Points of View in Literature - By Warner JordanEducation
00:01 | Yeah , along right . Welcome to our podcast on | |
00:10 | point of view , Pretty important literary turns number one | |
00:13 | of the many that we're going to be looking at | |
00:15 | this year . Let's go ahead and get right into | |
00:17 | it . All right , So what is point of | |
00:19 | view ? Point of view is basically the perspective from | |
00:22 | which the story is told . Basically , we have | |
00:25 | to find out who is telling this story is this | |
00:28 | somebody who is in the story may be one of | |
00:30 | the characters . Is this some sort of outside narrator | |
00:34 | , a narrator who might know everything that's going on | |
00:37 | and be able to share that with us as the | |
00:39 | audience ? Or perhaps they are a narrator who only | |
00:42 | knows a couple things and chooses to keep those more | |
00:45 | secret . Point of view is the perspective that the | |
00:48 | story is being told from point of view is important | |
00:51 | because it lets us know who is telling the story | |
00:53 | and at the literal level that's somewhat important . We | |
00:56 | want to find out who that person is , but | |
00:58 | we also want to be looking at that interpretive level | |
01:01 | and thinking . Does this narrator know enough to tell | |
01:05 | us the story ? Do they remember things wrong ? | |
01:09 | Do they embellish ? Are they reliable ? Are they | |
01:12 | not reliable ? And so the first part is we | |
01:16 | need to identify who is talking . Is it somebody | |
01:18 | within the story , or is it some sort of | |
01:20 | narrator outside of that story ? And then we need | |
01:22 | to start looking at What is there bias ? What | |
01:25 | is their perspective ? And how might their perspective vary | |
01:29 | from the absolute truth ? The biggest thing for us | |
01:32 | to be looking at in terms of point of view | |
01:35 | is that narrators reliability . Should we believe him or | |
01:39 | her ? Can we ? Sometimes we get these narrators | |
01:43 | who are too young , maybe too old , maybe | |
01:47 | have proven themselves to be forgetful . Or perhaps they | |
01:50 | are embellishing to make themselves look good as a character | |
01:53 | . And so we have to look at that and | |
01:55 | say What exact who exactly , is telling this story | |
01:58 | ? And then what do we need to sift through | |
02:01 | in terms of their own bias to get at the | |
02:03 | root of the story ? Ah , first example toe | |
02:05 | look at point of view might be the short story | |
02:08 | by Edgar Allan Poe called the Tell Tale Heart . | |
02:11 | Take a look at some of the early narration here | |
02:14 | and start asking yourself who is telling the story ? | |
02:17 | And should we be on guard in terms off taking | |
02:20 | him as a reliable narrator ? Or perhaps he's a | |
02:24 | little bit unreliable . Very , very dreadfully nervous . | |
02:28 | But why would you say that ? I'm mad ? | |
02:31 | Uh , see how calmly how precisely . Aiken , | |
02:36 | tell the story to you . Listen , it starts | |
02:41 | with the old man . A no old man in | |
02:44 | an old house . A good man . I suppose | |
02:46 | he had never harmed me . I didn't want his | |
02:48 | gold . If gold there Waas , then what ? | |
02:51 | Wasit ? I think I think it was his I | |
02:58 | Yes , but I the i that his eyes staring | |
03:04 | milky white film three i everywhere , everywhere in everything | |
03:11 | . Of course , I had to get rid of | |
03:13 | the I . So what do we do ? We | |
03:16 | need to see which character or narrator is telling the | |
03:20 | story . One way to do that is to look | |
03:22 | at the pronouns that are being used . Ah , | |
03:24 | first person pronouns going to use things like I me | |
03:27 | , my you know all of those first person pronouns | |
03:30 | because that character is in the story and then telling | |
03:33 | it from his or her perspective . Another way to | |
03:36 | look at it is who's perspective is most obvious . | |
03:40 | For example , in movies , sometimes we follow on | |
03:43 | Lee one character , the camera seems toe linger on | |
03:46 | them . It seems to show from their perspective , | |
03:49 | they seem to see the world from a unique point | |
03:52 | of view . Therefore , the story is being told | |
03:55 | through their point of view , and so we want | |
03:59 | to make sure that we're able to discern whose angle | |
04:02 | is the most pronounced when determining point of view . | |
04:06 | So let's look at the three point of view perspective | |
04:10 | . The first one is the idea of first person | |
04:12 | point of view . The story is being told by | |
04:14 | a character in the story . We're going to see | |
04:16 | those first person pronouns , and then we're going to | |
04:19 | see that speakers perspective . An example that we've had | |
04:22 | so far is to kill a Mockingbird . The story | |
04:25 | is told through Scout's perspective , and when we start | |
04:28 | to look at that in terms of reliability , we | |
04:31 | have to question can the young scout be accurate in | |
04:35 | her remembering of what has happened ? Even though the | |
04:38 | whole story is told by scout after the fact , | |
04:42 | we then have to question , can she remember accurately | |
04:46 | if this happened in her childhood , and scout has | |
04:49 | now aged . Might things have been mistaken ? Now | |
04:53 | that scout has aged . She's truly telling the story | |
04:56 | . But might she have for gotten things ? Might | |
04:59 | she get some details wrong ? Might she embellished to | |
05:02 | make certain people look good and other people look bad | |
05:05 | ? Those were all things that we get to play | |
05:07 | with in our mind and start to question about when | |
05:09 | we're looking at a first person . Narrator We want | |
05:12 | to make sure that we're looking at the narrator and | |
05:15 | term inning . If he or she is reliable , | |
05:18 | should we believe him or her ? And if we | |
05:20 | choose not Thio , why is there something about them | |
05:24 | that makes them unreliable ? And then , if we | |
05:28 | are choosing to see them as unreliable , what does | |
05:31 | that do to the story ? Which things might be | |
05:34 | confused , Which things might be off kilter ? Those | |
05:37 | were things that we should be paying attention to . | |
05:39 | We mentioned this before , but Scout is a first | |
05:43 | person narrator and we do need the question is someone | |
05:46 | that is telling the story from flashback or who is | |
05:49 | experiencing the story as a young girl ? Does she | |
05:52 | have all the details , right ? And might the | |
05:55 | truth of that story be a little manipulated ? Go | |
05:59 | back to the tell tale heart that we looked at | |
06:00 | before the story is told by the young man who | |
06:04 | is in this story . But see what he says | |
06:07 | . Does he paint a picture of a very reliable | |
06:09 | narrator ? Might there be some things we want to | |
06:12 | believe , but also some things we should not as | |
06:15 | readers , we need to identify where the narrator is | |
06:18 | . But then also , is this person reliable or | |
06:21 | not ? Looking at the text of Forrest Gump ? | |
06:24 | Forrest Gump tells his own story while he's sitting on | |
06:28 | that bench waiting for the bus . Is there any | |
06:31 | reason we should doubt the accuracy of his life story | |
06:35 | , even though he's telling it , See what kind | |
06:37 | of clues the filmmaker gives us to potentially have us | |
06:41 | question his reliability ? Another part of point of view | |
06:45 | is what we call the third person limited point of | |
06:48 | view . This is basically that the story is told | |
06:51 | by an outside narrator You're going to see pronouns from | |
06:54 | that third person category . He she , they etcetera | |
06:58 | , this narrator , somebody watching from the outside and | |
07:01 | then telling the story from there . If they are | |
07:04 | a limited third person narrator , that means that they | |
07:07 | can know the thoughts and feelings of one character . | |
07:10 | Most likely , that's going to be the main character | |
07:14 | , the protagonist . They're going to tell the story | |
07:17 | through that person's point of view . There are always | |
07:20 | those times , though , where a narrator may seek | |
07:24 | to tell the story from a different perspective and kind | |
07:27 | of follow one other character . If the narrator does | |
07:30 | follow some sort of minor character that creates all kinds | |
07:33 | of issues for us in terms of what he or | |
07:36 | she is privy to , what does that minor character | |
07:39 | see ? What do they not ? And are they | |
07:42 | being able to tell us the most reliable story here | |
07:45 | again ? We need to go back to the idea | |
07:47 | of that narrator being reliable . What might they not | |
07:51 | see happening ? If a narrator is limited , they | |
07:55 | can Onley get inside the brain of one character . | |
07:58 | What if they misinterpret what another character is thinking ? | |
08:02 | What if they don't understand what's happening behind a closed | |
08:06 | door ? Those were all kinds of things that a | |
08:08 | third person limited narrator might have problems with , And | |
08:12 | so we , as readers need to decide . Should | |
08:15 | we believe this narrator or should we question him or | |
08:18 | her ? The third point of view that we would | |
08:20 | look at is what we call third person omniscient again | |
08:24 | . This is told by an outside narrator We're going | |
08:26 | to see the pronouns in the third person . He | |
08:28 | she etcetera . So what makes a third person omniscient | |
08:32 | narrator different from a third person limited Narrator is the | |
08:36 | idea that an omniscient narrator knows the thoughts and feelings | |
08:40 | of two or more characters . They might know the | |
08:43 | thoughts and feelings of every single character , and that | |
08:46 | provides a very open book for us . As readers | |
08:49 | , we are able to see what everybody is thinking | |
08:52 | . It's very difficult to have any hidden secrets things | |
08:55 | like that because the narrator can choose to share every | |
08:59 | single thing at the same time . We also have | |
09:03 | to be paying attention to when the narrator is choosing | |
09:05 | not to share certain things with us , even though | |
09:09 | as an omniscient narrator he or she could . So | |
09:12 | we want to be paying attention to how maney thoughts | |
09:15 | and feelings can this narrator no . And how Maney | |
09:19 | is he or she is sharing with us as an | |
09:21 | audience . We kind of mentioned this already , but | |
09:24 | the narrator's outside . Should we believe him or her | |
09:28 | ? What happens if a nom Nisshin narrator starts out | |
09:31 | the story telling us everything about everybody , but then | |
09:35 | chooses to not reveal a certain point ? Might that | |
09:38 | hidden point come back later ? Might that serve as | |
09:41 | foreshadowing ? Might that serve as some sort of red | |
09:44 | flag for us to be paying attention all of a | |
09:46 | sudden that this narrator has chosen his or her mind | |
09:50 | to not reveal everything again ? The point is we | |
09:54 | want to check the reliability of the narrator as that | |
09:58 | is our access point into the story . And so | |
10:00 | we need to be paying attention to what he or | |
10:02 | she is giving us . So in some point of | |
10:06 | view , is the perspective from which the story is | |
10:08 | told . We have the three major ones we have | |
10:10 | . First person where they carry the narrator is in | |
10:13 | the story Third Person Limited , where the narrator is | |
10:17 | outside of the story and knows the thoughts and feelings | |
10:20 | of probably just the main character . And then we | |
10:23 | also have third person omniscient where the narrator is again | |
10:26 | outside the story , but seems to know the thoughts | |
10:29 | and feelings of two or more . Perhaps all of | |
10:32 | the characters . And the biggest thing with all of | |
10:35 | these is still examine the idea of reliability . Is | |
10:39 | the narrator telling us an objective story , or is | |
10:42 | he or she putting a slant on it ? A | |
10:44 | bias of perspective . We need toe look at that | |
10:47 | and then potentially questioning because , as the point of | |
10:52 | view is revealed , that can help us get to | |
10:55 | , as always , the deeper theme off this novel | |
10:58 | . What does it mean when the narrator chooses not | |
11:02 | to reveal certain things ? What does it mean when | |
11:04 | the narrator does reveal everything ? These are the important | |
11:08 | things that we need to examine when we're looking at | |
11:10 | point of view . As always . Thanks for listening | |
11:13 | . Please bring any questions and notes . You have | |
11:15 | to class . We'll go ahead and take a look | |
11:17 | at those . Answer any questions we can and then | |
11:19 | start practicing right away . Thanks a lot . We'll | |
11:22 | see you soon . |
DESCRIPTION:
The point of view of a text and the perspective and reliability of a narrator can play a large role in understanding a text and that text's theme. Explore first person, third person - limited, and third person-omniscient narrators and how those influence texts.
OVERVIEW:
Points of View in Literature is a free educational video by Warner JordanEducation.It helps students in grades 4 practice the following standards RL.4.6.
This page not only allows students and teachers view Points of View in Literature but also find engaging Sample Questions, Apps, Pins, Worksheets, Books related to the following topics.
1. RL.4.6 : Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations..