In this lesson,
you'll learn that each of the three points of view (first, second,
or third) focuses on the speaker, the reader, or the topic being discussed.
You'll also learn that your audience and purpose will help you determine
which point of view to use.
Point of View
as Vantage Point
You've probably
already been asked to write a research paper, a personal narrative,
a lab report, and an essay analyzing an element in a short story,
novel, play, or poem. You've also written letters, emails, grocery
lists, and journal entries. Because each of these writing assignments
and projects has a different purpose, each of them requires a different
tone. Tone is partly determined by point of view, which is partly
determined by what person-first, second, or third--you choose to use.
Normally, when we speak of a person's point of view, we mean that
person's opinion. When we speak of a writer's point of view, however,
generally we are talking about his or her vantage point. By this we
mean where he's standing in relation to his topic.
The three major
points of view are first, second, and third.
The personal pronouns a writer chooses to use determines his or her
predominant point of view. Each set of pronouns establishes an almost-measurable
distance from the reader and places a focus either on the speaker,
the topic, or the reader.
The first
person point of view (I, we) always puts the most focus on the
speaker, or writer, and thus is effective for essays interested in
the depiction of personal experience. Although it is possible to write
a narrative about yourself in the third person, generally it is best
to use the first person for such projects, since this approach is
by far the most honest and direct. That is, when we write about ourselves
with a strong purpose in mind, we are choosing to use ourselves as
examples of how people learn through their experiences--we are becoming
the characters in our own stories. As many expert writers have said,
too many writers are either afraid or unwilling to own or take responsibility
for what they say. This fear or unwillingness leads to the use of
passive voice, nominalization, and other stylistic decisions
that conflict with the ethic of clarity that is at the heart
of a good writing style.
Here is the first
paragraph of a personal essay, written entirely in the first person:
Everyone told
me that when I turned sixteen some great internal change would occur.
I truly expected the lights to go down on my former life and come
up again on a new, far more enchanting one. It didn't work. Nothing
happened. When asked by others, I lied and said yes, I did feel
a great change had taken place. They lied and told me they could
see it in me. (Steve Tesich, "An Amateur Marriage")
Because this
essay takes as its topic a personal experience, the first person point
of view is appropriate. It's also worth nothing that, since we're
interested in reading about others in order to find out more about
ourselves, this opening is immediately interesting--it generates suspense
by using a style that is clear, direct, and sincere.
The second
person point of view (you, yours) puts the reader in the foreground
of the writer-reader exchange. It should be avoided in first person
essays, since it can so easily cause a shift in point of view,
which comes about when writers unintentionally use more than one point
of view. If, however, you're writing to advise your readers, as you
would in an essay explaining methods or procedures, the second person
may be appropriate. You'll notice that the second person is used in
this very sentence, and throughout SMARTHINKING'S Writer's Manual.
That is because, in this context, we are talking directly to you,
our readers.
The third
person point of view (he, she, one) is most commonly used for
expository writing, technical writing, and any other sort of writing
that has a business-minded or persuasive intention or purpose. In
the third person, the focus shifts away from the writer to the subject.
A shift from the first person to the third person in a short
story often is very confusing, since in the first person we have a
narrator speaking from his own point of view, and in the third we
have an author speaking about someone else. Although some personal
essays effectively can shift from the third person to the first, any
use of the first person will focus, in the end, on the speaker and
his or her experience of a topic rather than on the topic itself.
"High stylists," often well-paid professional writers, occasionally
write with shifts from the third person to the first person. However,
since the purpose of academic writing general is to explore a topic,
you should avoid such shifts when you're writing for an academic audience
like your professor. If you've ever been asked by a teacher to drop
the "I think" in a sentence, it's because, in the third person, the
speaker is secondary to the idea being expressed. In other words,
the only real difference between "I think it is going to snow" and
"It is going to snow" is that the "I" in the first example makes the
speaker of the sentence much more explicit. You might also notice
that the second example seems far more authoritative than the first.
Here's an example
sentence written in the third person:
When Ulysses
S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at
Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, to work out
the terms for the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia,
a great chapter in American Life came to a close, and a great new
chapter began. (Bruce Catton, "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts")
Compare this
essay to the first person example above. Do you see that the focus
of any piece of writing will shift with each point of view?
Exercise
Determine which
point of view the author is using in the following examples. Then
compare your answers to ours.
I lay in bed.
My husband, Gary, was reading beside me. I lay in bed and looked
at the painting on the hotel room wall. It was a print of a detailed
and lifelike painting of a smiling clown's head, made out of vegetables.
(Annie Dillard, "Total Eclipse")
The argument
concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of Black English
is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with
the question the argument supposes itself to be posing. The argument
has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language.
Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language, also, far
more dubiously, is meant to define the other-and, in this case,
the other is refusing to be defined by a language that has never
been able to recognize him. (James Baldwin, "If Black English Isn't
a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?")
Illness and
death are, perhaps, the only things that a tyrant has in common
with his subjects. In this sense alone a nation profits from being
run by an old man. It's not that one's awareness of one's own mortality
necessarily enlightens or makes one mellow, but the time spent by
a tyrant pondering, say, his metabolism is time stolen from the
affairs of state. (Joseph Brodsky, "On Tyranny")
Summary
A writer's point
of view has more to do with his or her vantage point than opinion.
Point of view is determined by the predominant personal pronouns a
writer chooses; each choice sets up an almost measurable distance
from the reader. The first person focuses on the writer, the second
on the reader, and the third person on the topic or subject of the
writing. Your audience and purpose will determine your point of view,
which will in turn help determine your tone.
