Narrative Points of Views
There are many different techniques or ways that a writer can represent his ideas through, and one major technique is the narrative point of view. Both Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by G. G. Marquez have influenced the literature world with their unique styles and especially their narrative points of views. Both novels have intriguing narratives, and both have very strong powers to compel someone’s judgment and anticipation in revealing the events and the characters. Their different narratives help to convey their different ideas and thoughts, thus revealing objectivity, reliability, and the writer’s presence behind the narrator.
Both of the novels have different narrative points of view that help the writers to express or emphasis their main ideas. In Metamorphosis by Kafka the narration is limited omniscient, in other words, it’s an all-knowing narrator, which is not one of the characters, and seems invisible as he tells and foreshadows the story, this narrator can move in or out of a character’s mind revealing his inner thoughts; however in the case of Metamorphosis the narration is limited to the main the character which is Gregor Samsa, which means that the narrator can only enter the consciousness of Gregor, revealing a superficial view of the other characters in the novel. As Kafka’s main ideas of alienation and entrapment in novel are expressed, his use of this limited narration helps to stress these ideas by limiting or entrapping the readers to one character (which the main character) eliciting sympathy towards that character. Unlike Metamorphosis, Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Marquez has a first person narration, which is a character narrating the story, this sort of narrations doesn’t allow the narrator to enter the consciousness of other characters except his own. With Marquez’s main idea of criticizing the social norms of conventional societies, the narration helps Marquez to portray his criticism and subjectivity, allowing the narrator to tell his side of the story creating tension and suspense.
