A Comparison of Point of View in
... that he can relate to. For instance, in my mind the characters are all white men. I am sure that to a Chinese person the characters would be Chinese men. This adds to the universality of the story. In “Battle Royal” the reader also gets to know the characters. The difference is that the reader gets to know only one character very well. Ralph Ellison chose the first person point of view when writing “Battle Royal” because he wanted the reader to truly feel the pain and humiliation of the narrator. Ellison set out to get a strong emotional response from his readers and what better way to do that than to let the reader inside the mind of the narrator. If the points of view were switched and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” were written in the first person point of view, it would not have the same affect on the reader. If it were told from the perspective of the old man there would be no dialogue because he is deaf. We would then only know his thoughts. The whole point of the story would be missed. We would not know the different perspectives of the two waiters. The same thing would happen if it were told form the point of view of one of the waiters. Hemingway wanted his readers to discuss the different points of view of the main characters and that can not be accomplished with the first person point of view. Had “Battle Royal” been told from the third person point of view it would not have the same emotional affect on the reader. The reader would have still known some of the thoughts and feelings of the narrator, but a lot would be missed. For example, at the beginning of the story the narrator’s thoughts give the reader some necessary background information that allows the reader to fully understand the narrator and his situation. It is not necessary for the reader to know the thoughts and feelings of the other characters. Knowing the thoughts of the white men may have greatly changed the story. The third person point of view used in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” did not affect me as strongly as the first person point of view used in “Battle Royal.” In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” the readers know all of the main characters, but does not get to know any one character well enough to become emotionally involved. In fact the only character, whose thoughts we get to know, is the older waiter. Therefore, it dose not evoke a strong emo...