From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: High-school classification of works of fiction
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 17:39:10 GMT

In article <15hthbINN57o@agate.berkeley.edu> ted@physics.berkeley.edu (Emory F. Bunn) writes:
>When I was in high school, my teachers classified works of fiction
>according to the identity of the narrator:  A work was in the "first person"
>if the narrator was a character in the work, and in the "third person" 
>otherwise.  (Second-person narratives were never mentioned, although at
>least a few such works exist.)  Third-person narratives were further
>subdivided according to the ability of the narrator to see into the
>thoughts of the characters.  The term "third person omniscient" referred
>to a narrator who could describe the thoughts of all characters.  I
>believe that the term "third person limited omniscient" was used to
>describe works in which the narrator only described the thoughts of some
>of the characters.  I have several questions about this practice:

>   (a) Is this scheme in widespread use?

Variations of it are indeed used to describe narratives.

>   (b) Doesn't it seem odd that the people who taught us not to say
>       "more unique" used terms like "limited omniscient"?

Well, they can't be wrong *all* the time, can they?  ("More unique" is
simply an extension of the hyperbolic use of "unique" to mean
"unusual".)  "Limited omniscient" *sounds* funny until you realize that
it has the traces of the evolution of the classification system in it.
"Omniscient" doesn't really mean "knowing everything," when we speak of
narratives -- it means, "knowing the thoughts of characters other than
oneself, and knowing what was going on in two places at once without
having been in both or gone to much trouble to find out."  

>   (c) What is the term used to describe a story in which the narrator
>       has no knowledge of the character's thoughts?  ("Objective"
>       comes to mind.)

Behaviorist?  8-)

>   (d) Why is the introduction of such unenlightening classification
>       schemes so prevalent in high-school pedagogy?  (Or maybe it isn't
>       prevalent; maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.)

Or maybe it isn't unenlightening.  One of the first things one should do
when thinking about a story one's read or been told is to ask, "who did
the telling, and how did they know?" (OK, it's one of the first things
*I* do.  It's also a step on the path to healthy skepticism; chain
letters, for instance, tend to look very foolish as soon as one asks
this sort of question.)  In any case, lots of books have interesting
interplay between the narrator's voice and the narration; some books
depend on it.  In some books, the narrator loses track of what's going
on.  (Consider the end of _The Name of the Rose_, for instance.  Adso
doesn't know what's going on anymore.  Or *does* he?)

Mystery stories depend heavily on "limited omniscience."  We often know
what this or that character is thinking, especially the detective and
the victim; but at the end, the murderer has to *tell* us what happened,
or why--unless the detective pieces it together after the villain has
been killed or something.  Whether the villain is insane or not also
affects what thughts we may become privy to.

Roger
>
>By the way, my intent in asking that final question is definitely NOT
>to start another endless discussion of the inadequacies of our 
>educational institutions.
>
>-Ted
>(ted@physics.berkeley.edu)


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