- What's the narrative point of view's standing in time, location, and situation proximity to a narrative's personas and events.
- What's the narrative point of view's judgemental attitude toward a narrative's topics and subjects.
- What's the narrative point of view's tone, ie., subjective/unreliable/biased or objective/reliable/unbiased, falling along a continuum of tone possibilities.
Crane's novel opens and largely stays in a formal register voice and expresses objective commentary. It reads like authorial reporting, a third remove from the unfolding narrative's events and focal viewpoint character's perceptions and cognitions. Crane's body of writing voice largely follows that mannerism. He transitions into narrator reporting and narrator reporting of viewpoint character perceptions and cognitions, but expresses objective commentary while doing so, and consequently, distances close viewpoint character rapport. I am not at anytime in close rapport with Henry. I'm solely aligned with Crane's authorial presence throughout the novel.
I first read the novel in high school. It was a chore then. I didn't understand what all the acclaiming hoopla was about. I had hunches, but they went unreconciled for years. The narrative distance is too remote to suit my tastes. Crane holds me at the end of a ten-foot pole. Perhaps, I'd thought, it's an authorial choice to keep me from close rapport with Henry for the sake of the gruesomeness of the novel. But it's not apparent to me it's a conscious choice the way it is in Truman Capote's true crime thriller In Cold Blood, 1966.
Bertolt Brecht introduced a phenomena known in some writing consensuses' shorthand as the Brechtian Alienation Effect.
Wikipedia: Bertolt Brecht; an early to mid Twentieth century East German playwright, poet, and director.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht"Brecht created an influential theory of theatre—the epic theatre—that proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.
"One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect"). This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them". To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense, and speaking the stage directions out loud."
Okay. So I understand now for my own benefit what Crane does. "He wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside."
I can read narratives and appreciate them without enjoying them. Still, my preferred narrative points of view and narrative voices build close rapport with viewpoint characters. Reading certainly. I'm decidely in the Pinteresque*** immersion effect camp. I'm working on it for writing.
*** Coined for Harold Pinter, a Twentieth century British playwright, actor, poet, and Nobel laureate known for deeply engaging creative works. Pinter and Brecht are like night and day regarding audience rapport.
