First Person vs Third Person – The Point of View Conundrum

As I began the newest module’s readings, I found myself struck by confusion as to how I should interpret the stories before me.  It was easy and simple to go forth and state “Ok this one is speaking with the “I” voice so obviously he is in first person; while that one over yonder is most definitely in third person, no “I” about it.” It should have been that simple right?  Not so much. 

Interestingly enough, the conundrum concerning which POV the individual tales would take truly did not begin to unravel for me until after I read Justin McLachlan’s “Deeper PoV.”  He states in his note, at the end of his overview, the following: “It’s not always necessary to write in a deep POV. An intentionally distant third-person narrator is a completely valid creative choice, but deeper POV is a more modern style. It’s can also be a happy medium between distant third and first-person, which is more challenging for novice writers to pull off. You get some of the same emotional benefits for the reader without all the work of maintaining such a distinct voice.”  Finally this made sense – logical and practical sense to my brain.

 I also followed the link given in his article to read Nancy Kress’s “6 Tips to Choosing the Right Point of View.” What I discovered was there is no definitive answer; what may appear to be first person can in truth be third person, such as what takes place in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible.”  Erdrich allows the narrator to speak, and brings the reader along with him, but this is not the narrator’s tale he is bestowing upon you.  Rather he is using his voice to give voice to his brother, and tell the tale of heart ache, brotherly love, anger and even regret.  Erdrich manages to give some intimate details about the narrator, but even then it is always reflective in how these details compare to his brother.

 Erdrich manages to develop the details within this story through the PoV technique as Kress describes in her article “Close Third Person.”   According to Kress “Close third person POV is a lot like first person.  It can have much of the individual flavor of speech, much of the intimate ruminations… but not all.  The reader is still receiving descriptions from the outside rather than being told them directly from the “horse’s mouth.”  This is shown perfectly in the scene where the narrator describes his brother, Henry’s reaction to the color TV he bought for the family: “He sat in front of it, watching it, and that was the only time he was completely still.  But it was the kind of stillness you see in a rabbit when it freezes before it will bolt.  He was not easy.  He sat in his chair gripping the armrests with all his might, as if the chair itself was moving at high speed and if he let go at all he would rocket forward and maybe crash right through the set.” (The Red Convertible, pg. 448, 449)

One last point I would make.  Something I noticed in reading all these stories was a common thread or theme with this modules grouping of tales.  All the stories for this week had the theme of “Death,” whether that death was in the past or present.  The theme of death affected the PoV and how the reader would perceive the information gathered.

References:

Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ninth ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1983. 1773. Print.

"Writing in Deep POV." Justin McLachlan ICal. 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Kress, Nancy. "6 Tips to Choosing the Right Point of View | WritersDigest.com." WritersDigest.com. 11 Mar. 2008. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.