The Point of Point of View: First-Person Narrative

Last issue we looked at the first of our four Points of View, 3^rd Person Narrative, where the singer/narrator is perched outside the world of the song. This issue, let’s plunk the singer/narrator inside the world of the song and see what happens. 

As a 1^st Person narrator, you’re wearing blinders. You are inside the world of the song and can only see it from your own limited perspective: your focus is on personal events and feelings. You are revealing something about yourself to your audience — your attitudes, personal history, feelings, your perspective on events. The song is seen as a reflection of your, the singer’s, world. It’s about how you (the singer/narrator) see and feel.

1^st Person Narrative mixes 3^rd Person pronouns (he, she, it, they etc.) and 1^st Person Pronouns (I, me, my, mine, we, us our, ours). 1^st Person Narrative is not a conversation, it’s a narration: there are no 2^nd Person pronouns (you, yours etc.), unless, of course, the narrator is quoting the conversation. We, the audience, remain fixed on the song’s world as it unfolds. It may be a story, an opinion, a way of seeing the world. But it’s the narrator’s world.  Look at this lovely 1^st Person Narrative from John Mayer’s “Stop This Train”:

No I’m not color blind

I know the world is black and white

Try to keep an open mind but …

I just can’t sleep on this tonight

Stop this train I want to get off and go home again

I can’t take the speed it’s moving in

I know I can’t

But honestly won’t someone stop this train

Don’t know how else to say it, 

Don’t want to see my parents go

One generation’s length away

From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train

I want to get off and go home again

I can’t take the speed it’s moving in

I know I can’t 

But honestly won’t someone stop this train

So scared of getting older

I’m only good at being young

So I play the numbers game 

to find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man

Said help me understand

He said turn 68, you’ll renegotiate

Don’t stop this train

Don’t for a minute change the place you’re in

Don’t think I couldn’t ever understand

I tried my hand

John, honestly we’ll never stop this train

Once in a while when it’s good

It’ll feel like it should

And they’re all still around

And you’re still safe and sound

And you don’t miss a thing

’til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark.

Singing stop this train I want to get off and go home again

I can’t take this speed it’s moving in

I know I can’t

Cause now I see I’ll never stop this train

We’re immediately introduced to the narrator’s world. This is about him and the way he sees things:

No I’m not color blind

I know the world is black and white …

Then, into the chorus:

Stop this train I want to get off and go home again

I can’t take the speed it’s moving in

So far, the train is an unanchored metaphor, but brimming with possibilities. Here’s one:

Don’t want to see my parents go

One generation’s length away

From fighting life out on my own

Aha! Time is the train, and it’s going to take his parents and leave him on his own. Though the narrator doesn’t know the future, he knows, from his limited perspective, what shape it will take. Now the chorus becomes deeper: 

Stop this train

I want to get off and go home again

Then, a deeper look at the narrator’s inner world: his perspectives and fears:

So scared of getting older

I’m only good at being young

Now he looks back into his past, a converstion with his father:

Had a talk with my old man

Said help me understand

He said turn 68, you’ll renegotiate …

John, honestly we’ll never stop this train

Note that the 2^nd Person pronoun, you, is quoted – fairly common in 1^st Person Narratives. Finally, the bridge, where the narrator draws his conclusion about the transitory nature of time: 

Once in a while when it’s good

It’ll feel like it should …

’til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark.

Singing stop this train …

(Note that the use of you here is a 3^rd Person use, equivalent to one). Since we stand with the narrator inside the world of the song, we have intimacy with him. We look his at the world through his eyes, and we feel with him. That’s the strength of 1^st Person Narrative. Here are the 10 characteristics of 1^st Person Narrative:

1. Narrator and audience stand inside the world of the song 
2. Narrator possesses a limited view, so,
3. Narrator can lie, can be ironic, can be wrong. Only knows his/her own truth.
4. Narrator can comment only from his/her own perspective 
5. Narrator knows only the past and present 
6. Narrator has no true access to the minds and hearts of any other character
7. Audience has intimacy with narrator
8. Audience has no intimacy with any other character
9. Narrator is locked in time. Can have only one now.
10. 10.The singer’s characteristics (age, gender, reputation etc.) are relevant.

Get to know these 10 characteristics. They describe the parameters and opportunities 1^st Person Narrative presents. Test you ideas against them to see how they might develop. In the next issue we’ll look at 2^nd Person Narrative, a really interesting and relatively rare Point of View.