Is your chosen writer using a third person
open narrator or is it a restricted narrator? Is the narrative voice in the third
person? Consider the impact and
influence these narrators have on the text you are studying. What advantages
are there in reading the text from this perspective? What has the narrator
chosen to write about and what have they omitted to write on.
Dubliners by James Joyce uses a third person restricted narrator in the short story Eveline. The main character is written about in the third person however the narrative perspective is taken from the main character's point of view. The narrative adopts the concerns and the language she uses. Sometimes we read her thoughts directly.
Here are a couple of examples from Eveline.
'The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct.'
'Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice.'
The first quotation consists of two simple declarative sentences that describe the evening progressing and how this makes things difficult to see. The narrator appears objective, describing a scene. The verbs 'deepened' and 'grew' are used to communicate a visual image for the reader. And the two contrasting concrete nouns 'avenue' and 'lap' help emphasise Eveline's paralysis.
In the second quotation Joyce selects the material carefully to reflect Eveline's concerns. The narrator notices 'Her father was becoming old lately.' The verb 'becoming' and the adverb 'lately' are used to present the father as an object of sympathy. Joyce also uses the modal verb 'sometimes' to soften the cruelty of Eveline's father. In this we are aware that the narrative perspective is no longer objective but reflects Eveline's point of view.
