Point of View

[Philip Nel]

No: HPFGUIDX 30889

Dear all:

I'd like to second Cornflower O'Shea's comments: Rowling may limit "internal observations almost entirely to
Harry," but we do in fact get more than one point of view.

So, then, Joshua Dyal's comments about chapter 1 of _Goblet of Fire_ are incorrect. Responding to Calypso, he
writes:

> > Actually, the first chapter of GoF *is* sort of in Harry's PoV...He
> dreamed
> > that entire scene. It is unclear as to how much is what Harry saw
> (dreamt) and
> > how much, if any, is a different perspective
> >
> > Calypso
>
> No, it was definately in Frank Bryce's POV.  The whole device with
> Harry later dreaming it (and not evening knowing who the old man was)
> was just a convenient (and frankly, rather forced) conversion back to
> the standard Harry POV that we've seen previously.  I still think
> that doing this was a transitional stage: it now makes sense for the
> POV to have other shifts as the books go on.

We first get the viewpoint of the villagers of Little Hangleton -- indeed if I had to name this viewpoint (which
is itself several viewpoints), I would call it "local gossip."  Just as Rumour in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II
introduces the theme of rumor and gossip into that play, so this opening chapter introduces the gossip theme in
_Goblet of Fire_ (later developed by Rita Skeeter et al).  The second section of this chapter does not begin from
Frank's point of view, but it soon moves into a third-person voice that's clearly aligned with Frank Bryce.

Complicating these points of view -- local gossip (and all the points of view contained therein) and Frank Bryce
-- is the fact the chapter concludes with Harry waking from a dream.  Inasmuch as Harry may be said to have
dreamed some or all of the first chapter, the question, then, is how much of it did he dream?   Harry remembers
only the last part of it -- where Frank is overhearing Voldemort, Wormtail, and Nagini.  Given this fact, perhaps
Harry's dream is of only the final portion of the chapter.  Were this to be true, then the point of view of
chapter one would be (1) local gossip, (2) Frank Bryce, and (3) Frank Bryce mediated through Harry's dream.  On
the other hand, if Harry dreamed more of the first chapter (but simply cannot remember it), then I would need to
revise the previous sentence.  Given that Harry tends to be privy only to information that's directly connected to
Lord Voldemort, I'm inclined to say that he only received the final part of the first chapter in his dream.

A further question is: is it truly Harry's dream or does it really happen?  If we're supposed to believe that it
really happens, then Harry's dream is not a dream but a vision of actual events taking place.  In this case, then
perhaps we should omit the third point of view, listed above.

Best,

Phil
--
Philip Nel
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Denison Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-0701
U.S.A.
-----------------------------------------
http://www.ksu.edu/english/nelp/
philnel at ksu.edu