LOS DERECHOS-LEY CADUCADOS O NO CONVERTIDOS EN LEY

‘Psychological’ point of view overlaps with ‘ideological’ point of view, since the language used by a narrator or character indicates his or her beliefs and attitudes, thereby reflecting her or his ‘world-view’ (Fowler, 1996:213). A character’s or narrator’s beliefs and attitudes may be made ‘explicit’, or may be ‘symptomatic’ of world view (Fowler, 1996:168). I have discussed the assumption that first-person narration is the most effective in eliciting a sympathetic response from the reader. Fowler suggests that an internal point of view can make even the actions of an

‘unsympathetic’ character ‘motivated and comprehensible’ (Fowler, 1986:146). There is assumed to be a clash between a potentially compassionate response occasioned by closeness to the point of view of a character/narrator whose actions are undesirable in some respect, and shared moral values which would cause most people to condemn immoral or undesirable actions in a real life context. Such an example is found in the case of the female narrator of Winterson’s Sexirtg the Cherry, discussed above in relation to mind-style; although Dog-woman’s world-view probably differs from the reader’s, her actions are comprehensible and reasonable according to her own rules, and consequently, may be more acceptable than might be the case if narrated from an external perspective. However her language also illustrates an unusual world-view, in which may have the effect of alienating some readers. The assumption that sympathy is aroused in Type A narratives due to the proximity to the narrator’s viewpoint is debatable therefore, due to the fact that, in this instance, some of her attitudes and beliefs are probably alien to the implied reader.

Fowler’s Internal Type B refers to those narratives which allow the reader access to the minds of the characters, but in this case, the internal perspective is framed within that of the external (i.e., heterodiegetic) narrator. Internal Type B is exemplified by Walker’s Meridian. Walker’s novel is set in the sixties, the era of the civil rights movement in America and, among other things, charts issues of racial tension between black and white people. As the characters attempt to come to terms with their racial and sexual identities, their inner thoughts reveal their prejudices, and are commented on by the third-person narrator. In the extract below, Meridian muses on the relationships between the black and white inhabitants of her home town.

Who would dream, in her home town, of kissing a white girl? Who would want to? What were they good for? What did they do? They only seemed to hang about laughing, after school, until when they were sixteen or seventeen they got married. Their pictures appeared in the society column, you saw them pregnant a couple of times. Then you were no longer able to recognize them as girls you once "knew". They sank into permanent oblivion. One never heard of them doing anything that was interesting [... ]

Of course Meridian appropriated all the good qualities of black women to herself, now that she was awake enough to be aware of them.

{Meridian, pp. 105/106)

Although this is third-person narration, Meridian’s perceptual point of view is

highlighted; e.g., ‘saw ’, ‘recognize’, ‘heard’. The use of the pronoun ‘you’ rather than ‘I’ indicates Meridian’s assumption that her perception is shared by others, a

presumed view of white ‘girls’ by the black community of which Meridian is a member. The narration illustrates the way in which the white girls are peripheral to Meridian’s life, and their actions are only noted periodically. Their ‘unknowability’ is thus foregrounded through the use of the pronoun ‘they’, questions, the appearance of words of estrangement (e.g., ‘seemed’), and reinforced by the enclosure of “knew” in quotation marks, suggesting that Meridian herself recognises the superficiality of the relationship between them. Meridian never really gets to ‘know’ white women, not even her friend Lynne, another character whose inner thoughts are revealed in the

120

course of the narrative. Meridian’s viewpoint is framed within that of the third-person narrator, who comments on the limitation of Meridian’s perspective to suggest that she is biased in favour of black women and ‘appropriates’ only their good qualities. The distinction between character and narrator is obvious in this example; the thoughts belong to the character and are juxtaposed with the narrator’s comment on her views. Despite her sympathetic treatment in the novel, Meridian’s thoughts are presented with a tinge of criticism, and the narration offers guidance on how to respond to her, and the other characters, in contrast to the neutral style of the McCullers' narration. Internal Type B narration therefore offers the possibility of contrasting conflicting world-views between characters, or between the characters and the narrator.

The insight into Meridian’s thoughts is in ‘free indirect discourse’, a special kind of internal narration which is characteristic of Fowler’s Internal Type B. Fowler notes that free indirect discourse is a mingling of the A and B modes in a ‘dialogic relationship’ (Fowler, 1996:174). Thus the narration is similar to Type A but is narrated in the third-person i.e.,

the character’s subjective feelings, which are given in Type A narration transformed into third-person, are interwoven with and framed by the author’s account of the character’s inner state. (Fowler, 1996:174)

In order to illustrate the similarity between Type A, and Type B which includes free indirect discourse, it is possible to perform a transposition test. For example, the sentence ‘Who would dream, in her home town, of kissing a white girl?’ in the extract above is a representation of Meridian’s thoughts transformed into the third-person. When changed into Type A, (‘Who would dream, in my home town, of kissing a white girl?’), the representation of Meridian’s thoughts remains the same,

but now lacks the narratorial framing of the Type B narration. Free indirect discourse will be discussed further in section 3.8 on speech and thought presentation.