Every epic text has a narrator, a voice that tells the reader the story. This narrator can take very different positions, so change the perspective from which it is told. Thus the narrative perspective is the view from which a literary work is narrated. We distinguish between four different narrative perspectives: auctorial, personal, neutral as well as the special form of the I narrative.
All narrative perspectives have different effects and give a different impression of the overall situation of the literary work. At the same time, we decide how much we can know about the plot and the different characters of a story. As a result, the chosen narrative perspective can significantly influence our reading experience and thus control it.
We can recognize the narrative perspective by asking the text, “Who tells the story?” And “What can the narrator actually know?”. We get an answer to these questions, which makes the classification into our narrative model very simple.
Note: In this article, we would like to introduce you to the various narrative perspectives and explain by way of examples what the peculiarities of the respective perspective are. We would also like to show you how the chosen methodology can influence the reader.
Overview of the narrative perspectives
Basically, the individual orphanages are differentiated, who tells the story and what this person knows about the protagonists of the narrative.
If we ask what the narrator knows, there are actually only three possible answers. Either the narrator knows everything about the actors or he knows it only from one or more persons or he knows nothing and can only look at a situation from the outside.
Note: It is important that stories are not told all the time from the same narrative perspective. Sometimes the position changes, which the narrator assumes in the course of the action. This means that we have to look closely and do not have to set ourselves up after a passage.
Auctorial narrative perspective
The authorial narrator has an all-knowing narrative perspective and an unrestricted top view of the happenings. He knows all about the acting figures in a work.
This feature makes it possible for the authorial narrator to point out connections between the protagonists and deuteragonists as well as all other characters of the story. In addition, it is possible for him to tell the story in flashbacks or anticipations.
This perspective is almost divine and therefore omniscient. Nevertheless, one should not make the mistake of equating the authorial narrator with the author of a story. The author is the originator of the narrator, but not the same person.
Note: The authorial narrator evaluates and comments on the story, he knows more than the characters who act in history and can report on what they think and feel. In addition, he can anticipate events or explain the background of the action in the flashbacks. This narrator looks with the reader from the outside on the narrated story (external perspective).
Personal narrator
The personal narrator does not know everything. He describes the whole from the perspective of a single or several figures of the text and does not comment on the event.
Here, the narrator slips into one of the roles of the work and portrays their impressions of the happenings. He uses the personal pronouns He and She or the names of the acting characters. However, the grammatical ego form is not used, which makes an ego narrator.
Consequently, the personal narrator can only know what the character from whose point of view is told. All other things or backgrounds about other roles can not be conveyed to a reader. Only if the figure of the text itself meets it. As a result, the personal narrator can not use the narrating or anticipation of narrative. The reader only learns it when the figure itself talks about it or remembers the past.
Note: The personal narrator does not evaluate and comment on the story. Thus, the reader is not controlled by the narrator’s comments, but takes the story from the perspective of one or more figures (inner perspective).
Personal narrator in “The Process” (Franz Kafka)
See the example above
A neutral narrator
A neutral narrator does not tell a story from the perspective of a character or comment on the event. It only describes what is externally perceptible. Imagine a movie without sound, it resembles the narrative perspective, which only registers externally.
According to this, the narrator withdraws completely from the world of figures. He does not intervene as an authorial narrator, commenting on the narrative or taking the perspective of one or more figures. Rather it is described how the figures act and act.
Thus, we are able to characterize this narrative behavior very often in scenic representations and thus in dramatic texts, which mainly show what the individual figures say and thus advance through history through dialogues or even monologues.
Note: This narrative behavior is most frequently attributed to pure dialogues, since it is easy to recognize the neutral, thus non-evaluative or commenting, narrative perspective. The neutral narrator thus gives us only a glimpse at what is happening or reports on how the characters act and neither evaluate nor comment on the happenings.
A neutral narrator in “Effi Briest” (Theodor Fontane)
See the example above
Narrator
The self-narrator takes a special position. He tells the story from the I-form, but can have characteristics of the other narrative perspectives.
What is meant by the concept of the ego narrator is the view of the things from the first person singular (eg, the grammatically narrative voices in the form of an ego). The narrator of the narrator can thus only tell what the ego of history experiences, sees and thinks. Not to be confused is the narrative behavior with the voice in lyrical works. This is called a lyric self.
Thus, there is no narrator who evaluates or comments on the external figures. The reader sees the narrated world from the eyes of the narrator, who can, of course, evaluate actions and figures, but is limited to what he himself knows.
It is interesting that the narrator of the ego can take personal and auctorial perspectives. We distinguish between experiencing and narrative self. The narrative I can tell a story retrospectively and thus be omniscient in relation to history. The personal I is experiencing the story itself and can thus only know what it is or is experiencing at the moment.
Note: In principle, this narrative perspective is recognizable by the fact that an ego tells the story. If it is narrated in hindsight, this perspective may have auctorial features, since the ego knows more than the reader. However, if the story happens directly, there is no advance in knowledge.
I-narrator in “The Iron Train” (Thomas Mann)
See the example above
Changing narrative perspective
So far, the various narrative perspectives that can be encountered in epic or dramatic works have been presented. Many works focus on a single narrative perspective. However, there are also exceptions, so the narrative perspective can change.
This means that the narrative situation is altered within the work. Thus the story can be told by different narrator-narrators, but also a change between the other perspectives is quite possible and is demonstrable in the literature. Above all, we find such changes in perspective in modern literature, which occasionally dares to break up the narrative schema (cf. Literaturepochen).
A good example is the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin. In this work there is an ever-changing narrative perspective that tries to present the diversity of life authentically.
“Det just want to know, Franz, you’re very fond of her.”
“Well, you already hear about the powers and the nonsense.”
“Just ask me. That can not bite you. ”
This excerpt from Berlin Alexanderplatz would allow us to conclude, for example, a neutral narrator, who presents us a pure dialogue form and does not interfere with the figure world. However, we also find such passages:
Here, everyone who has read so far, sees which turn has come:
the turn to the rear, and it is finished at Franz.
The narrator is by no means neutral. He even turns directly to the reader and, in this case, he sees himself as an authorial narrator. The narrative perspective is therefore changing in the novel and adapts to different narrative situations.
The most important to the narrative perspective in the overview
The narrative perspective is the view of the world of figures that a reader can take when he reads an epic or dramatic work. Thus, the narrative perspective is the way we see the characters in the literary work and set the boundaries what we can see.
Basically, one differentiates between four different narrative perspectives. The auctorial (omniscient), personal (he / she perspective), neutral (without clear narrative) and the narrator. All four give us a different perspective on the story.
However, the narrative perspective in a work can be quite changeable. A too fast change can confuse the reader. Very often, we find the changing narrative perspective in modern literature, which wants to break up the well-known scheme of the narrative ordering and commenting → literary genres, literary poems.