A statement from Icarus himself:

1. A statement from Icarus himself: First-Person-ParticipantNarration

2. “You can’t understand. I was flying—I mean really flying. I saw the world the way the gods do—I held Apollo’s gaze with my own mortal eyes. How could I not fly higher? But then the power of the god proved too much. The wax melted. I plummeted into the sea. I paid for my arrogance with my death.”

3. First-Person Participant in Short Stories • Narrative voice is presented through the “I” pronoun. • There is absolutely no critical distance between the character’s experience and his or her understanding of the event. • For this reason, we consider this POV highly suspect—it is the voice of the unreliable narrator, who is too close physically or emotionally to the events to be trustworthy.

4. The Unreliable Narrator’s perceptions may be hampered by: • Inexperience (Cole Sear of The Sixth Sense, or the unnamed narrator of “Cathedral,” or Sammy of “A & P”) • Youth (Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird or the unnamed narrator of “Araby”) • Mental incapacity (Forrest Gump of Forrest Gump or Benjy of The Sound and the Fury)

5. An Example of Unreliability: Forrest Gump “Jenny’s father was a very loving man. He was always hugging and kissing his daughters.”

6. Do you remember how that comment made your skin crawl? It was because you perceived what Forrest could not—that Jenny’s father was sexually abusing his daughters. You had the necessary critical distance Forrest lacked.

7. Forrest wasn’t lying; he just did not have the capacity to understand what you understood.

8. Advantages of First-Person Participant • A sense of the raw immediacy of the events; we are completely privy to all the character’s thoughts. • A closeness to the narrating character it is simply not possible to duplicate with any other point-of-view option. • A great test of the characterization skills of the author. • Most effective when the main character learns from his or her own experience.

9. Examples of First-Person Participant in Short Stories • “Araby” by James Joyce • “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker • “First Confession” by Frank O’Connor • “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver • “Flying Home” by Ralph Ellison • “Good-bye, Columbus” by Philip Roth • “My Man Bovanne” by Toni Cade Bambara

10. First-Person-Participant Narration in Novels • First-Person Participants have more credibility as narrators of novels because of the length of text. • This option is preferred for a narrator of a Bildungsroman (an apprenticeship novel or novel of an education like Great Expectations). • The change in the character is most discernable. • Consider the following: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

11. Limitations of First-Person Participant • An almost-claustrophobic proximity to one character. • An immediacy to events without an interpretive consciousness to filter them. • No ironic distance for the author—only for the reader, whom the author must rely on to do the interpretive work. • The world view is almost invariably naïve or isolated—or even insane (consider the novel Losing Nelson).

12. A Statement from Daedalus,the Witness: First-Person-Observer Narration

13. “I said to him, ‘Icarus, my son! Do not fly too low or the dampness of the waves will weigh down the feathers; do not fly too high, for the sun will melt the wax, and the wax is already so fragile. . . But he did not listen. Intoxicated with joy, he spiraled straight into the eye of the god. Apollo was moved to anger. The wax melted. I watched as my only child fell to his death. I was unable to help him though he cried out, ‘Father!’”

14. First-Person Observer • Narrative is characterized by the “I” pronoun. • The central character is the witness, not the principal actor of the story. • This allows the narrator to attain greater critical distance from the events; usually, we are offered a more mature, thoughtful perspective on why as well as how. • For this reason, we are more inclined to accept the Observer as trustworthy. • This character therefore provides necessary middle ground for the reader—this character ‘stands in’ and interprets for us, and we take our emotional cues from him or her.

15. Advantages of First-Person Observer • A consciousness separate from the author’s or the principal actor’s to filter the events of the story to whose thoughts we are privy. • A credible on-scene witness • A trustworthy interpreter who offers the reader a way to view the meaning of the events. • Most effective when the main character learns from some one else’s experience, particularly when that some else ends up dead.

16. Some Examples of First-Person Observer in Short Stories • Marlowe of “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad • The narrator of “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski • The Lawyer of “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville • The narrator of “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin • The Town of Jefferson, narrator of “A Rose for Emily.”

17. Some Examples of First-Person Observer in Novels • Nelly Dean of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte • Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald • Jake Barnes of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway • Louis of Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice • Tom Wingo of The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

18. In each of these pieces, the main character has survived the cataclysmic events of the story and delivers a moral judgment: “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!”

19. Limitations of First-Person Observer • Not as immediate as the Participant. • Is usually reliable. • However, can be as suspect as the Participant (consider the barber in Ring Lardner’s “Haircut”as an example of unreliability) if he or she does not have the emotional awareness to learn from the event.

20. If you were Icarus: Second-Person Narration

21. You are master of the rushing wind; each stroke of your wings raises you higher than you ever dreamed. All warnings are ridiculous.You don’t see the world the way a god does; you are a god, and there is no longer any place forbidden to you. But then you feel a slow trickle down your arms, down your back…burning hot. The wing frames tremble; they loosen. And then the sickening plunge--

22. Second-Person Narration • Narrative voice is presented through the “you” pronoun. • This voice conjures some of the immediacy of First-Person Participant. • No critical distance exists between the character’s experience and his or her understanding of the event. • The voice is no more reliable than First-Person Participant.

23. Advantages of Second-Person Narration • The same degree of immediacy presented by First-Person Participant—you are privy to your own ‘thoughts’. • Useful for short, theme-driven pieces • Ideal ‘scenario’ for ads and intros. • Most effective for creating empathy in the reader.

24. Some Examples of Second-Person Narration • “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid • “On Being the Target of Discrimination” by Ralph Ellison • “How to Be A Writer” by Lorrie Moore • “Haircut” by Ring Lardner (limited to the frame device; you sit in the chair as a barbershop patron) • “The Cask of Amontillado” (limited to the second paragraph; you are Montresor’s confessor. The rest of the story is First-Person Participant)