First Person Peripheral
It is a first-person narrator who's not the main character.
She gets to give us the lowdown on the juicy dealings of the true protagonists
and antagonists, all while watching from a safe distance.
Ø “We talked together pleasantly on various subjects for an
hour, perhaps, and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining. When
he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately began to ask questions
about various public men, and about Congressional affairs; and I saw very
shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the
ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways and manners,
and customs of procedure of Senators and Representatives in the Chambers of the
national Legislature.”
(Taken
from Cannibalism In The Cars-Mark Twain)
Ø
“My wife took her glass and fixed her frightened eyes on me. Her face
was pale and wore a look of horror.”
(Taken from The Case
Of George Fisher-Mark Twain)
Ø
“Kuputuskan
kembali masuk kelas dan duduk di bangku terdekat Maya sambil menunduk, mencoba
mencari wajah sedih yang ditutupinya. Kucoba bicara lagi. ‘Maya kenapa? Marah
sama Ibukah?’ Sempat terpikir olehku Maya marah padaku karena masalah tulisan
tadi”
(Taken from Indonesia Mengajar-Anis
Baswedan)
Ø “Once upon a mountain top, three little trees stood
and dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up. The first little
tree looked up at the stars and said: " I want to hold treasure. I want to
be covered with gold and filled with precious stones. I'll be the most
beautiful treasure chest in the world!" The second little tree looked out
at the small stream trickling by on it's way to the ocean. " I want to be
traveling mighty waters and carrying powerful kings. I'll be the strongest ship
in the world! The third little tree looked down into the valley below where
busy men and women worked in a busy town. I don't want to leave the mountain
top at all. I want to grow so tall that when people stop to look at me they'll
raise their eyes to heaven and think of God. I will be the tallest tree in the
world.”
(Taken from The Three Trees short story)
Ø “Di akhir lagu suara gong menggelegar memenuhi ruangan.
Sesaat suara itu mengingatkan ambisiku untuk memiliki satu anak lagi. Rencana
akan kuberi nama “Gong”.
(Taken from Bonang short story page:35)
Ø “Belakangan saya
khawatir kalau paceklik ini adalah kutukan. Leluhur kita mungkin marah karena
para pemimpin bangsa ini yang semestinya mensejahterakan rakyat justru tak bisa
berbuat apa-apa”.
(Taken from Bonang short story page :37)
Ø “Aku takut jika
baoak semakin sibuk bersama teman-teman pergerakan, lalu melupakanku dan
anak-anak”.
(Taken from Bonang short story page :85)
Ø “Kalau kau mau
ambil keluargaku, kenapa tidak aku sekalian? Biar aku mati sekalian!”
(Taken from Bonang short story page :270)
First Person Central
This perspective
is told from the p.o.v. of the main character. It allows the author to bring
the reader closer to the character, and create more sympathy for the
character’s struggle.
Ø
“I remember my wife and I saw the New Year in. We sat at table,
chewed lazily, and heard the deaf telegraph clerk monotonously tapping on his
apparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of drugged vodka,
and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my overpowering boredom from
which there was no escape, while my wife sat beside me and did not take her
eyes off me. She looked at me as no one can look but a woman who has nothing in
this world but a handsome husband. She loved me madly, slavishly, and not
merely my good looks, or my soul, but my sins, my ill-humor and boredom, and
even my cruelty when, in drunken fury, not knowing how to vent my ill-humor, I
tormented her with reproaches.”
(Taken
from Champagne - Anton Chekhov's)
Ø
“I had been
looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty thousand miles, almost
entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled over twenty-five thousand miles,
half by sea and half by rail; and the year before that I traveled in the
neighborhood of ten thousand miles, exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in
all the little odd journeys here and there, I may say I have traveled sixty
thousand miles during the three years I have mentioned. AND NEVER AN ACCIDENT.”
(Taken from The Danger of Lying in Bed-Mark Twain)
Ø
“In spite of the boredom which was consuming me, we were preparing to
see the New Year in with exceptional festiveness, and were awaiting midnight
with some impatience. The fact is, we had in reserve two bottles of champagne,
the real thing, with the label of Veuve Clicquot; this treasure I had won the
previous autumn in a bet with the station-master of D. when I was drinking with
him at a christening. It sometimes happens during a lesson in mathematics, when
the very air is still with boredom, a butterfly flutters into the class-room;
the boys toss their heads and begin watching its flight with interest, as
though they saw before them not a butterfly but something new and strange; in
the same way ordinary champagne, chancing to come into our dreary station,
roused us. We sat in silence looking alternately at the clock and at the
bottles.”
(Taken
from Champagne - Anton Chekhov's)
Ø “Every day I see stuff so disgusting
it'd make your head spin. And man, does it ever stink! But then me and the guys
I work with come along, grab the slimy, stinking garbage and throw it in the
truck. The truck's a big green monster who growls and gulps nasty garbage. Then
everything's nice and clean, the way we like it. And when I get home, I take a
long hot shower so I'm clean as the day I was born. I like my job, Jodie. And I
like the people I work with, too.”
(Taken
from Jodie’s Daddy is Garbageman!- Matthew Lincht)
Third Person Omniscient
It may appear to a writer as the simplest means of telling a
story, because the reader can know the thoughts of all the characters and
therefore the writer can take the reader to any scene in the story and reveal
as much – or as little – of the story as needed.
Ø “Let’s do it
from here,” said one. “No,” said the other. “Up a bit higher. They made such a
fuss about that last one we let fall on the rocks that we better get the Mad
Priest far out to sea.” At these words, Edmond’s heart started pounding even
faster. He was not to be buried in the earth, but in water. The sea was the
cemetery of the Chateau d’If!
(Taken from The Count of Monte Cristo novel by Alexandre
Dumas page 71)
Ø “They might
have, if they’d have gotten ye afore that bastard married ye!” she spat out.
She clucked her tongue, feeling rather good about having miraculously gotten
the upper hand in the confrontation she had so dreaded. Reaching into the
reticule that was still tied to her wrist, she took out a handful of money.
(Taken from chapter thirty-eight of the Tender Rebel
novel by Johanna Lindsey page 331)
Ø “A witch’s
brew, no doubt!” said Emily, ordering the contents of the cauldron poured out.
“She’s in charge here
now, Tawn, and you’ll obey me-or go to the fields!” “Yessum,” Tawn muttered,
with no touch of servility in her low, languid voice. She was a handsome
bronze-skinned woman, tall and stately, her features more Arab than Negroid.
Tawn had unusual oblong eyes, and she wore her thick brown hair in a massive
bun like a crown. She and obah would have made a magnificient pair, and it was
of her lover that Tawn thought now, glowering her resentment at her mistress,
remembering the twenty lashes Emily’s son had caused to be laid on Obah’s
smooth black back, stripping him like a tiger.
(Taken from chapter 21 of the Mystic Rose novel by
Patricia Gallagher page 197)
Ø “It is s
terrible thing,” he said. “The ternants are paying their rent twice over-once
to the king and once to their laird. It is wonderful where they find the money,
because they live on the edge of starvation. But they are partly forced to do
so. James of the Glens is half-brother to their chief, and he drives them hard.
Then theer is another they call Alan Breck-a bold, desperate man and the right
hand man of James of the Glens”. He is an oulaw alreday and would stop at
nothing. If a tenant were slow to pay he might get a dirk in his back.
(Taken from chapter X of the Kidnapped novel by Robert
Louis Stevenson page 72)
Ø Winterbourne
was silent a moment. “She tells me she does,” he answered at last, not knowing
what to say. Miss Daisy Miller stopped, and stood looking at him. Her
prettiness was still visible in the darkness, she was opening and closing her
enormous fan.
(Taken from chapter 1 of the Daisy Miller novel by Henry
James page 17)
Ø “Everybody in the class laughed out
loud. Everybody except Jodie, that is. She felt her face turn bright red. She
looked around the whole classroom. Everyone was laughing. Some kids were even
holding their noses.”
(Taken
from Jodie’s daddy is garbageman ! – Mathew Licht)
Ø “There was a light rain outside and
Madeleine wanted to throw open her two little windows to her small apartment
space and let the warm mist fill the room. But the noise from the traffic
would've been too much, and she was worried for the bird. As it was, the hiss
of the scratchy needle was barely audible. She crouched down beside the heating
vent to listen. The music was low and tired. Something like Billie Holiday. It
was Billie Holiday, but for the two weeks she had looked, she hadn't been able
to find it in any of the record shops. She leaned against her raggedy old
reading chair and stared at the stack of books and odd art supplies next to
her. Too much time spent inside reading and dreaming, she worried.”
(Taken
from Madeleine Rain – Jesse Miller)
Ø “At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she
ought to do. She still loves her Breckinridge, she writes, with truly womanly
feeling--she still loves what is left of him but her parents are bitterly
opposed to the match, because he has no property and is disabled from working,
and she has not sufficient means to support both comfortably. "Now, what
should she do?" she asked with painful and anxious solicitude.”
(Taken from Aurelia's Unfortunate
Young Man – Mark Twain)
Third Person Limited
The
writer can only access the thoughts and feelings of one character. The
writer stays by the side of this character, so the story is limited to this one
person’s experiences, and the narrator tells the story through this one
character’s eyes and mind.
Ø Edmond swear to tell no one, he agreed eagerly. If
anyone questions him, he will deny such a letter ever existed. Now he must
detain you a short while longer until he has written a report,” said Villefort,
as an afterthought. He rang for the captain of the guards, and then said
something to him in a low tone of voice so Edmond could not hear. To Edmond he
said, “Go with him, Dantes.”
(Taken from The Count of Monte Cristo novel by
Alexandre Dumas page 33)
Ø “You are personable,” she continued. “And charming.
There’s no denying that. And she’s sure they can del well with each other. But because there’s
no love involved, you’re not commited. Neither is she, for that matter, though she’s the one in desperate need of a husband. In your
case, however, it would be unrealistic of her to expect you to be completely faithful to your
vows, don’t you see? And so she’s not asking you
to be. What we will have is a business arrangement, a marriage of convenience,
if you like. Trust isn’t required.”
(Taken from chapter twenty of Tender Rebel
novel by Johanna Lindsey page 183)
Ø “You look very nice, Mauma,” Star complimented. “But
you must stop giggling like a silly schoolgirl, lest Captain Stewart think you
don’t appreciate his gift. That’s a most expensive creation, probably designed
for some royal or noble lady to wear to a court affair.” “Balck poplin uniform
with white apron be more proper and comfortable,” Mauma surmished, “and maybe a
fresh starched white tignon, ‘stead of this fancy head gear.” It’s just egret
feathers dyed to match the costume that Mauma perfect with it.
(Taken from chapter 36 of the Mystic Rose novel by
Patricia Gallagher page 332)
Ø “Sit down!” shouted the captain. “You drunken fool!
Do you know what you have done? You have murdered the boy!” Mr. Shuan seemed to
understand for he sat down again. “Well”, he said, “he brought me a dirty cup.”
Then the captain took his chief mate by the arm and told him to lie down and go
to sleep, just as one might talk to a bad child.
(Taken from chapter VI of the Kidnapped novel by
Robert Louis Stevenson page 45)
Ø “The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As
to what happens further, you must apply elsewhere for information. She has
picked up half a dozen of the regular Roman fortune-hunters, and she takes them
about to people’s houses”. When she comes to a party she brings with her
gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache.
(Taken from chapter 2 of the Daisy Miller novel by
Henry James page 28)
Ø “Jodie looked at her father. He
didn't seem angry, hurt or sad. His big white teeth gleamed under his walrus
moustache. "Well then," he said. "He guess those kids just don't
know how much fun it is to be a garbageman.”
(Taken
from Jodie’s daddy is garbageman ! – Mathew Licht)
Ø “This Anselmo had been a good guide and he could
travel wonderfully in the mountains. Robert Jordan Jordan could well enough
himself and he knew from following him since before daylight that the old man
could walk him to death. Robert Jordan trusted the man, Anselmo, so far, in everything
except judgement. He had not yet had an opportunity to test his judgment, and,
anyway, the judgement was his own responsibility.”
(Taken from the novel For Whom The Bell Tolls by
Ernest Hemingway)
Ø It was December—a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in
the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a
path through the pinewoods. Her name was
Phoenix Jackson. She was very
old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side
to side in her steps, with the balanced
heaviness and lightness
of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and
with this she kept tapping the frozen
earth in front of her.
This made a grave and persistent noise in the still air
that seemed meditative, like the chirping
of a solitary little
bird.
(Taken from A Worn Path by Endora Welty
short story)
