—Point of View—
When beginning a novel—as opposed to a play, which we will discuss at the end of this section—readers must first determine who is telling the story and whether the narrator is reliable. Students should also understand the difference between the author of a text and the narrator of a story. As we read a work of fiction, we need to examine the relationship that forms between the author, reader, and narrator to not only understand the text more fully, but also to avoid misinterpreting the author's thematic intent.
There are three primary narrative points of view in fiction—First-Person, Third-Person Limited, and Third-Person Omniscient—which we will discuss one at a time.
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First-Person Narration
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First-person narrators tell the story of their own lives. Readers are granted access to their innermost thoughts and feelings, but we only see the world from their limited perspective, which means we cannot necessarily trust their observations or judgments. For instance, in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we discern in the opening paragraphs that our narrator is an uneducated boy living on the fringes of society. We quickly learn that Huck's story will consist of events recalled from his very recent past, which means our narrator will most likely lack the maturity and understanding that only comes from time and experience.
When first-person narrators describe or interact with other characters in the novel, we have to consider whether our narrators fully understand the actions, thoughts, and motivations of these secondary characters. Oftentimes, first-person narrators misinterpret events around them, and the careful reader can recognize flaws in their logic and inconsistencies in their thoughts and actions.
When authors choose to use a first-person narrator, they not only create a character to tell their own story, but they also create distance between themselves and the narrator. When a narrator believes something or expresses an opinion, readers should not assume that the author necessarily agrees with the narrator's assessment. To help students differentiate between a first-person narrator's limited perspective and the author's thematic intent, we analyze the opening paragraphs to not only consider the narrator's reliability, but also how the author might use the narrative point of view to foreshadow larger themes that may develop in the story:
Even though first impressions can be misleading, it seems that Twain wants us to think of Huck as a reliable narrator because Huck appears to value honesty in the opening sentence. He chastises "Mr. Mark Twain," the person who wrote about Huck's adventures with Tom Sawyer in the book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," for exaggerating the truth and occasionally telling "some stretchers." Huck's seems aware and tolerant of human fallibility, however, when he states that he "never seen anybody but lied, one time or another"—with the possible exceptions of "Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary." Nonetheless, integrity seems important to Huck, which makes us trust that he will be honest with us, the reader, yet we wonder if there will be a limit to his tolerance of the sins of others later in the story.
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In the second paragraph, we discover that Huck is someone who does not fit comfortably within society and bristles at Widow Douglas' attempts to "sivilize" him. Huck tells us that he would rather live in the woods by himself where he can be "free and satisfied," which perhaps foreshadows his decision to "light out for the territory" at the end of the novel. At this point, however, he succumbs to peer pressure and returns to the Widow's house at Tom's urging, establishing in the opening paragraphs the thematic tension between conforming to societal expectations and living an independently according to one's own principles and values.
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Since Huck has always been an outcast in society, he is in many ways innocent and naive to the way society works, leaving us feeling that his judgment and perception might be unreliable at times. For instance, when Huck acquiesces to Tom's demand to return to Widow Douglas' house and "be respectable" before being allowed to join Tom's "band of robbers," Huck's fails to see the irony of Tom's demand, which makes us question whether his youth and naivete will cloud his judgment and alter his perception of the events and people he encounters on his journey.
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While Twain uses irony to emphasize Huck's ignorance of the world in which he lives, Harper Lee uses irony in To Kill a Mockingbird to contrast Scout's naïve first-person perceptions as a child with her more sophisticated understanding as an adult. Unlike Huck, Scout narrates her story after many years have elapsed. Instead of seeing the world through the eyes of a child, as we do in Twain's novel, we instead see Scout's childhood retrospectively through the eyes of an adult recalling her youth. The change in narrative perspective creates an ironic distance that allows the adult Scout to provide subtle, sophisticated commentary that the younger Scout is unable to do.
To help students understand the different narrative perspectives in Lee's novel, we analyze three character descriptions from the opening chapters to compare how young Scout perceives Calpurnia, Boo Radley, and Miss Caroline in comparison to how older Scout understands them. From this exercise, students must then consider how Lee uses these competing perspectives to convey the larger themes of the work.
From these excerpts, we should see that young Scout is guilty of similar prejudices and biases that she later condemns in many of the people of Maycomb County after the trial of Tom Robinson. When the narrator—who is now an adult—looks back on her childhood, she can see the ignorance of her previous thoughts and attitudes. Lee implies that Scout has learned through age and experience how to be empathetic and to treat others with compassion and respect. Ultimately, Lee's novel is about maturity, which makes us consider whether racism and intolerance are simply immature ways of seeing and understanding other human beings.
Third-Person Limited Narration
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With third-person limited narration, we are granted access to the innermost thoughts and feelings of a single character, but unlike first-person narration, we do not hear from the character directly. Instead, we have a narrator who serves as an intermediary and is positioned outside the story—like us, the readers. In some ways, Lee's technique in To Kill a Mockingbird is more like third-person limited narration than first-person because the older Scout serves as an intermediary who recalls the thoughts and feelings of her younger self. By using this narrative technique, Lee creates "psychic distance"—to borrow John Gardner's term in The Art of Fiction—between the reader and the characters, which allows the narrator to subtly comment on young Scout's misperceptions in a way that Twain cannot in his novel.
Ray Bradbury uses third-person limited narration in his dystopian novel Fahrenheit-451, where the narrator gives us access to the thoughts and feelings of Montag, the main character. In the opening paragraphs, we discover that Montag finds it "a pleasure to burn," but how does Bradbury want us to feel about Montag's desire "to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed"? To answer this question, students need to differentiate between Montag's feelings about his profession and the narrator's tone.
Even though Montag finds it a "pleasure to burn," it should be clear to readers that the narrator is critical of Montag's attitude and behavior. When the narrator describes the brass nozzle in Montag's hands as a "great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world," students should recognize that a python is a dangerous predator, its venom used to kill. Furthermore, in Christian ideology, snakes are linked with temptation and evil. When Montag is equated with "some amazing conductor," students should see the irony in comparing Montag's act of destroying books with that of a conductor creating beautiful music. The narrator also describes Montag's goal in apocalyptic terms: "to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history." While Montag considers his "fiery smile" an emblem of joyous celebration, the narrator depicts Montag as a devil who revels in a hellish landscape of his own making.
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By closely reading and analyzing the opening paragraphs, students should understand that Montag's eventual transformation will be a righteous one. When Montag gradually learns to appreciate the value of books and what they represent for our culture and society, we support his determination to actively fight against those forces trying to eliminate them. Bradbury's narration in the opening paragraphs not only helps us understand the character of Montag, but it also reveals the larger themes of the novel by subtly commenting on Montag's misguided thoughts and feelings. Whereas we see the world through the subjective lenses of first-person narrators, third-person narrators have more distance from the characters and events, which makes them seem more objective and reliable.
Third-Person Omniscient Narration
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In third-person limited narration, the reader only has access to the thoughts and feelings of a single character, but a third-person omniscient narrator can move freely between multiple characters, giving authors the opportunity to tell their stories from various perspectives, which adds greater depth and complexity to our understanding of the characters and the relationships between them.
In the opening paragraphs of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, returns to her hometown under the withering, disapproving eyes of the townspeople. Hurston could have had the narrator describe the scene from Janie's perspective, but she chose to narrate the scene from the perspective of the townspeople instead. Readers must consider why Hurston chose to begin the story from this vantage point and how that decision impacts our feelings and understanding of the townspeople as well as Janie.
When Janie walks into town alone, the narrator tells us that the townspeople sit collectively on their porches "in judgment." The scene is described as one of "mass cruelty," where the townspeople feel "powerful" and "lords of sounds and lesser things." Janie appears to be one of those "lesser things," but students should also see that the townspeople gain their strength only after the sun has set. The narrator tells us that during the day the townspeople do not feel "human"; instead, they have been reduced by the presumably white "bossman" to something less than human—forced to be "tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long." The narrator implies that the townspeople may feel "powerful" on their porches at night, but they are actually weak and powerless the rest of the day.
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Even though Janie appears vulnerable to the harsh "judgment" of these townspeople, we sense that she also has a strength and independence that remind the townspeople of the "envy" that they "had stored up from other times." When the townspeople see Janie walking into town "as she was," it is clear that she has a power that the townspeople do not. The opening paragraphs suggest that perhaps Janie's strength comes from an ability to "dream" of the person she wants to be and the life she wants to live, but perhaps it also comes from having survived the cruelties and hardships of burying "the sodden and the bloated" corpses of the "sudden dead." Since we have not heard from Janie yet, we can only guess at this point in the novel, but Hurston's opening makes us question the nature of "power" and how one attains it.
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The third-person omniscient narration gives Hurston the freedom to explore these different perspectives. By giving us access to the townspeople's thoughts and feelings, we do not necessarily condone their "mass cruelty" towards Janie, but we are able to understand it. Janie is a threat, for her strength makes them recognize their own weakness. If we were only given access to Janie's thoughts and feelings, we might be tempted to vilify the townspeople, which is clearly not Hurston's intent. Instead, the narration humanizes the townspeople and makes us feel bad for them, despite their ill-treatment of Janie. Ultimately, Janie is meant to serve as a role model not only for us, the readers, but for the townspeople as well.
Opening Scenes in Plays
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While plays do not have a narrator—with a few exceptions, like Thornton Wilder's stage manager in Our Town—the opening scenes often foreshadow larger themes that will be developed over the course of the work. For instance, in William Shakespeare's King Lear, the play opens with a seemingly insignificant exchange between Kent and Gloucester about Lear's plan to divide his kingdom amongst his daughters and Gloucester's treatment of his two sons—one bred lawfully in marriage and the other illegitimately. The parallels between Lear's plan for his daughters and Gloucester's treatment of his sons are symbolically significant, however, and a close reading of this opening exchange can help students understand how Shakespeare is using the opening scene to foreshadow the larger themes of the play.
Despite the fact that Lear has always favored the Duke of Albany, he has decided to give an equal share of his kingdom to the Duke of Cornwall. Similarly, Gloucester claims that Edgar, his legitimate son, "is no dearer in my account" than Edmund, whom he has bred out of wedlock with a mistress. While there is an egalitarian aspect to both Lear's and Gloucester's decisions that seems admirable to the modern reader, it violates the "order of law" that Shakespeare implies will have dire consequences later in the play.
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In many ways, King Lear is a family drama with parallel narratives between Lear and Gloucester and their respective offspring. Shakespeare's play makes us question the definition of family and whether familial love should be unconditional and what the consequences are when it is not. His play also makes us consider whether the bonds between people should be governed by the laws of nature or by the laws of society and religion. These questions are raised indirectly in the opening exchange between Kent and Gloucester, and students should understand that the thematic significance of this scene will resonate throughout the play.​
While Shakespeare does not use extensive stage directions, modern playwrights use them as a way to plant thematic seeds. Before the actors emerge on the pages of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, she offers the reader a detailed description of the Youngers' apartment on the South Side of Chicago not just to set the stage, but to offer a psychological profile of the family. We have students analyze the following excerpts from the opening stage directions to consider how Hansberry might be using the description of the Youngers' apartment to foreshadow the larger themes of the play:
In the first excerpt, Hansberry writes that there are "a number of indestructible contradictions" within the apartment, an observation that we are prepared to apply to the inhabitants of that apartment as well. Despite its appearance of being a "comfortable and well-ordered room," the apartment contains furnishings that have "had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years—and they are tired." We can assume this description applies not just to the apartment's furnishings, but also to the "state of being" of the Younger family as well.
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At one point, the second excerpt explains that the furnishings were "brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride," a reflection of the Younger family's optimism that we were making progress towards the American Dream, escaping the social and economic hardships of the rural South with the hope that the urban North would provide more opportunity for their family. This hope, however, has been replaced by a "[w]eariness" that the third excerpt explains has "won in this room." We understand that the frustration of this family has reached a breaking point since [e]verything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too often." We know from the opening stage directions that how the Youngers respond to the pain and frustration of having their dream deferred for too long will be the focus of Hansberry's play.​​
Whether it is in the opening scene or stage directions of a play—or in the opening paragraphs of a novel—we should always anticipate that the larger themes of the literary work will be subtly foreshadowed by the playwright or author. We need to read these openings carefully and think deeply about the thematic seeds that have been planted and how they might impact our understanding of the author's intent as we read the rest of the literary work.