3.Point of View
When we are very young,we pester our parents to tell us stories.When we become a little older,we start to read stories by ourselves.For most of us,there are only two kinds of story:interesting stories and dull stories.It does not occur to us then that the same story,told differently,would have different effect.Remember"The Dinner Party?"The story is told from the point of view of the American naturalist.The suspense,however,would be destroyed if it were told from the point of view of the hostess,who waits until the very end of the story to tell the guests（and the reader）that a cobra was crawling across her foot.
Point of view is often defined as the position from which the story is told.Four points of view are most common in prose fiction:the omniscient,limited omniscient,first person,and objective.
In the omniscient position,the narrator—almost always the author—tells the story and knows everything about the characters'actions and thoughts.Closely related to the omniscient is the limited omniscient point of view.The narrator is allowed access to the mind of only one character and knows everything about him or her.But information about other characters is restricted to what that privileged character sees or is reported to him or her.In the first person position,the narrator"I"tells a story either about himself or herself or about another character in the story.Here the omniscient is further limited as the narration is restricted to what one character says and what he or she observes.Of the four points of view,the objective position is the most limited one as the narrator refuses to enter the minds of any of the characters.Readers learn about them from what they say or do and from what other characters say about them.It is similar to the situation on a bus when you overhear two passengers talking to each other.You infer their relationship,the subject of their conversation,and the attitude each holds to the issue under discussion as you do when you read Hemingway's"Hills Like White Elephants."
Dorothy Seyler and Richard Wilan in their Introduction to Literature contrived four passages to illustrate how the four points of view usually operate.
The Objective Point of View:
A man and a woman sat at opposite sides of a chrome and vinyl dinette table.In the center of the table was a pot of coffee,a plate of toast,some butter,and some jam.Near the door stood a suitcase.The man was half hidden by the sports section of the morning paper.The woman was sitting tensely,staring at what she could see of her husband,"Pass the jam,"he said.She passed him the jam.Her hand trembled.Suddenly,she pushed back her chair,saying almost inaudibly,"So long,Harry."She walked quickly to the suitcase,picked it up,and went out the door,leaving it open.A sudden gust of wind slammed it shut as Harry looked up with a puzzled expression on his face.
The First Person Point of View:
I knew as I watched Harry mindlessly burrowing into the sports section of the News that the moment had come to make a break for freedom.I had to say it.I had to say"good-bye."He asked me to pass the jam,and I mechanically obliged.Had he noticed that my hand was trembling?Had he noticed my suitcase packed and beckoning in the hallway?Suddenly I pushed back my chair,choked out a rather faint"So long,Harry"through a last mouthful of toast,stumbled to my suitcase and out the door.As I drove away from the curb,I gave the house one last glance—just in time to see a sudden gust of wind hurl the still-open door shut.
The Limited Omniscient Point of View:
Harry glanced quickly at the Cubs score in the News only to be disappointed by another loss.They were already writing,"Wait till next year."It was just another bit of depression to add to his worries about the McVeigh contract.He wanted to tell Alice that his job was in danger,but all he could manage was a feeble"Pass me the jam."He didn't notice Alice's trembling hand or hear something faint she uttered.And when the door suddenly slammed he looked up,wondering who could be dropping by at seven in the morning."Now where is that woman?"He thought,as he trudged over,annoyed,to open the door.But the emptiness had already entered,drifting by him unnoticed,into the further reaches of the house.
The Omniscient Point of View:
Sometimes an apparently insignificant moment brings to a head all of those unresolved problems we face in our daily lives.Such was the case with Harry and Alice that morning as they sat at breakfast over their coffee and toast.They seemed perfectly matched,but in reality,they merely maintained marital harmony by avoiding bringing up anything unpleasant.Thus it was that Harry had not told Alice he was in danger of being fired,and Alice had not told Harry that she felt it necessary to go off on her own for a while to find who she really was.As he glanced at the Cubs score in the News,Harry thought,"Damn!Even baseball's getting depressing.They lost again.I wish I could manage to tell Alice about my losing the McVeigh contract—and just maybe my job!"Instead,he simply said,"Pass the jam."As Alice complied,she saw that her hand was trembling.She wondered if Harry had noticed."No matter,"she thought,"This is it—the moment of good-bye,the break for freedom."She arose and,with a half-whispered"So long,Harry,"she walked to the suitcase,picked it up,and went out,leaving the door open.As the wind blew the door closed,neither knew that a few words from the heart that morning would have changed the course of their lives.
