Reasons why we would prefer objective limited point of view in a tale
The next question we should ask is, ‘Why would any talesman choose to tell his tale in a limited objective point of view? What can be gained from it? And why should we prefer a tale in limited objective point of view, when we can immerse ourselves wholly in the experiences of the characters, reading their minds and knowing their inner needs and hearts?’
Several answers can be offered here, but in the end – it is a matter of personal taste. Some of us prefer one style over the other, and some will like one style at one time (or in one tale) and another at another (or in another tale). Here I will give a few possible reasons only. In the end – it is up to each of us as readers, to pick the one we like best.
One reason to choose the limited objective point of view, is economy. A tale filled with the inner thoughts of characters, plus their words and deeds, must in the general run take more words to tell. The only area where limited objective will call for more words lies where the talesman tries to tell us what characters feel or think based upon a series of external clues. Sometimes it is more straightforward and economical to say simply, ‘He hated her with all his heart,’ rather than try to build us readers to reach that conclusion based upon a series of incidents, speeches, looks, and so forth. And yet, even where such a series runs for pages compared to the single line, ‘He hated her with all his heart,’ it can seem shorter, because it usually reads faster.
And here we come to our second reason, which is that actions read swiftly, but description reads slowly, even when it is describing the inner heart. I often feel when writing ‘immersive’ or deeply subjective fiction, that the words are getting mired and bogged down in the feelings of the characters. These feelings are heavy, sodden, sticky. Action and speech, on the other hand, are swift and light; it seems as though I am skimming across the episodes in the tale, glancing and skipping and gliding, and the pace of the tale seems much swifter – even when the tale runs longer, oddly enough. (A good example to take up would be the character introductions in the medieval Icelandic sagas, especially the scenes dealing with major characters’ childhoods. The usual method there was to offer three scenes in a row, all indicating the same trait in the character – humility, honesty, pride, vainglory, or some other trait that will serve as the hallmark of the character throughout the tale to come.)
Suspense is a another reason to prefer limited objective. We dealt with this in an earlier post. So long as we don’t know for certain what a character thinks or feels, we harbor a small measure of doubt. Even when we add up all the clues and decide the character is such-and-such, and we claim we have no doubt of it, all the same – we do doubt, and this last tiny shred of doubt can sometimes drive us mad for certainty – and we read on to see our predictions proved true. In other cases, our doubt might be so high that we can’t claim to ‘know’ a character at all, in the sense that he acts from contradictory impulses, is torn within, and we simply can’t feel sure which of the impulses will win out in any given circumstance. On the other hand, where a talesman out and out tells us what a character feels – let the character be as torn and conflicted as you please – we will feel on much surer ground in forecasting his actions. It is more difficult for a talesman, telling us what a character feels, to make us uncertain what the character will do. But if the talesman chooses the limited objective, and refuses to tell us what a character feels, the difficulty falls on the other side: and he will find it harder to bring us readers to feel certain; doubt will be the usual result, and doubt is what gives rise to suspense.
One more thing to prefer the limited objective derives from that sense of ‘skimming’ over the tale when it is composed of mostly action and less description: a limited objective tale will feel lighter and more energetic to us as we read it. It is not only the reader who feels as though he skips lightly across the events – the talesman himself feels likewise, and this feeling encourages him to glance from one episode to another, from one scene to another, from one place to another. When by contrast the talesman tells his tale in the first person subjective mode, he binds himself and us so deeply and thoroughly to his hero (and indeed, this binding is the point and aim of using this mode of talesmanship), with the result that we both find ourselves trapped within the more or less realistic sense of the character’s reality. Our experience of our own lives is linear, it steps from one moment to the next, and if we want to go across the continent, we will have to travel there meter by meter. If the talesman, using the first person subjective mode, achieves the illusion that we are this character, and we are living his life, then the talesman will break the moment-to-moment illusion only at peril of shattering the whole construction.
I am not saying it cannot be done, it is done, and it is done all the time. But it is a difficult thing to get over, and every such hiatus is something that ruptures, if only a small bit, the careful illusion and binding that gives the subjective point of view its greatest power. In short, it takes a master to manage it; but the novice, in limited objective point of view, will feel bold to try to make the most outrageous leaps – and he will get away with them, too.
(Composed on keyboard Friday 29 August 2008)
