Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Explain the difference in effects between a 1st person and 3rd person narrator.(Please exemplify these points of view with the stories "The...

The perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is
told, point of view has a significant effect upon the narrative.  If a character within
the story tells the story, then the reader views that narrative from the subjective view
of the character.  This point of view know as first person narrator can be anywhere from
fairly realistic to very unreliable.  In Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," for instance,
the reader learns of Fortunato only from the the avenging Montesor who controls the
narrative, relating the story with no diversion, no explanation, and little
emotion. And, with such a narrator, the elements of mystery and horror are intensified
while Poe allows the reader no interpretation of his narrative, deciding what to reveal
and what to hide.  While a third person narrator would have been better able to have
presented a more balanced story since he/she could not perceive what goes on in the
minds of the characters, the gothic effects of Poe's story would have been
minimalized.


In Tillie Olsen's story that employs the first
person narrator, the narrative assumes the stream-of-consciousness motif.  With this
mode of first person,"I Stand Here Ironing" becomes much more the narrator's story than
it is the daughter's, although the school official has come to talk about the
daughter.  Interestingly, this internal monologue of the mother allows the narrative to
vacillate in time as she examines her conscience and assesses both her actions as a
mother and the behavior of her daughter. As in Poe's story, the focus is predominantly
upon the narrative and other characters feelings and thoughts are in the shadows of
those of the narrator.


In contrast to the first person
narrator, the third person narrator is a voice from outside, rather than inside, the
story.  If the knowledge of the storyteller is limited to the internal states of one
character, than the story teller has a limited point of
view. However, if the story teller's knowledge extends to the internal states of all the
characters, then the storyteller has an omniscient point of
view.


In John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," the story
is told from the limited third person narrator; this narrator reports the actions of the
characters, but he cannot discern their thoughts or their motivations.  This perspective
helps to establish the mood of the story by recreating the situation of Elisa and Henry,
who hear each other's words, but having to guess at their meanings.  The reader must
determine what happens; for instance, when the tinker praises the beauty of the flowers
that Elisa is caring for, the reader, like Elisa, must discover that the tinker has been
insincere and merely trying to win her over to a sale.  Then, later, when Henry admires
how Elisa looks, and he tries to find the words that will please her, the reader shares
her frustration at not knowing what Henry thinks.  Thus, the reader is more greatly
drawn in to the narrative.  Yet, because the limited point of view does not reveal
Elisa's inner thoughts, there is a certain mystery that is established in the story. 
When, for instance, Elisa bathes and looks at herself in the mirror, and she sits on the
porch "unmoving for a long time," the narrator does not explain these emotional moments
and readers are left to draw their own interpretations.  This inscrutability may be just
what Steinbeck wishes to portray as his motifs of the alienation and aloneness of man
are frequent in his works.


Regretfully, I cannot remark on
the 4th story as the word limit has been reached. 

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