Refracted: Multiple Perspective Narration in Short Fiction

Abstract

This thesis seeks to critically examine the mechanics and purposes of shifting narratorial perspectives within prose writing. To better inform the collection of short stories I am currently working on, I have written this critical thesis to explore how short fiction makes meaning through multiperspectivity or perspectival plurality. I study the craftwork of transferring points of view and perspective throughout the short story and how the transfers create (dis)connections within the narrative (between characters and themes) and outside the narrative (between the reader and text). I also look beyond, or perhaps before, the effect on the reader to interrogate how and why an author’s use of multiple (or layered) points of view is successful for their varied intents and purposes. I examine exemplary short stories by Alice Munro, Clarice Lispector, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and Edwidge Danticat as well as research and critical essays on perspectivism and narratology. Throughout this thesis, I consider my own creative pieces to better define how the interactions of point of view, the gradations of narrative distance, and the privileging of specific voices speak to the nature of a multiperspective story.