Critical Analysis of "Lady with the Pet Dog"
Critical Analysis of "Lady with the Pet Dog"
The University of Victoria’s Hypertext Writer’s Guide defines the term point of view as, "the perspective from which a narrative is presented" (Keller 1). Another definition is, "point of view refers to who tells us the story and how it is told" (Meyer174). There are two main perspectives an author can use(TO DO WHAT). The first is called a first person narrative. In this perspective the narrator, or "the character who is telling the story" (Keller 1), uses the word I ( ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO USE ITALICS FOR "I")when narrating the story. The second for of point of view is the third person narrative. The narrator in this type narrative uses the words he, she, and they when reporting the events. In "The Lady With The Pet Dog" the author, Joyce Carol Oates uses different aspects of the third person point of view to tell (TELL THE STORY WITH A FEMALE POINT OF VIEW or FEMALE PERSPECTIVE) the female side of the story.
"The Lady With The Pet Dog" is broken down into three distinct sections. In the first section, Joyce Carol Oates uses the third person perspective. The type of narrator used in this section is called a limited omniscient narrator. (Using this style of narration, the author…) This style of narrator is where, "the author very often restricts the narration to the single perspective of either a major or minor character" (Meyer 175). Matthew Brennan, the writer of "Point of View and Plotting In Chekhov’s ( Goofy sentence - too many ands, I’m confused)and Oates’s ‘The Lady With The Pet Dog’", states, "Oates makes Anna S., the female lover, the center of consciousness" (213). The nameless narrator (Brings the reader into) takes us in the thoughts and eyes of the female of the story. In this section, the narrator (describes) tells of the female characters thoughts as she sees her lover in a crowded concert hall:
Strangers parted as if to make way for him. There he stood. He was there in the aisle, a few yards away, watching her. She leaned forward at once in her seat, her hand jerked up to her face as if to ward off a blow-- but then the crowd in the aisle hid him. ...