First-Person vs. Third Person in Storytelling Essay Example

The level and type of personal pronoun is storytelling or narrative significantly affects and often influence the meaning, style, flow and the point of view, opinion or judgment of the reader or listener. There several reasons which can prompt a writer to use a first-person, a second-person, or third person language in a narrative. Each of the 'person' plays a distinctive role they play as well as a distinctive point of view. All the three points of view: the first person, the second person, and the third person, all have both singular and plural forms. Therefore, this essay aims to critically discuss two stories that have been selected from the class readings as well as discuss in details how the different points of view impact the reader's judgment of the stories.

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James Baldwin's story "Sonny's Blues" is a short story that has been written in the first-person personal pronoun. The story starts with the author referring to himself and telling the reader of how the events occurred from his point of view. For example, the story begins wi "I read about it in the paper...I couldn't believe it..., I stared at it in the swinging light..." (Baldwin 17).

The author is a teacher, "...while I taught my Class Algebra" (Baldwin 17), and he is giving a story of a young man called Sonny, whom he finds 'good and decent' to be involved in a drug case. He uses the first-person language to be subjective. This self-reference using the "I" statement makes the reader feel more like an audience listening to another giving their personal view of an event or situation. Similar to the case above, the use of the first-person language has little room for the reader to participate and thus to some extent, the style is found boring. The style is consistent in the first few paragraphs of the story before the author introduces the reader to the third character, "a friend to Sonny" (Baldwin 19).

The drastic change of the point of view helps in making the reader feel like part of the narrative and more or less like a character in the story. This effect has been primarily achieved through the intractable use of the first and third-person in the conversation between Sonny's friend and the author. "You mean about Sonny? ...how come they didn't get you?" ... "He grinned." (Baldwin 19) And also the letter addressing the author as a brother (Baldwin 21-22). However, although the author has sparingly used other point of views, other than the first person, the story makes the reader feel like part of the action and more like the story is more memorable and enjoyable to read.

The use of the first-person language is also engaging and thus makes the reader what to know more about what happened next. The feeling of one conversing directly with the narrator does influence not only the level of interest but also the level of persuasion, readers engagement, the weight and level of accuracy of the story. The style also evokes the reader's emotions and often causing emotional reactions based on the author's mood.

On the other hand, the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is a narrative about a group of Soldiers and the things they carrier during the war period. The dominating personal pronoun language of the story is third-person language.

The story revolves around the life of soldiers in the juggle and the many things they carry based on their body size, specialty, rank, and mission (O'Brien). In this story, the viewer reads the story from the narrators' point of view. This point of view does not, however, engage the reader and thus makes the reader be a passive audience. Nevertheless, filtering of such details as emotions of the characters by expressing them through somebody else loosen the connection between the reader and the characteristics of the story. Instead, the reader has to establish a relationship with the narrator - in this case, O'Brien, who narrates the story to the audience.

For instance, the story beings by describing the characters in the story, their role and connection to the theme of the story. "First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried the letter from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey..." (O'Brien 1). Besides, the narrator gives an account of what the Soldiers carried and why they carried them. For instance, the second paragraph downwards lists some of the items that were thought to be necessary and had to be carried.

The use of the third-person point of view in this narrative, however, does done engage the reader into critical thinking or participation, as a result of the 'objective' use of the third person point of view to a great extent negatively affects the judgment of the reader. For example, when the narrator talks about the killings and dead of Soldiers such as Ted Lavender who was shot dead. Besides, the person loses a sense of time and proximity which makes it difficult for the reader actually to tell what time the event took place.

As noted the use of third-person is significantly affected by verb tenses, and the narrative has been presented in a past tense indicating that the event took place in the past. This lack of timeliness largely influences the credibility of the story as well as the general mood of the story.

Conclusion

In conclusion, comparing both points of views in the two stories, it evident that narratives that are emotional and aim at capturing the mood and emotions of the reader to use the first- person point of view. Also, the first-person persona in a narrative is not only engaging but also gives the reader the whole story first hand. However, in a situation where emotions or the description is non-fictional or a historical event, the use of the third-person language would be the most appropriate.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." Feinstein, Sascha and David Rife. The Jazz Fiction Anthropology. Indiana UP: Bloomington, 2009. 17-48. Book.

O'Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried." The Things They Carried. n.d.