Recently we've been studying about different point of view in English II. There are basically three catogory of point of view-first person point of view, third person limited point of view, third person omniscience point of view, and objective point of view. After learning about these different point of view the readers are more likely to see who's perceptive are they reading from and how accorate it's. We even read and watch in class, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, as an example to demonstrate how these point of view works. So now I'm going to break down different examples that occured inside the story's video to help explain these different point of view.
1. First person point of view
From this point of view,
the narrator participate inside the story as one of the characther, using
"I" and
"me" to express thier
feelings and thoughts. But this recounting from the narrotor
might not be the objective truth, it could be a lie from them since
it's what they "think" from their own perspective.
Ex: Inside the story, the main charactor got a rope tied around his neck and was ready to be killed, but luckily, he escaped and start singing and praising, saying, "I am living..., a living man..., I want to be a living man!" It seems like from his point of view he has escaped from death and is living now, but in reality, we really don't know is this true or not, and that's how it works with first person point of view.
2. Objective point of View
From this point of view,
the narrator does not participate in the action nor did they get inside one of the character's brain. They just
simpliy look at the whole sotry from the outside, like it's
through a video camera and
say according to what they see and hear.
Ex: Inside the story after the man escape, the background music starts to play. We can hear a man singing, "He moves around, he turns around, the birds fly and creatures are moving and living around this world." We can see from these lyrics that the narrator is decribing the action and looking of the whole scene, he did not talk about their thoughts or feeling, but just simpliy what it will look like from a video camera.
3. Third person Limited Point of View
Like the name, this point of view
limited the narrator inside one character's brain.
They did not participate inside the story or control the whole story,
they just say the action, thinking and feelings of the character. It's like they are inside the person's brain
to tell the reader what happened.
Ex: Inside the story where we see the first imagination of the character of his wife and kids, we hear him calling his wife's name, "Hebe, Hebe, Hebe...", as the clock ticks slowly. It may not be as clear because it does not use any he or she to explain the character's action, but we can see it as he call out his wife's name. From this narrating we can see only what the main character is thinking (his wife), doing (calling her name), and feeling (time was slow because he can hear his watch ticking).
4. Third Person Omniscient Point of View
Similar to the third person limited point of view, this narrates from a third person's point of view without participating or controling the story. The only difference is that from this point of view
the reader can see the whole action, thinking, and feeling of all the characters instead of just one.
Ex: At the every end of the story we finally hear the narrator talking directly about the whole story. He said, "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, in two forms, as it was dream, as it was live and die, this is a stuff of fantasy and a threat of imagination." Now everything is clear to the audience, the whole "story" in the middle is just an imagination of the man. He did not escape, he just thought of all the escaping plan because the time is moving too slow (for him).
This is a great fantasy story as we see the narrotor jumping from different point of view when he was telling the story. It's just amazing how Ambrose Bierce led the reader into thinking that all these imaginations of the main character is real, and it's only until the last paragraph of the story we realize this shocking truth of the who story...it's all fanstasy.
