Point of View

Point of view is the position from which the narration is conducted and from which the depicted events, characters, and world of the work are perceived — the angle of artistic vision that determines the volume and character of the information given. Point of view may be external (an observer describes events from the side) or internal (the world is shown through the consciousness of a character); it may belong to an omniscient narrator, a hero-narrator, or, in turn, to different characters. The change of points of view is a powerful means of artistic expressiveness: it allows a single event to be shown in a multifaceted way, to juxtapose different assessments, and to deepen psychologism. For example, in Panas Myrny's novel the events are given mostly through an authorial omniscient point of view with penetration into Chipka's psychology; modern prose, by contrast, often limits the point of view to the consciousness of a single hero. The category of point of view is closely connected with the concepts of the narrator and focalization and belongs to the central problems of narratology.