Omniscient Third Person Point of View
The omniscient third person is often described as godlike, but not just because it allows the writer complete access to the created world and the inner lives of the characters. It also allows the writer to give readers the same range of perspectives-from the most all-encompassing views of a community, to the most intimate exchange between two individuals, to a character's most private thoughts.
There's an overlap here with plotting. As mentioned in an earlier lecture, constructing a plot requires you to choose what to reveal to the reader and when, and when you're writing in this kind of third person, those choices usually depend on which perspective you use.
The hallmark of the omniscient third person is that you can often swoop in a single chapter-and sometimes in a single passage-from the widest view of the story to the most intimate. A good example of this kind of narrative dexterity is found in chapter 11 of George Eliot's Middlemarch.
In the first part of the chapter, Eliot tells us, in a straightforward fashion, about a doctor named Lydgate, who is new to the town of Middlemarch, and his interest in marrying a pretty young woman named Rosamond Vincy. Eliot bluntly states that Lydgate is "young, poor, and ambitious" and that the chief quality he wants in a wife is beauty and charm. Eliot also lets us know that Rosamond is interested in Lydgate, too, because she considers herself too good for the boring young men she grew up with.
Along the way in this passage of pure exposition, Eliot masterfully fits Lydgate and Rosamond within the social hierarchy of the town, while also discussing the fact that love and marriage can disarrange that social hierarchy. It is, in other words, as godlike a perspective as possible, mostly cool, even-handed, and remote, with a few flashes of authorial judgment.
Then, Eliot narrows her focus to the breakfast table of the Vincy household, where Rosamond, her brother Fred, and their mother discuss a wide variety of topics. Here, Eliot vividly evokes the individual characters and their relationships, while taking care of an important moment in the plot and giving the reader information that will be important later on. And it's all done in a third-person point of view that is halfway between a recording eye and a judgmental authorial voice.
It's important to note that an omniscient third-person narration can also incorporate the close third person. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy writes much of the novel in the same omniscient third person that Eliot uses, keeping us at a slight remove from the characters. But he also delves into a modern-seeming close third person, especially with Anna herself.
-James Hynes once again being repetitive.
Combining Points of Review
Although it may be true that closed third person narrative remains the default mode for many writers, you'll also find that most authors feel free to mix and match the varieties of third person point of view in surprising and innovative ways.
Much of the narration of the American detective novelist, George Pelecanos, for instance, is of the recording-eye variety with detailed description in spare language of what his characters look like, what they wear what they say and do. But occasionally, his narration varies from the remote third person to the close to hire person. Interestingly.
Pelecanos also occasionally allows himself to step in and pass judgment on his characters.
Such judgments help make it clear that an author doesn't necessarily endorse everything his or her protagonist does. You can do this in the first person only by implication, but in the third person, you can come right out and say what you think. -James Hynes.
You've already said most of this in Lecture 15-Lumna10.
Writing Prompt
Pick a stressful or contentious situation between two characters an argument between a husband and wife, for example, or an interrosation scene in which a detective is trying to get a confession out of a suspect.
Then, tell the scene three ways: once in the close third person from the point of view of one character, such as the detective; once in the close third person from the point of view of the other character; and once in the omniscient third person, showing the same situation from a godlike perspective.