Point of View in Narrative Discourse

AbstractHaving a storyteller is a vital element for any story: a narrative voice, real or implied, that presents the story to the reader. When we talk about narrative voice we are talking about point of view, the method of narration that determines the position, or angle of vision, from which the story is told. The nature of relationship between the narrator and story, the teller and the tale, is always crucial to the art of fiction. It colors and shapes the way in which everything else is presented and perceived, including plot, character, and setting. Alter or change the point of view, and you alter and change the story. The choice of point of view is the choice of who is to tell the story, who talks to the reader. It may be a narrator outside the work (omniscient point of view); a narrator inside the work, telling the story from a limited omniscient or first-person point of view; or apparently no one (dramatic point of view). These basic points of view, and their variations, involve at the extreme a choice between omniscient point of view and a dramatic point of view – a choice that involves, among other things the distance that the author wishes to maintain between the reader and the story and the extent to which the author is willing to involve the reader in its interpretation. However, the question of point of view is as complex and complicated as it is important. A narrative is a form of communication. According to G. Genette, every text discloses traces of narration; all narrative is necessarily telling and showing by making the story real and alive. A story-teller or narrator that is called point of view is present in all verbally told stories. The present paper is based on different pieces of fiction like The Lagoon by J. Joseph Conrad, The Last Tea by D. Parker