ENH 110 Point of View:

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ENH 110 Point of View First Person
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Questions to ask to determine a storys POV
1.Who tells the story?
First person pronouns I me, mine, we, our,
us Third person pronouns he, she, they, their, it
2. How much knowledge does this person have?
Ranges from total omniscience to purely objective
3. To what extent does the narrator look inside
the characters and report their thoughts and
feelings?
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Point of view for both A Rose for Emily and
The Tell-Tale Heart
First person the author selects (usually) a
central character in the story to tell his or her
own story. It is rare that he or she is a minor
character. Normally used are I, me, mine. The
use of we, us, and our (the plural forms, as in
A Rose for Emily,are also rare in fiction but
can help to effect a gossip-like technique, so
apparent in the Faulkner story)
With this particular point of view the author can
create an unreliable voice, and heighten the
sense of dramatic irony, as in The Tell-tale
Heart.
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Point of views Purpose
One of the primary reasons for identifying a
storys point of view is to determine where the
author stands in relation to the narrative.
Behind the narrative voice of any story is the
author, manipulating events and providing or
withholding information. It is a mistake to
assume that the narrative voice of a story is
the author. The narrator, whether a first
person participant or a third person
non-participant is a creation of the writer. A
narrators perceptions may be accepted, rejected,
or modified by an author, depending on how the
narrative voice is articulated.
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William Faulkner
Edgar Allen Poe
1897-1962 Biography
1809-1849 Biography
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Discussion prompt
In a lecture at the University of
Virginia, Faulkner claimed that A Rose for
Emily is a ghost story. However, since its
publication in 1931, the story has been read
variously as 1. a Gothic horror tale 2. a study
in abnormal psychology, 3.an allegory of the
relations between the North and the South, 4. a
meditation on the nature of time 5. a tragedy,
with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine.
What are your thoughts on its meaning?
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Gothic Fiction
Prominent features of gothic fiction include
terror (both psychological and physical),
mystery, the supernatural, ghosts,
dilapidated houses and Gothic architecture,
castles, darkness, death, decay, madness
(especially mad women), secrets, hereditary
curses, persecuted maidens, very old servants,
dusty chambers, locked rooms,
claustrophobic conditions.
Properties of A Rose for Emily
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Discussion prompt
When asked what the title meant, Faulkner gave
this rather enigmatic answer Oh. its simply
that the poor woman had no life at all. Her
father had kept her more or less locked up and
then she had a lover who was about to quit her
she had to murder him. It was just A Rose for
Emily---thats all.
What is your interpretation?
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Discussion prompt
Of the numerous literary critics who have
analyzed this story, many agree that Faulkner
selected an effective narrative voice-- one that
lacks complete information about Emilys path to
reclusivity--to further heighten the mystery and
suspense. What are your thoughts about the
point of view? Would another choice have had the
same effect? Tobes? The baptist ministers? Her
cousins? The pharmacist's? Another town
members?
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• A logical narrative order would have us see
• Emily buying poison
• Homer disappearing
• 3. The odor of his decaying body

• The unconventional narrative method, which makes
• the surprise more dramatic, has us see
• 1. The odor of his decaying body
• 2. Emily buying poison
• 3. Homer disappearing

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Section I Time frame 1894 death
of her father 1926 officials try to collect
taxes shes in her late thirties
Section II Time frame 2 years after fathers
death, 1896 rotting sweetheart reported
townspeople sense she is not right in the head
father is not dead
Section III Time frame 1895-96 Homer appears
cousins come to visit she buys the rat poison
Section IV Time frame 1896 preparation for
marriage Homers last appearance alive
chronology becomes more straightforward
Section V Time frame in the present shocking
bedroom scene
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Each section effectively moralizes about the
protagonist
Section I we see her eccentric pertinacity
overcoming changing values
Section II we see her spinsterhood and anger
at her fathers death this arouses some pity
but intensifies the sense of oddness
Section III we see her courting Homer (a Yankee
laborer) and buying the arsenic this elicits
gasps of scandal and shows the same steely
determination of section I
Section IV we see her pathetic situation as a
jilted woman, her increasing seclusion, her
demise the reader sees her as a figure of
sentimental sympathy that gradually moves out of
the picture
Section V the narrator springs the trap the
long held secrets are divulged, creating horror
and disgust
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Possible theme for A Rose for Emily
If the spirit of youthful exuberance is unable to
find release due to the forces of
oppressiveness, its energy may later manifest
itself in a need to be secluded and in a steadily
evolving eccentric pertinacity that at once may
evoke pity and horror--both shrouded by the
mystery inherent in reclusivity.
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A man or woman must come to terms with both the
past and present for to ignore the first is to
be guilty of a foolish innocence to ignore the
second is to become monstrous and inhuman, above
all to betray an excessive pride before the
humbling fact of death.
Ray B West Jr.
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The Tell-Tale Heart
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Edgar Allan Poe on the singularity of effect
A skilful literary artist has constructed a
tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts
to accommodate his incidents but having
conceived, with deliberate care, a certain
unique or single effect to be wrought out, he
then invents such incidents--he then combines
such events as may best aid him in establishing
this preconceived effect. If his very initial
sentence tend not to the outbringing of this
effect, then he has failed in his first step. In
the whole composition there should be no word
written, of which the tendency, direct or
indirect, is not to the one pre-established
design. And by such means, with such care and
skill, a picture is at length painted which
leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it
with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest
satisfaction. From A Review of Twice Told
Tales, May 1842
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Discussion question
In The Tell-Tale Heart, do you think he
practiced what he preached? Explain
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Discussion question
What can a reader detect from the narrators
telling of the tale that leads to a
heightening of the storys dramatic irony?
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Discussion questions
Regarding paragrahs 10 and 17 and the
line there came to my ears a low, dull, quick
sound, such as when a watch makes when enveloped
in cotton. (In par. 17 it is in italics)
Is it his own heart that the narrator
hears? or Is it the manifestation of his own
guilty conscience?
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FIN