Dead Narrative Sources in lit (PoV)

[Ev vy]

No: HPFGUIDX 30955

~Klawz wrote:

> Speaking of POV's in the HP series.. let's not forget
> the first chapter of Sorcer's Stone/Philosopher's
> Stone. It wasn't really done from anyone's POV. Just
> an invisible narrator...


I wouldn't agree here. As Cornflower O'Shea wrote:
<< Remember how we spent the first part of PS "aligned" with Uncle Vernon...>>
The first part of the first chapter os PS is definintely written from Uncle Vernon's PoV. An invisible narrator (whose PoV it would have been) wouldn't be able to use anything like this: "He put the receiver back down and stroked his moustache, thinking...  no, he was being stupid . Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew //was// called Harry." The invisible narrator would relate only what s/he would see and not the character's thoughts, fears, etc. And the times of omnscient narrators are long gone.
The reader gets an insight into the character's thoughts, etc. And it's Uncle Vernon's perspective.

In the second part of the chapter, the narration is third person but the PoV (it's nicely called 'focalization' in the theory of literature, at least by Ms. Rimmon-Kennan) changes. I just leafed through the first chapter and as for the second part  ~Klawz is right, the narrator is the focalizer, there's no specified PoV.


> I'd also like to back up that the first chapter of
> Goblet of Fire was deffinately from Frank's POV. Harry
> would never have known about Frank's war injuries,
> etc. And he certainly wouldn't have dreamed about
> them, even if it was in a "psychic dream of Harry
> through Frank's eyes". 


Here again, the chapter is divided into two parts. First part: with the narrator-focalizer, and the second being Frank's PoV as we are limited to what Frank hears or sees. Then, in the second chapter, we are informed of what Harry remembers form the dream. He might have dreamt of what Frank exactly felt, but the war injuries belong to the first part of the first chapter, where the PoV is sort of general.

Ev vy


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