Perspectives

In our subject, perspective refers to a position from which something seen or considered, or a viewpoint
informed by one or more contexts.

So, examining perspectives in a text is a process of examining how the viewpoint – or way of thinking about
a subject – offered by a text is related to or influenced by the context of the author or narrator.

The study of perspective is really an attempt to answer the question: Where is the author or narrator coming
from and how does this affect the way he or she sees things?

Understanding where an author or narrator is coming from allows us to be more critical readers of texts and
helps us avoid falling into the mistake of seeing the author’s or narrator’s view as the natural or only possible
viewpoint.

There are 4 perspectives (at least) we may encounter in a text:

 Physical perspective
 Temporal perspective
 Psychosocial perspective
 Ideological perspective

Physical perspective refers to the author or narrator’s physical relationship to what they are writing about.
The physical perspective might be that of someone looking down from a great height and presenting an
interpretation from a distance or from the viewpoint of someone in amongst the action who can see hear
and smell everything from close proximity.

Temporal perspective refers to a time frame through which something is viewed. While the majority of
narratives are written in the past tense, some authors use present tense to create a sense of immediacy and
reader involvement. So temporal perspective is the tense through which the action is delivered.

Psychosocial perspective refers to the psychological and social aspects of a person; in other words, their
personality, experiences and social background. This perspective is especially common in fiction that makes
use of first person or third person limited point of view – where the story presents us with a perspective of a
particular character on another character, setting, plot point or topic. So, the reader may be positioned to
see the subject (character, setting, plot point or topic) through the eyes of a romantic partner, or a scientist,
or a killer. The character’s thoughts, opinions and views will be coloured by their personality, experiences
and social background.

It is important to remember that although a text may offer a particular characters perspective we are not
necessarily being encouraged to uncritically accept and adopt that perspective. A perspective may be
offered to us so we are simply aware of it or evaluate and reject it.

Ideological perspective refers to ways of thinking or ideas about the world that are characteristic of or in the
interests of a particular group of people. They can be characteristic of nationalities, social classes, genders or
occupational groups. Some examples include: patriarchal ideologies (ways of thinking that construct men as
superior), feminist ideologies (ways of thinking that construct women as equal to men), colonial ideologies
(ways of thinking that constructs colonisers as superior to the colonised), racial ideologies (ways of thinking
that construct a particular race as superior to ‘others’). I’ll assume you see the pattern.

Ideological perspectives are often presented by authors or narrators as natural and unquestionable rather
than rather than just as one possible way of thinking.