Topic 8 - Discourse structure and point of view > Discourse structure of 1st and 3rd person novels > Task D > Our analysis

Discourse structure of 1st and 3rd person novels

Our analysis of task D

The 1st-person narration will be restricted to the viewpoint of Esther (though we may get two different Esther-viewpoints, depending on whether we are getting the views of the character or the narrator looking back. In this narration we are likely to sympathise with Esther the character as the story is being narrated from Esther's viewpoint and so discourse collapsing will occur.

The 3rd-person narration will seem much more objective and truthful, and so can form a chapter-by-chapter contrast with the more involved 'Esther narration'. Indeed, the 3rd-person narration in Bleak House is often ironic. But the 3rd-person narration can also take up the viewpoint of many other characters, and in fact Dickens plays the odd trick with the assumpton of 3rd-person narration omniscience. When the lawyer, Mr Tulkinghorn, dies, for example, the narrator suddenly forsakes his omniscience in order to create the effect of suspense:

What's that? Who fired a gun or a pistol? Where was it?

(Charles Dickens , Bleak House, Chapter 48)

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