Point of View

 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)