Post, Questions How Categorize Point View [E.G.,

¶ … post, questions How categorize point view [e.g., -person, -person (i.e., "), -person limited, -person omniscient]? Is point view consistent story (told perspective), shift points narrative? (If, make note occur.

The point-of-view of this rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood" could best be characterized as third-person omniscient. The narrator knows everything that is transpiring in the story as it happens, even though certain aspects of the tale (such as the fact that the wolf wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood) are not known to the protagonist in the 'real time' of the storytelling. The narrator knows, for example, that the wolf is wary of the nearby woodsmen, so he does not eat Little Red Riding Hood right away, but instead contrives to locate where the grandmother's house might be. Red Riding Hood is ignorant of this fact and happily directs the wolf to the house.

Midway through the story, the narrator begins to follow the wolf rather than Little Red Riding Hood through the woods. However, the perspective of the narrator is still omniscient. While the wolf runs to grandmother's house, the narrator somehow knows that Little Red Riding Hood is gathering nuts, chasing butterflies, and picking flowers. When the wolf eats the grandmother, the narrator notes the wolf was very hungry because he had not eaten for days, but the narrator also knows that Little Red Riding Hood is afraid when the girl hears the hoarse voice of the wolf. Only at the very end when the narrator calls the wolf 'wicked,' passing judgment on the animal in a human fashion is there a suggestion that the narrator is allied with a specific perspective. But given that the little girl has been eaten, this still does not qualify as a third-person limited point-of-view.

DISCUSSION Q. 2

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" tells the story of a man who lives a life of fantasy. While engaged in routine tasks, Walter Mitty imagines himself undergoing various adventures. Even though his wife doesn't like him to drive above 40, when he is on the highway he likes to fancy himself the commander of a navy ship. The story is a series of symbolic contrasts between the reality of Mitty's existence and the world he lives in his mind. For example, symbolically Mitty is told to go shopping for a dull pair of overshoes by his wife because he is 'no longer a young man,' and he tries to resist by taking off his pair of winter gloves, only to be rebuked by a policeman for holding up traffic. Mitty tries to engage in small acts of resistance against his boring life, but none are successful. Despite his vision of himself as a skilled pilot or surgeon, Mitty struggles with even the most mundane tasks of existence, like car repairs, and he dutifully buys the overshoes his wife tells him to buy.