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Point of view
Point of view refers to the perceptual viewpoint of a narrator.
Contents |
Definition
The point of view can be likened to both perspective and focalization. Point of view describes the position from which the events in a story are narrated; the perceptions and conceptions of whomever's point of view is featured controls the way a narrative is presented to an audience.
Examples
"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone.
When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
-Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes
Critical Debates
- {is the term contested, challenged, defined differently, etc.?}
Related Terms
References
- {cite useful references or web links for further reading}