Whose point of view ?

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 106535

Adi wrote :
> Harry Potter books aren't written from Harry's point of view. They 
> are written from the author's bird-eye-view, if one may call it that. 
> Remember the first chapter of Book4 where the point of view shifted 
> to the action in the Riddle house though Harry wasn't there. 

Del replies :
The first chapter of GoF is an *exception*, just like the first
chapter of PS/SS. They are *not* representative of the books.

Adi wrote :
>   Well, my argument is the books aren't written from Harry's point of 
> view as David Copperfield or any other first person narratives are. 
> They are written from the point of view of an omniscient author who 
> most of the time confines herself to decribing Harry's actions but 
> can deviate from the rote whenever the suspense or narrative demands 
> it.

Del replies :
So far, JKR made only the two exceptions mentioned earlier, and that
was only because there was simply *no way* she could have done otherwise.
The rest of the time, she always finds another way to tell us about
what Harry can't see : either someone tells him, or he reads about it,
something like that.

The narrator is omniscient, but she simply will *not* tell us anything
that Harry can't know. She's restricting herself tightly to Harry's
head. So yes the narrator is omniscient, but she deliberately gives us
only Harry's point of view. Which makes the point of her being
omniscient irrelevant. All that remains is that we only know Harry's
point of view.

Del