160 Characters and viewpoint

are seeing inside his head as we see him "trying to impress Nora with his sensitivity"-but would he actually use those words to describe himself? Is he really so cynical that he thinks of himself as faking sensitivity? Or does he think that he's actually trying to become, not "sensitive," but worthy of her? We're getting an attitude here, but it isn't really Pete's attitude-it's the narrator's. The narrator sees Pete as bumbling and trying to fake sensitivity.

Likewise, when we are told that Nora "had often told her friends that all but six of her delicate, fragile bones had been broken during childhood," who is actually using the words "delicate" and "fragile"? Not Pete-he doesn't know what Nora has told her friends. And not Nora- she doesn't see herself as delicate and fragile, it's Pete who does. The phrase "delicate, fragile bones" is a direct echo of Pete's assessment of Nora as "delicate-looking, frail-boned" in the first paragraph, yet it is inserted ironically into Nora's memory of her own childhood. Again, the narrator is openly intruding into the story, nudging the reader into seeing the humor of the situation.

"She liked rowdiness, laughter, crude humor, and general silliness," says the narrator. But that isn't the way Nora would think of it. If that sentence were written from her point of view, it would be more like this:

She liked guys who knew how to have a good time, get a little rowdy, have some laughs. She thought of telling him the joke about Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse getting a divorce, but she knew a guy like Pete would never appreciate a punchline with the /-word in it.

To let us know, from Nora's point of view, that she likes crude humor, we have to see a sample of the humor she likes-if she is not the over-literate type Pete thinks she is, she is also unlikely to think of her own taste in humor as "crude."

These two sentences from Nora's viewpoint take longer than the omniscient narrator's nine-word clause-but they also get us more deeply involved in Nora's character, give us a much clearer and more powerful view of the world as she sees it. The omniscient narrator sees the world through the wrong end of the binoculars-readers can see everything, but it all looks very small and far away. The limited third-person narrator can't let readers see as many different things in as short a period of time, but what the readers do see, they see "up close and personal."

Think of the limited third-person narrator as a combination of the most important representational features of the omniscient and first-person narrators. The limited narrator gets much closer to the viewpoint characters than the omniscient narrator can, giving readers the experience of living in the character's world-much the way the first-person narrator gives readers an intimate look at the world through the narrator's eyes. At the same time, with limited third-person narration the viewpoint character isn't actually telling the story, constantly reminding us that he is showing us himself, that he's looking back on these events from some point in the story's future.

Look at the way first-person and limited third-person narrators

Third Person 161

would deal with the event contained in this sentence from the omniscient narration: "When he was ready at last, he wrote his invitation on a whimsical Sandra Boynton card and left it on her desk with a single daffodil." Here's a possible limited third-person version:

Pete got to work at seven-fifteen so he could leave the flower and the card for Nora without anybody watching. He filled the bud vase with water from the drinking fountain, put the daffodil in it, set the vase on Nora's desk, and leaned the envelope against it. It looked too formal, like a proposal of marriage or an apology or something. So he took the card out of the envelope. That was better. But the vase still bothered him-it would put too much pressure on her. If she turned him down, she could just throw away a flower, but she might feel like she had to return the vase. So he took the daffodil out of the vase and laid it on her desk. It got water all over her blotter. He grabbed a handful of her tissues and dabbed up the water and dried the stem of the flower. He laid down the card so it mostly covered the water spots and put the daffodil at an angle across the card. Then he wrapped the vase in the wet tissues, carried it to his office, and put it in the wastebasket.

We're getting an experience here that the omniscient version didn't provide-we're living through Pete's indecision and nervousness step by step, moment by moment. Even though it's in past tense, it feels like the present. We're identifying with Pete as we live through all the agonizing, trivial, yet vital strategic decisions in his campaign to give Nora exactly the right impression.

Would this work as well in first person? Try it and see:

I got to work at seven-fifteen so I could leave the flower and the card for Nora without anybody watching. I filled the bud vase with water from the drinking fountain, put the daffodil in it, set the vase on Nora's desk, and leaned the envelope against it. It looked too formal, like a proposal of marriage or an apology or something. So I took the card out of the envelope. That was better. But the vase still bothered me-it would put too much pressure on her. If she turned me down, she could just throw away a flower, but she might feel like she had to return the vase. So I took the daffodil out of the vase and laid it on her desk. It got water all over her blotter. I grabbed a handful of her tissues and dabbed up the water and dried the stem of the flower. I laid down the card so it mostly covered the water spots and put the daffodil at an angle across the card. Then I wrapped the vase in the wet tissues, carried it to my office, and put it in the wastebasket.

At first glance, it might seem to be exactly the same. But the effect is different in at least one important way. The limited third-person version is told straight. You are clearly meant to empathize with Pete's indecision, to worry about whether Nora will accept the invitation, to care about what she thinks. You are living through the experience with Pete as he lives it. But in the first-person version, there is an unconscious assumption about why Pete-the-narrator is telling this event in such detail. Even though the narrator makes no comments like "I was such a fool in those days," the time-distance effect is still operating. Pete-the-narrator obviously does not still feel the same uncertainty and anxiety that Pete-in-the-