JKR's narrative strategy (Was: Whose point of view ?)

[tamuril elensar]

No: HPFGUIDX 107000

Sylvia wrote:
> It wouldn't matter if David Copperfield had twenty times the 
> (considerable) number of characters Dickens employs, the story 
> would still be seen entirely from David's POV, just as the HP books
> are seen entirely from Harry's.  

Adi responded:
> 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. Though 
> Harry was dreaming all this, it wasn't written like that. First the 
> action was presented, then it was told that Harry had also been 
> dreaming about the incidents. If it had been written from Harry's 
> point of view, it should have started with Harry sleeping on his 
> bed la la la and then gone onto the Riddle House, as it happens with 
> the many dreams Harry has in Book5. <snip>


Robyn->You know, I was thinking on this rereading the books -- whose 
point of view are you reading from. Well... you do tend to favor who 
Harry's favors and there is something to be said that they are written 
from his point of view.  Being written from his point of view doesn't 
mean that it's everything he sees.  It just means you tend to see 
things the way he sees them. 

While I was rereading OOTP I came across one part that I actually 
stopped and thought, wow, there is proof JK writes this through 
Harry's eyes (hey, I majored in rhetoric! So I'm always looking 
closest at the words:-)).

The scene is in chapter thirteen where Grubbly-Plank is teaching 
about the Bowtruckles and JK writes:
"Kindly keep your voice down, girls!" said Professor Grubby-Plank 
sharply, scattering a handful of what looked like brown rice among 
the stick-creatures..."  If you read down a few lines Hermione 
identifies this brown rice as "wood lice," said Hermione promptly, 
which explained why what Harry had taken for grains of brown rice 
were moving" (258-259 US Edition).

After reading this, I started thinking now it is shown there that in 
the text Harry saw the wood lice as brown rice... even though the 
diction says this before actually identifying the thought as Harry's.  
It made me start to think this text is being seen through Harry's 
point of view.

Now, I understand what others are saying about Harry not being there 
for every scene.  No, it's not told in the first person but I feel 
you are more likely to lean towards what Harry is thinking in terms 
of how he feels about other characters, classes, etc.

Just a thought.

Robyn