently maintained. It is therefore safer to acknowledge that the absolute truth of a story, whether actual or fictitious, can never be entirely told; that the same train of incidents looks different from different points of view; and that therefore the various points of view from which any story may be looked upon should be studied carefully for the purpose of determining from which of them it is possible, in a given case, to approach most nearly a clear vision of the truth.
Two Classes, The Internal and the External. -The points of view from which a story may be seen and told are many and various; but they may all be grouped into two classes, the internal and the external. A story seen internally is narrated in the first person by one of its participants; a story seen externally is narrated in the third person by a mind aloof from the events depicted. There are, of course, many variations, both of the internal and of the external point of view. These in turn must be examined, for the purpose of determining the special advantages and disadvantages of each.
1. Subdivisions of the First Class : 1. The Point of View of the Leading Actor. —First of all, a story may be told by the leading actor in its series of events, the hero, as in "Henry Esmond, " or the heroine, as in "Jane Eyre. " This point of view is of especial value in narratives in which the element of action is predominant. The multifarious adventures of Gil Blas sound at once more vivid and more plausible narrated in the first person than they would sound narrated in the third. When what is done is either strange or striking, we prefer to be told about it by the very man who did it. "Treasure Island" is narrated by Jim Hawkins, "Kidnapped" by David Balfour; and much of the vividness of these exciting tales depends upon the fact that they are told in each case by a boy who stood ever in the forefront of the action. The plausibility of "Robinson Crusoe" is increased by the convention that the hero is narrating his own personal experience: in fact Defoe, in all his fictions, preferred to write in the first person, because what he sought primarily was plausibility of tone.
This point of view is also of supreme advantage in re-counting personal emotion. Consider for a moment the following paragraph from "Kidnapped" (Chapter X)
"I do not know if I was what you call afraid; but my heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and there was a dimness came before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, I had none; but only a darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world that made me long to sell my life as dear as I was able. I tried to pray, I re-member, but that same hurry of my mind, like a man running, would not suffer me to think upon the words; and my chief wish was to have the thing begin and be done with it. "
Now, for the sake of experiment, let us go through the passage, substituting the pronoun "he" for the pronoun "I. " Thus:
"He was hardly what is called afraid; but his heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and there was a dimness came before his eyes which he continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, he had none . . . " and so forth. Notice how much vividness is lost, how much immediacy of emotion. The zest and tang of the experience is sacrificed, because the reader is forced to stand aloof and observe it from afar.
The point of view of the leading actor makes for vividness in still another way. It necessitates an absolute concreteness and objectivity in the delineation of the subsidiary characters. On the other hand, it precludes analysis of their emotions and their thoughts. The hero can tell us only what they said and did, how they looked in action and in speech, and what they seemed to him to think and feel. But he cannot enter their minds and delve among their motives. Furthermore, he cannot, without sacrificing naturalness of mood, analyze to any great extent his own mental processes. Consequently it is almost impossible to tell from the hero's point of view a story in which the main events are mental or subjective. We can hardly imagine George Eliot writing in the first person: the " psychological novel" demands the third.
But the chief difficulty in telling a story from the leading actor's point of view is the difficulty of characterizing the narrator. All means of direct delineation are taken from him. He cannot write essays on his merits or his faults; he can neither describe nor analyze himself; he cannot see himself as others see him. We must derive our sense of who and what he is, solely from the things he does and says, and from his manner of telling us about them. And although it is not especially difficult, within a brief compass, to delineate a character through his way of telling things [Notice Laughton O. Zigler, in Mr. Kipling's "The Captive, " whose speech has been examined in a former chapter], it is extremely difficult to maintain this expedient consistently throughout a lengthy novel.
Furthermore, an extended story can be told only by a person with a well-trained sense of narrative; and it is often hard to concede to the hero the narrative ability that he displays. How is it, we may ask, that Jim Hawkins is capable of such masterly description as that of "the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, " in the second paragraph of "Treasure Island"? How is it that David Balfour, an untutored boy, is capable of writing the rhythmic prose of Robert Louis Stevenson, master of style? And in many cases it is also difficult to concede to the hero an adequate motive for telling his own story. Why is it that, in the sequel to " Kidnapped, " David Balfour should write out all the intimate details of his love for Catriona? And how is it conceivable that Jane Eyre should tell to anyone, and least of all to the general public, the profound privacies of emotion evoked by her relation with Mr. Rochester?
The answer is, of course, that such violations of the hard terms of actuality are justified by literary convention; and that if the gain in vividness be great enough, the reader will be willing to concede, first, that the story shall be told by the leading actor, regardless of motive, and second, that he shall be granted the requisite mastery of narrative. But the fact remains that it is very hard for the hero to draw his own character except in outline; and therefore if the emphasis is to lie less on what he does than on the sort of person that he is, the expedient will be ineffectual.
The main structural advantage of telling the story through the person of the hero is that his presence as the central figure in every event narrated makes for coherence and gives the story unity. But attendant disadvantages are that it is often difficult to account for the hero's presence in every scene, that he cannot be an eye-witness to events happening at the same time in different places, and that it is hard to account for his possession of knowledge regarding those details of the plot which have no immediate bearing on himself. It seems always somewhat lame to state, as heroes telling their own stories are frequently obliged to do, "These things I did not know at the time, and found out only afterward; but I insert them here, because it is at this point in the plot that they belong. "
2. The Point of View of Some Subsidiary Actor. —Many of these disadvantages may be overcome by telling the tale from the point of view, not of the leading actor, but of some minor personage in the story. In this case again, analysis of character is precluded; but the narrator may delineate the leading actor directly, through descriptive and expository comment. In stories where the hero is an extraordinary person, and could not with-out immodesty descant upon his own unusual capabilities, it is of obvious advantage to represent him from the point of view of an admiring friend. Thus when Poe invented the detective story, he wisely decided to exhibit the extraordinary analytic power of Dupin through a narrative told not by the detective himself but by a man who knew him well; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, following in his footsteps, has invented Dr. Watson to tell the tales of Sherlock Holmes.
The actual instance of Boswell and Johnson substantiates the possibility of a minor actor's knowing intimately all phases of a hero's life and character. And since the point of view of the secondary personage is just as internal to the events themselves as that of the leading actor, the story may be told with an immediacy, a vividness, and a plausibility approximating closely the effect derived from a narrative told by the hero. And there is now less difficulty in accounting for the narrator's knowledge of all the details of the plot. He can witness minor necessary scenes at which the hero is not present; he can know things (and tell them to the reader) which at the time the hero did not know; and if his presence be withheld from an important incident, the hero can narrate it to him afterward.
Nevertheless, it is often very difficult to maintain throughout a long story the point of view of a minor actor in the plot. Thackeray breaks down completely in his attempt to tell "The Newcomers" from the point of view of Arthur Pendennis, the hero of a former novel. Stevenson assigns to Mackellar the task of narrating "The Master of Ballantrae" : but when the Master disappears and Mackellar remains at home with Mr. Henry, it is necessary for the author to invent a second personage, the Chevalier de Burke, to tell the story of the Master's wanderings.
3. The Points of View of Different Actors. —This last instance leads us to consider the possibility of telling different sections of the story from the points of view of different characters, assigning to each the particular phase of the narrative that he is especially fitted to recount. Three quarters of the "Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is narrated in the third person, externally; but the final intimate vividness of horror is gained by shifting to an internal point of view for the two concluding chapters, the first written by Dr. Lanyon, and the last by Jekyll himself. Mr. Kipling has developed to very subtle uses the expedient of opening a story from the point of view of a narrator who is named simply "I" and who is not characterized in any way at all, and then letting the story proper be told to this impersonal narrator by several characters who are clearly delineated through their speech and through the parts that they have played in the tale that they are telling. This device is used in nearly all the stories of the "Soldiers Three. " The narrator meets Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd under certain circumstances, and gathers from them bit by bit the various features of the story, —one detail being contributed by one of the actors, another by another, until out of the successive fragments the story is built up. It is in this way also, as we have already noted, that the tale of Mrs. Bathurst is set before the reader.
4. The Epistolary Point of View. —A convenient means of shifting the burden of the narrative at any point to a certain special character is to introduce a letter written by that character to one of the other people in the plot. This expedient is employed with extraordinary cleverness by George Meredith in "Evan Harrington. " Most of the tale is told externally; but every now and then the clever and witty Countess de Saldar writes a letter in which a leading incident is illuminated from her personal point of view.
Ever since the days of Richardson the device has frequently been used of telling an entire story through a series of letters exchanged among the characters. The main advantage of this method is the constant shifting of the point of view, which makes it possible for the reader to see every important incident through the eyes of each of the characters in turn. Furthermore, it is comparatively easy to characterize in the first person when the thing that is written is so intimate and personal as a letter. But the disadvantage of the device lies in the fact that it tends toward incoherence in the structure of the narrative. It is hard for the author to stick to the point at every moment without violating the casual and discursive tone that the epistolary style demands.
Of course a certain unity may be gained if the letters used are all written by a single character. The chief advantage of this method over a direct narrative written by one of the actors is the added motive for the revelation of intimate matters which is furnished by the fact that the narrator is writing, not for the public at large, but only for the friend, or friends, to whom the letters are ad-dressed. But a series of letters written by one person only is very likely to become monotonous; and more is usually gained than lost by assigning the epistolary role successively to different characters.
II. Subdivisions of the Second Class. —We have seen that, although the employment of an internal point of view gives a narrative vividness of action, objectivity of observation, immediacy of emotion, and plausibility of tone, it is attended by several difficulties in the delineation of the characters and the construction of the plot. It is therefore in many cases more advisable for the author to look upon the narrative externally and to write it in the third person. But there are several different ways of doing this; for though a story viewed externally is told in every case by a mind distinct from that of any of the characters, there are many different stations in which that mind may set itself, and many different moods in which it may recount the story.
1. The Omniscient Point of View. —First of all (to start with a phase that contrasts most widely with the internal point of view) the external mind may set itself equidistant from all the characters and may assume toward them an attitude of absolute omniscience. The story, in such a case, is told by a sort of god, who is cognizant of the past and future of the action while he is looking at the present, and who sees into the minds and arts of all the characters at once and understands them better than they do themselves.
The main practical advantage in assuming the god-like point of view is that the narrator is never obliged to ac-count for his possession of intimate information. He can observe events which happen at the same time in places widely separated. Darkness cannot dim his eyes; locked doors cannot shut him out. He can be with a character when that character is most alone. He can make clear to us the thoughts that do not tremble into speech, the emotions that falter and subside into inaction. He can know, and can convey to us, how much of a person's real thought is expressed, and how much is concealed, by the language that he uses. And the reader seeks no motive to account for the narrator's revelation of the personal secrets of the characters.
The omniscient point of view is the only one that permits upon a large scale the depiction of character through mental analysis. It is therefore usually used in the "psychological novel. " It was employed always by George Eliot, and was selected almost always by George Meredith. It is, of course, invaluable for telling the sort of story whose main events are mental, or subjective. A spiritual experience which does not translate itself into concrete action can be viewed adequately only from the god-like point of view. But when it is employed in the narration of objective events, the writer runs the danger of undue abstractness. A certain vividness—a certain immediacy of observation—are likely to be lost, because of the aloofness from the characters of the mind that sees them.
This point of view is at once the most easy and the most difficult that the author my assume. Technically it is the easiest, because the writer is absolutely free in the selection and the patterning of his narrative materials; but humanly it is the most difficult, because it is hard for any man consistently to play the god, even toward his own fictitious creatures. Although George Eliot assumes omniscience of Daniel Deronda, the consensus of opinion among men of sound judgment is that she does not really know her hero. Deronda is in truth a lesser person than she thinks him; and her assumption of omniscience breaks down. In fact, unless an author is gifted with the godlike wisdom of George Meredith, he is almost sure to break down in the effort to sustain the omniscient attitude consistently throughout a complicated novel.
2. The Limited Point of View. —Therefore, in assuming a point of view external to the characters, it is usually wiser for the author to accept a compromise and to impose certain definite limits upon his own omniscience. Thus, while maintaining the prerogative to enter at any moment the minds of one or more of his characters, he may limit his observation of the others to what was actually seen and heard of them by those of whose minds he is omniscient. In such a case, although the author tells the story in the third person, he virtually sees the story from the point of view of a certain actor, or of certain actors, in it. The only phase of this device which we need to examine is that wherein the novelist's omniscience is limited to a single character.
This special point of view is employed with consummate art by Jane Austen. In "Emma, " for example, she portrays every intimate detail of the heroine's thoughts and feelings, entering Emma's mind at will, or looking at her from the outside with omniscient eyes.
But in dealing with the other characters, the author limits her own knowledge to what Emma knew about them, and sees them consistently through the eyes of the heroine. Hence the story, although written by Jane Austen in the third person, is really seen by Emma Woodhouse and thought of in the first. Similarly, in "Pride and Prejudice, " Elizabeth Bennet is the only character that the author permits herself to analyze at any length: the others are seen objectively, merely as Elizabeth saw them. The reader is made acquainted with every step in the heroine's gradual change of feeling toward Mr. Darcy; but of the change in Darcy's thoughts and feelings toward Elizabeth the reader is told nothing until she herself discovers it.
Of course, in applying this device, it is possible for the author, at certain points in the narrative, to shift his limited omniscience from one of the characters to an-other. In such a case, although the story is told through-out consistently in the third person, one scene may be viewed from the standpoint of one of the characters, an-other from that of another character, and so on.
Imagine for a moment two adjacent rooms with a single door between them which is locked; and suppose a character alone in each of the rooms, —each person thinking of the other. Now an author assuming absolute omniscience could tell us what each of them was thinking at the selfsame moment: the locked door would not be a bar to him. But an author telling the story from the attitude of limited omniscience could tell us only what one of them was thinking, and would not be able to see beyond the door. Whether or not he would find himself at liberty to choose which room he should be cognizant of, would depend of course on whether he was maintaining the same point of view throughout his story or was selecting it anew for every scene. In the first case, the one character whom he could see would be determined in advance: in the other, he should have to decide from the point of view of which of them that special scene could be the more effectively set forth.
The attitude of limited omniscience is more easy to maintain than that of a godlike mind intimately cognizant of all the characters at once; and furthermore, the employment of the more restricted point of view is more likely to produce the illusion of life. In actual experience, we see only one mind internally, —our own; all other people we look upon externally: and a story, therefore, which lays bare to us one mind and only one is more in tune with life itself than a story in which many minds are searched by an all-seeing eye. Also, a story told in the third person from the point of view which has been illustrated from Jane Austen's novels enjoys nearly every advantage of a narrative told in the first person by the leading actor, without being encumbered by certain of the most noticeable disadvantages.
3. The Rigidly Restricted Point of View. —For the sake of concreteness, however, it is often advisable for the author writing in the third person to restrict his point of view still further, and, foregoing absolutely the prerogative of omniscience, to limit himself to an attitude merely observant and entirely external to all the characters. In such a case the author wears, as it were, an invisible cap like that of Fortunatus, which permits him to move unnoticed among his characters; and he reports to us externally their looks, their actions, and their speech, without ever assuming an ability to delve into their minds. This rigidly external point of view is employed frequently by Guy de Maupassant in his briefer fictions; but although it is especially valuable in the short-story, it is extremely difficult to maintain through the extensive compass of a novel. The main advantage of this point of view is that it necessitates upon the part of the author an attitude toward his story which is at all moments visual rather than intellectual. He does not give a ready-made interpretation of his incidents, but merely projects them before the eyes of his readers and allows to each the privilege of interpreting them for himself. But, on the other hand, the reader loses the advantage of the novelist's superior knowledge of his creatures: and, except in dramatic moments when the motives are self-evident from the action, may miss the human purport of the scene.
Two Tones of Narrative, Impersonal and Personal: 1. The Impersonal Tone. —In employing every phase of the external point of view except the one which has been last discussed, the author is free to choose between two very different tones of narrative; the impersonal and the personal. He may either obliterate or emphasize his own personality as a factor in the story. The great epics and folk-tales have all been told impersonally. Whatever sort of person Homer may have been, he never obtrudes himself into his narrative; and we may read both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" without deriving any more definite sense of his personality than may be drawn from the hints which are given us by the things he knows about. No one knows the author of "Beowulf" or of the "Nibelungen Lied. " These stories seem to tell themselves. They are seen from nobody's point of view, or from anybody's—whichever way we choose to say it. Many modern authors, like Sir Walter Scott, instinctively assume the epic attitude toward their characters and incidents: they look upon them with a large unconsciousness of self and depict them just as anyone would see them. Other authors, like Mr. William Dean Howells, strive deliberately to keep the personal note out of their stories: self-consciously they triumph over self in the endeavor to leave their characters alone.
2. The Personal Tone. -But novelists of another class prefer to admit frankly to the reader that the narrator who stands apart from all the characters and writes about them in the third person is the author himself. They give a personal tone to the narrative; they assert their own peculiarities of taste and judgment, and never let you forget that they, and they alone, are telling the story. The reader has to see it through their eyes. It is in this way, for example, that Thackeray displays his stories, —pitying his characters, admiring them, making fun of them, or loving them, and never letting slip an opportunity to chat about the matter with his readers.
Mr. Howells, in Section XV of his "Criticism and Fiction, " comments adversely on Thackeray's tendency "to stand about in his scene, talking it over with his hands in his pockets, interrupting the action, and spoiling the illusion in which alone the truth of art resides"; and in a further sentence he condemns him as "a writer who had so little artistic sensibility, that he never hesitated on any occasion, great or small, to make a foray among his characters, and catch them up to show them to the reader and tell him how beautiful or ugly they were; and cry out over their amazing properties. " This sweeping condemnation of the narrative attitude of one of the best-beloved of the great masters sounds just a little bigoted. It is true, of course, that the strictest artists in fiction, like Guy de Maupassant, prefer to tell their tales impersonally: they leave their characters rigidly alone, and allow the reader to see them without looking through the author's personality. But there is a type of literature wherein the chief charm for the reader lies in the fact that he is permitted to see things through the author's mind. When we read Charles Lamb's essay on "The South Sea House, " we read it not so much to look at the deserted and memorable building as to look at Elia looking at it. Similarly many readers return again and again to "The New-comes" not so much for the pleasure of seeing London high society as for the pleasure of seeing Thackeray see it. The merit, or the defect, of the method in any case is a question not of rules and regulations but of the tone and quality of the author's mind. Whether or not he may safely obtrude himself into his fictions depends entirely on who he is. This is a matter more of personality than of art: and what might be insufferable with one author may stand as the main merit of another. For instance, the greatest charm of Sir James Barrie's novels emanates from the author's habit of emphasizing the personal relation between himself and his characters. The author's many-mooded attitude toward Sentimental Tommy is a matter of human interest just as much as anything that Tommy feels himself.
Let us admit, then, in spite of Mr. Howells, that the author of fiction has a right to assert himself as the narrator, provided that he be a person of interest and charm. It remains for us to consider the various moods in which, in such a case, the writer may look upon his story. The self-obliterating author endeavors to hide his own opinion of the characters, in order not to interfere with the reader's independence of judgment concerning them; but the author who writes personally does not hesitate to reveal, nor even to express directly, his admiration of a character 's merits or his deprecation of a character's defects. You will seek in vain, in studying the fictitious people of Guy de Maupassant, for any indication of the author's approval or disapproval of them; and there is something very admirable in this absolute impassiveness of art. But on the other hand, there is a certain salutary humanness about an author who loves or hates his characters just as he would love or hate the same sort of people in actual life, and writes about them with the glow of personal emotion. Sir James Barrie often disapproves of Tommy; sometimes he feels forced to scold him; but he loves him for a' that: and we feel instinctively that the hero is the more truthfully delineated for being represented by a friend.
The Point of View as a Factor in Construction. —It will be gathered from the foregoing discussion of the various points of view in narrative that no one of them may be pronounced absolutely better than the others. But this much may be said dogmatically: there is always one best point of view from which to tell any given short-story; and although in planning a novel the author works with far less technical restriction, there is almost always one best point of view from which to tell a given novel. Therefore, it is advisable for the author to determine as early as possible, from a studious consideration of his materials, what is the best point of view from which to tell the story he is planning, and thereafter to contemplate his narrative from that stand. , point and that only. Furthermore, the interest of art demands that the point of view selected shall, if possible be maintained consistently throughout the telling of the story. This, however, is a very difficult matter; and only in very recent years have even the best writers grown to master it. The novels which have been told without a single violation of this principle are very few in number. But the fact remains that any unwarrantable breakdown in the point of view selected diseconomizes the attention of the reader. It is unfortunate, for instance, that Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in "Marjorie Daw, " should have found it necessary, after telling almost the entire tale in letters, to shift suddenly to the external point of view and end the story with a few pages of direct narrative. Such an unexpected variation of method startles and to some extent disrupts the attention of the reader, and thereby detracts from the effect of the thing to be conveyed.
Henry James and Mr. Kipling exhibit, in their several ways, extraordinary mastery of point of view; and their works may very profitably be studied for examples of this special phase of artistry in narrative. The very title of "What Maisie Knew", by Henry James, pro-claims the rigidly restricted standpoint from which the narrative material is seen. In Mr. Kipling's tale, "A Deal in Cotton, " which is included in "Actions and Reactions, " the interest is derived chiefly from the trick of telling the story twice, —first from the point of view of Adam Strickland, and the second time from the point of view of Adam's native body-servant, who knew many matters that were hidden from his master.
The Point of View as the Hero of the Narrative. —In certain special cases the point of view has been made, so to speak, the real hero of the story. Some years ago Mr. Brander Matthews, in collaboration with the late H. C. Bunner, devised a very clever narrative entitled "The Documents in the Case. " It consisted merely of a series of numbered documents, widely different in nature, presented with neither introduction nor comment by the authors. The series contained clippings from various newspapers, personal letters, I. 0. U's, racetrack reports, pawn-tickets, letterheads, telegrams, theatre programmes, advertisements, receipted bills, envelopes, etc. In spite of the diversity of these materials, the authors succeeded in fabricating a narrative which was entirely coherent and at all points clear. The main interest, however, lay in the novelty and cleverness of the point of view; and though such an exaggerated technical expedient may be serviceable now and then for a special sort of story, it is not of any general value. A point of view that attracts attention to itself necessarily distracts attention from the story that is being represented; and in a narrative of serious import, the main emphasis should be thrown upon the thing that is told rather than upon the way of telling it.