A model of narrative point of view

What could and should “narrative point of view” mean in a narratological sense? Point of view is defined here as the complex, formed by internal and ex-ternal factors, of conditions for the comprehension and representation of happenings.

This definition will be explained in the following three steps.

a) The happenings as the object of point of view

We will begin with the last term in the definition, the happenings. In con-trast to most models of narrative operations, which allow the existence of a story without point of view, it will be assumed here that point of view is not applied to a story already constituted, but to the happenings that form its basis. Without point of view, there is no story. A story is only constituted at all when the amorphous, continuous happenings are subjected to a selecting and hierarchizing viewpoint. One of the premises of this study is that every representation of reality implies a point of view or perspective in the acts of selection, naming and evaluation of its elements.

The constitutive role that perspective plays in a story also applies to fac-tual narration. It is impossible to describe a real incident without selecting a limited number of the fundamentally infinite mass of elements and charac-teristics that could be ascribed to it. The difference between factual and fic-tional narration consists in that the happenings in the former are real and, in the latter, exist only as the implication of the fictive story.

b) Comprehension and representation

In the definition of point of view suggested above, two acts are distin-guished: the comprehension and the representation of happenings. This distinc-tion is necessary because a narrator can represent a happening differently

from how he comprehends or has comprehended it. In such cases of non-concurrence of comprehension and representation, the narrator does not render what and how he perceived, but rather reproduces the perception of one or more narrated characters. This type of non-concurrence of compre-hension and representation, which is characteristic of fictional narration, and which is encountered by way of exception in factual narration, is a feature of the figural narration which has become a central mode of representing reality in European literature since the era of sentimentalism.

Comprehension and representation are different acts in narration. This distinction is, as a rule, not made or not given due attention in the popular models of perspective. The distinction, introduced by Genette, between mood (“Who sees?”) and voice (“Who speaks?”) has points of contact with the dichotomy of comprehension and representation, but is not identical with it and, incidentally, is not consistently executed by Genette. He is hindered by the identification of the “extradiegetic” narrator with the author (see above), something which excludes the possibility of independent comprehension (in the fictive, represented world) from the outset, for this kind of narrator.

For Genette, vision is the privilege of the characters. It is for that reason that he can postulate the existence of such a thing as “zero focalization.”

c) The parameters of point of view

It was assumed above that comprehension and representation are condi-tioned by external and internal factors. These factors are assigned to a variety of parameters, aspects and facets, in each of which the phenomenon of point of view manifests itself in a distinct way. In order to differentiate the pa-rameters of point of view, in which distinct factors of comprehension and representation can occur, we will conduct a thought experiment. Let us im-agine some witnesses to a car accident who are supposed to make state-ments in court about the happenings as they comprehended them. Each witness will possibly present an independent version of what happened, i.e.

tell his or her own story of the accident. Even with the witnesses’ greatest attempts at objectivity, their statements may well contradict one another and not only because they remember what happened with varying degrees of clarity. The divergence of the statements already exists in the specific indi-vidual perception of the happenings, i.e. on a differing selection of the facts and on a distinct weighting of the circumstances.

1. Spatial point of view

If the witnesses have perceived the happenings differently, that could have been determined primarily by their spatial point of view. According to their

spatial position relative to the accident, and depending on their angle of vi-sion, the witnesses will have perceived differing facets of reality and used them as elements in their stories. One witness may have seen that one of those involved signaled before the accident, a detail that necessarily escaped another witness because of his or her position. Spatial perspective is consti-tuted by the location from which the happenings are perceived, with the restrictions of the field of vision that result from this standpoint. The con-cept of spatial point of view is the only one of the terms that express a re-ference of comprehension and representation to a subject that fulfils the in-tension of point of view or perspective in the actual, original sense of the word.

All other uses of the term point of view are more or less metaphorical.

2. Ideological point of view

What the witnesses perceive can also diverge when they all take up an iden-tical spatial standpoint and have an ideniden-tical field of vision. The difference in comprehension of the happenings can namely be down to a difference in ideological viewpoints. The ideological perspective encompasses various fac-tors that determine the subjective relationship of the observer to an occur-rence: knowledge, way of thinking, evaluative position and intellectual ho-rizons. Depending on these factors, observers will each focus on different components of the happenings and construct differing stories as a result. In this way, comprehension is shaped by knowledge. A young man with excel-lent knowledge of cars and traffic laws will comprehend other details of a traffic accident than an old woman who has never driven a car. Comprehen-sion is, of course, also influenced by evaluative positions. Two young people who have identical knowledge of cars and traffic laws, but hold different opinions on traffic politics, will, as a result of their different evaluative posi-tions, comprehend different facets of the same accident and perceive differ-ently the involvement of pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in the accident.

The differing perceptions of one and the same occurrence by the vari-ous witnesses as a result of differences in their interests and evaluative posi-tions is vividly illustrated in the short story “The Poet” by the Czech author Karel Čapek, from the cycle Stories from a Pocket. One night in Prague, a car driver injures a pedestrian in a hit and run accident. From the questioning of the witnesses, it becomes clear that they all perceived entirely different things, but also that none of them can provide the car’s license plate num-ber. The policeman who rushed to help the victim did not pay attention to the car. The engineering student concentrated entirely on the noise of the engine and immediately noted that it was a four-stroke internal combustion engine, but did not see the license plate and cannot even state the color or shape of the car. Incidentally, he knows nothing about makes of car. And his friend, the poet, who was also a witness, can only make statements about

the “atmosphere” of the street at night with the injured victim of the acci-dent lying on the asphalt. He did, however, compose a poem immediately after the accident. From the images it contains, “swan’s neck, female breast, resounding drums,” it proves possible to reconstruct the subconsciously re-gistered license plate number: it contains the digits 235.

The isolation of a distinct ideological perspective might meet with ob-jections. Not that ideology could be seen as irrelevant to perspective, no;

problems arise from the fact that it is also involved in other facets of per-spective. It is for this reason that Lintvelt (1981, 168), opposing Uspensky, drew attention to the fact that his plane of “evaluation” or “ideology” could not be isolated from the others. In his own model, he attempts to do without the ideological plane, since, he argues, it is already partially contai-ned in the other planes. It is true that evaluation or ideology can be implied in the other aspects of perspective. However, it can also appear independent of other facets, in the form of direct, explicit evaluation. It is for this reason that the separation of an independent ideological perspective appears both meaningful and necessary.

3. Temporal point of view

If the witnesses in our thought experiment make their statements at differ-ent points in time, then the temporal point of view comes into play. Tempo-ral perspective denotes the interval between the original comprehension and the later acts of comprehension and representation. “Comprehension”

does not mean only the initial impression but also its later processing and interpretation. So, it is not only the gap between the (initial) comprehension and representation that is relevant to temporal perspective, but also the in-tervals between the various phases of processing and interpretation.

What are the consequences of a displacement of the standpoint on the temporal axis? Whereas a spatial displacement can be bound up with a change to the field of perception, a temporal displacement can result in changes to both knowledge and evaluation. With temporal distance from the happenings, knowledge of its causes and effects can be extended and that can lead to a changed evaluation of the happenings. A witness who was not familiar with cars and traffic laws at the time of her initial statement, but who has since increased her knowledge of them, can reassess earlier impres-sions and assign new meaning to certain details of the occurrence that she had perceived but not been able to interpret properly. With a lengthened temporal interval between the initial comprehension (or a later interpretati-on of the first impressiinterpretati-on) and its rendering, however, the witness’s know-ledge can also dwindle, if the witness forgets particular facts in the passage of time (as usually happens with those elements that are not firmly integra-ted into the perceived story).

The question of to what extent the separation of a distinct parameter is justified also presents itself for temporal point of view. This is because time is not relevant to perspective in and of itself, but only as the bearer of chan-ges to knowledge and evaluation. But it is precisely because of this function that the question of whether temporal interval is a factor that influences comprehension and representation can be answered only in the affirmative.

4. Linguistic point of view

Witnesses can use a range of different linguistic registers in their statements.

In the rendering of what they comprehended, they can use expressions and intonations that correspond to their knowledge and evaluation, their inter-nal condition at the time, or also forms of expression in which a changed internal condition or altered knowledge and evaluation are revealed. This choice manifests the linguistic point of view. The term linguistic point of view is, of course, highly metaphorical. This is where the tendency towards figu-rative word usage, dominant in theories of perspective, reaches its zenith.

Nevertheless, that is no reason to exclude language from the facts of per-spective, as happens in many theories (e.g. explicitly in Rimmon-Kenan 1983, 82). Particularly relevant to point of view are the linguistic subsections lexis, syntax and expression; morphology less so (unless one regards cases of incorrect grammar as an intentionally included feature serving the charac-terization of the narrator’s or character’s discourse).

Linguistic point of view attains a special significance for non-diegetic narrators. They face the decision of whether to render an occurrence in their own language or in the language of one of the narrated characters (or that of a milieu). The difference between fictional and factual narration does not have a significant role to play here. In any everyday non-diegetic narra-tive situation, the narrator has to decide whether to narrate in his or her own language or with the terms and style of an involved third person.

The division of linguistic from ideological point of view is sometimes problematic. The various appellations for Napoleon in War and Peace (“Buonaparte”—“Bonaparte”—“Napoleon”—“l’empereur Napoléon“), which Uspensky (1970; tr. 1973, 27–32) adduces as an example of the “point of view on the phraseological plane,” do not differ only linguistically, but also in their evaluative position. There are, however, lexical and syntactical techniques in which the evaluative position is far less strongly expressed, as is often the case with naming. That in itself is a reason to distinguish bet-ween ideological and linguistic perspective.

In our thought experiment, we did not relate linguistic point of view to the comprehension of an occurrence, but to its representation (statements in court). However, the language parameter is also relevant to perception, be-cause we perceive reality in categories and terms taken from the semantic

system of a particular language. Fictional literature, at least, takes as its star-ting point that a protagonist who perceives an event articulates his or her impression in speech, even if it is only internal. On that is based the rende-ring of what a character perceives in a direct interior discourse. The langua-ge is not added by the narrator who passes on the perception, but is already extant in the act of perception itself, before it is rendered. In this way, lin-guistic point of view is also relevant to the comprehension of an occurrence.

5. Perceptual point of view

The most important factor that determines the perception of an occurrence, and is often actually identified with point of view or perspective, is the prism through which the occurrence is perceived. It is at the perceptual point of view that questions such as the following are aimed: “Through whose eyes does the narrator look at the world?” or “Who is responsible for the selection of these, and not other, elements of the happenings for use in the story?”

In factual texts, the narrator renders merely his or her own perception, whereby s/he can, however, choose between the comprehension of his or her earlier, narrated self and his or her present, narrating self. In contrast, the narrator of a fictional text can take on an alien perceptual perspective, i.e. represent the world through the prism of a character.

The representation of the world as perceived by a character assumes the narrator’s capability for accessing the consciousness of the character. The reverse is certainly not valid: access to the character’s consciousness is also thoroughly possible in cases when the narrator does not narrate through the prism of the character. The narrator can describe a character’s consciousness without taking on his or her perceptual perspective. Fyodor Karamazov is, as we have seen, described “internally,” but absolutely not through the prism of his own perception. Access to a character’s interior and the taking on of the character’s perceptual perspective, no matter how often they are mixed in theories of perspective (as indicated above), are two entirely sepa-rate things. In the first case, the character or, more specifically, his or her consciousness, is the object of the narrator’s perception; in the second, it is the subject or the prism of perception through which the narrator sees the narrated world.

Perceptual point of view often coincides with spatial point of view, but that is not necessarily the case. The narrator can take on a character’s spatial position without perceiving the world through his or her eyes. The descrip-tion of Captain Lebyadkin’s room in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, as referred to by Uspensky (1970; tr. 1973, 107) can again serve as an example (cf. abo-ve p. 98). What is described is what Stavrogin could haabo-ve perceiabo-ved, but it

is not described through his prism. The selection of details does not cor-respond to his unique perception.

Description from a character’s perceptual perspective is often marked by this character’s evaluation and style. But this coincidence is not obligatory:

in the parameters of perception, evaluation and language, the perspective need not be oriented on one and the same entity.

The thought experiment with the witnesses’ statements about a traffic acci-dent has yielded five parameters of perspective. If one were to place these parameters in order according not to their significance in the experiment but to their relevance for the constitution of point of view in literary work, the following sequence would result: (1) perception, (2) ideology, (3) space, (4) time, (5) language.

d) Narratorial and figural point of view

The narrator has two basic possibilities for how to represent an occurrence.¹⁴ S/he can narrate from his or her own, narratorial, point of view or take on a figural standpoint, i.e. narrate from the perspective of one or more of the narrated characters.¹⁵ From this arises a simple, binary opposition of points of view. The binary quality results from the fact that a narrative work can represent, in one and the same section of text, two perceiving, evaluating, speaking and actional entities, two centers for the generation of meaning:

the narrator and the character. There is no third possibility. That is why there is no place in the model presented here for a “neutral” perspective, which is allowed for in a range of theories (Stanzel 1955¹⁶; Petersen 1977, 187–92; Lintvelt 1981, 38–39¹⁷; Broich 1983¹⁸), nor for “zero focalization” as postulated by Genette.

14 Kristin Morrison (1961) has already drawn attention to the fact that, in the work of H. James and P. Lubbock, perspective is oriented on two separate entities, on one hand to the narrator (“speaker of the narrative words”), and, on the other, to the perceiving cha-racter, the reflector, (“knower of the narrative story”) (cf. Stanzel 1979; tr. 1984, 9; Marti-nez/Scheffel 1999, 63).

15 Dorrit Cohn (1978, 145–61; 1981, 179–80) calls the two perspectives, to the extent that they appear in third-person narrative and following Stanzel, authorial and figural; in first-person narrative, for which Stanzel refused to the last to recognize the existence of two possible perspectives, dissonant and consonant. In this book, the concept authorial refers not to the narrator but to the author. Therefore, a distinction is made here between authorial, narratorial and figural.

16 In later works, Stanzel (1964; 1979) did without the concept of the “neutral narrative si-tuation.”

17 Lintvelt accepts a type narratif neutre only for “heterodiegetic” narration.

In the opposition narratorial vs. figural perspective, the second element is marked. That means: if the perspective is not figural (and the opposition of the points of view is not entirely neutralized), it is seen as narratorial. Thus, perspective is narratorial not only when the narration bears traces of com-prehension and representation by an individual narrator, but also when the narration appears “objective” or contains only slight traces of reality being refracted through some kind of prism. This is because the narrator is always

In the opposition narratorial vs. figural perspective, the second element is marked. That means: if the perspective is not figural (and the opposition of the points of view is not entirely neutralized), it is seen as narratorial. Thus, perspective is narratorial not only when the narration bears traces of com-prehension and representation by an individual narrator, but also when the narration appears “objective” or contains only slight traces of reality being refracted through some kind of prism. This is because the narrator is always