Point of View in Los de Abajo

Abstract

THE critical attention that has been given to point of view in Los de abajo (1915) is minimal in comparison to proliferation of studies concerning characterization, theme and structure.' However, a careful reading of Los de abajo will reveal importance of narrative viewpoint in novel. Point of view is vantage point from which story is seen and told. According to Mier Sternberg, point of view is the most comprehensive principle motivating selection, combination and distribution of elements in narrative text.2 Norman Friedman, problem of point of view has always been one of subjectivity, that is, interference of an authorial narrator, versus objectivity, or disappearance of author.3 Friedman provides technical framework to show distinction between two poles, one of subjective telling and other of objective showing. He devises a specific and identifiable set of narrative modes through which an author progressively removes himself from story. Wayne C. Booth this problem is not clearly defined; point of view is not just a technique for subjectivizing and objectivizing but a narrative element which is concerned with manipulative effects of author on reader, creating different types of narrative distance between two. Booth says that authors affect our perceptions by using reliable or unreliable narrators: For practical criticism probably most important of these kinds of distance is that between fallible or unreliable narrator and implied author who carries reader with him in judging narrator.4 In order to provide some background to critical aspects under consideration in this article, it is necessary to point out that concept of narrative viewpoint encompasses two dimensions, one that exists in real world and another that exists in imaginative world of art-work. Cleanth Brooks and R. P. Warren state that one dimension-point of view-carries basic attitude or idea of author and other-focus of narration' --describes method of narration.5 Robert Weimann has taken problem of definition and terminology one step further by suggesting existence of a fusion of two types of point of view, historical and structural, within a work of literature: