First-person creates a sense of
intimacy between readers and the narrator, because we see the world from the
narrator’s point of view or pov. We care about the narrator, so we care about
what is going to happen in the story. First-person is also limiting, since the
readers can know only as much as the narrator. We never get inside other
people’s heads, but must judge the other characters based solely on what the
narrator sees.
There are four distinct types of first-person point of view.
Each viewpoint has its advantages and disadvantages. The most commonly used
first person is first-person central. In this case, the narrator (who is
separate from the author remember) tells his or her own story. It is also the
easiest to master, since we are used to describing events from the “I”
perspective. Many great novels have been written using this pov. Catcher in
the Rye, and Jane Eyre are two good examples.
However, in certain cases, the
intimacy that first-person central offers can be detrimental to your tale. If
your protagonist is a sociopath, a murder or child molester, readers may not
feel comfortable being so close. Lolita
is an example, where the narrator is a murdering, pedophile and Nabokov manages
to make it work. But as a general rule, if a main character is a crazy,
disturbed or unreliable, you should avoid first person central. In Moby
Dick, whale-crazed Captain Ahab is off his
rocker, yet the novel is definitely his story. If Melville chose the captain for
the narrator, all the information we would have received would have come
through a frenetic, disordered mind. A crazy person is unlikely to describe
events or characters with much insight. How does Melville deal with this
problem? He uses first-person peripheral.
In this pov, a peripheral character
tells the story of the protagonist. In Moby Dick we see the captain in all his
frightening insanity through the viewpoint of Ishmael. The Great Gatsby is another example of this technique. Gatsby is the
protagonist. It is his actions that drive the story, but we see events unfold
through the next door neighbor’s eyes. Using Nick as the narrator allows the
readers to see Gatsby much more clearly than we would if the story was from his
point of view. It also allows Gatsby’s history to be much more mysterious. Nick
(and the reader) is forced to put clues together to figure out the truth of
Gatsby, whereas if we were inside Gatsby’s head, we would know from the start
that his real name was James Gatz and he was lying about his background. When
the main character is crazy, unreliable or not particularly articulate,
first-person peripheral allows the writer to create an observant narrator who
can skillfully and intelligently tell the story.
Another type of first-person, less
commonly used, is first-person peripheral plural. In this case the main
character’s story is told by a group of peripheral characters. Falkner’s short
story, “A Rose for Emily” is a celebrated example of this technique. One that
may be more familiar to you is The Virgin Suicides. The story of the Lisbon girls is told collectively
by a group of boys; “That summer we saw the girls…” This pov is difficult to
make plausible and can be hard to maintain for a whole novel, but if done well
can make for an interesting story.
The forth pov is first-person
serial (either central or peripheral). This is when the story moves from one
first-person narrator to another. Often the viewpoints will contradict each
other, forcing the reader to wonder,“what really happened?” Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, both use this technique. If
you need to know a character’s inner workings to understand the story, but
don’t want to be limited to only one person’s head, this is a good technique.
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