A statement from Icarus himself:

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A statement from Icarus himself

• First-Person-ParticipantNarration

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You cant understand. I was flyingI mean
really flying. I saw the world the way the gods
doI held Apollos gaze with my own mortal eyes.
How could I not fly higher? But then the power of
the god proved too much. The wax melted. I
plummeted into the sea. I paid for my arrogance
with my death.
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First-Person Participant in Short Stories

• Narrative voice is presented through the I
  pronoun.
• There is absolutely no critical distance between
  the characters experience and his or her
  understanding of the event.
• For this reason, we consider this POV highly
  suspectit is the voice of the unreliable
  narrator, who is too close physically or
  emotionally to the events to be trustworthy.

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The Unreliable Narrators perceptions may be
hampered by

• Inexperience (Cole Sear of The Sixth Sense, or
  the unnamed narrator of Cathedral, or Sammy of
  A P)
• Youth (Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird or the
  unnamed narrator of Araby)
• Mental incapacity (Forrest Gump of Forrest Gump
  or Benjy of The Sound and the Fury)

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An Example of Unreliability Forrest Gump

• Jennys father was a very loving man. He was
  always hugging and kissing his daughters.

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Do you remember how that comment made your skin
crawl? It was because you perceived what Forrest
could notthat Jennys father was sexually
abusing his daughters. You had the necessary
critical distance Forrest lacked.
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Forrest wasnt lying he just did not have the
capacity to understand what you understood.
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Advantages of First-Person Participant

• A sense of the raw immediacy of the events we
  are completely privy to all the characters
  thoughts.
• A closeness to the narrating character it is
  simply not possible to duplicate with any other
  point-of-view option.
• A great test of the characterization skills of
  the author.
• Most effective when the main character learns
  from his or her own experience.

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Examples of First-Person Participant in Short
Stories

• Araby by James Joyce
• Everyday Use by Alice Walker
• First Confession by Frank OConnor
• Cathedral by Raymond Carver
• Flying Home by Ralph Ellison
• Good-bye, Columbus by Philip Roth
• My Man Bovanne by Toni Cade Bambara

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First-Person-Participant Narration in Novels

• First-Person Participants have more credibility
  as narrators of novels because of the length of
  text.
• This option is preferred for a narrator of a
  Bildungsroman (an apprenticeship novel or novel
  of an education like Great Expectations).
• The change in the character is most discernable.
• Consider the following
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

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Limitations of First-Person Participant

• An almost-claustrophobic proximity to one
  character.
• An immediacy to events without an interpretive
  consciousness to filter them.
• No ironic distance for the authoronly for the
  reader, whom the author must rely on to do the
  interpretive work.
• The world view is almost invariably naïve or
  isolatedor even insane (consider the novel
  Losing Nelson).

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A Statement from Daedalus,the Witness

• First-Person-Observer
• Narration

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I said to him, Icarus, my son! Do not fly too
low or the dampness of the waves will weigh down
the feathers do not fly too high, for the sun
will melt the wax, and the wax is already so
fragile. . .

• But he did not listen. Intoxicated with joy, he
  spiraled straight into the eye of the god. Apollo
  was moved to anger. The wax melted. I watched as
  my only child fell to his death. I was unable to
  help him though he cried out, Father!

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First-Person Observer

• Narrative is characterized by the I pronoun.
• The central character is the witness, not the
  principal actor of the story.
• This allows the narrator to attain greater
  critical distance from the events usually, we
  are offered a more mature, thoughtful perspective
  on why as well as how.
• For this reason, we are more inclined to accept
  the Observer as trustworthy.
• This character therefore provides necessary
  middle ground for the readerthis character
  stands in and interprets for us, and we take
  our emotional cues from him or her.

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Advantages of First-Person Observer

• A consciousness separate from the authors or the
  principal actors to filter the events of the
  story to whose thoughts we are privy.
• A credible on-scene witness
• A trustworthy interpreter who offers the reader a
  way to view the meaning of the events.
• Most effective when the main character learns
  from some one elses experience, particularly
  when that some else ends up dead.

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Some Examples of First-Person Observer in Short
Stories

• Marlowe of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The narrator of This Way for the Gas, Ladies and
  Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
• The Lawyer of Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman
  Melville
• The narrator of Sonnys Blues by James Baldwin
• The Town of Jefferson, narrator of A Rose for
  Emily.

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Some Examples of First-Person Observer in Novels

• Nelly Dean of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott
  Fitzgerald
• Jake Barnes of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest
  Hemingway
• Louis of Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
• Tom Wingo of The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

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In each of these pieces, the main character has
survived the cataclysmic events of the story and
delivers a moral judgment

• Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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Limitations of First-Person Observer

• Not as immediate as the Participant.
• Is usually reliable.
• However, can be as suspect as the Participant
  (consider the barber in Ring Lardners
  Haircutas an example of unreliability) if he or
  she does not have the emotional awareness to
  learn from the event.

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If you were Icarus

• Second-Person
• Narration

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You are master of the rushing wind each stroke
of your wings raises you higher than you ever
dreamed. All warnings are ridiculous.You dont
see the world

• the way a god does you are a god, and there is
  no longer any place forbidden to you. But then
  you feel a slow trickle down your arms, down your
  backburning hot. The wing frames tremble they
  loosen. And then the sickening plunge--

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Second-Person Narration

• Narrative voice is presented through the you
  pronoun.
• This voice conjures some of the immediacy of
  First-Person Participant.
• No critical distance exists between the
  characters experience and his or her
  understanding of the event.
• The voice is no more reliable than First-Person
  Participant.

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Advantages of Second-Person Narration

• The same degree of immediacy presented by
  First-Person Participantyou are privy to your
  own thoughts.
• Useful for short, theme-driven pieces
• Ideal scenario for ads and intros.
• Most effective for creating empathy in the reader.

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Some Examples of Second-Person Narration

• Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
• On Being the Target of Discrimination by Ralph
  Ellison
• How to Be A Writer by Lorrie Moore
• Haircut by Ring Lardner (limited to the frame
  device you sit in the chair as a barbershop
  patron)
• The Cask of Amontillado (limited to the second
  paragraph you are Montresors confessor. The
  rest of the story is First-Person Participant)