Functions Of Point Of View In Herman Melville's Early Stories

As a distinguished writer in the history of American literature, Herman Melville has been the subject of great attention. Though when he died he was almost totally forgotten as a writer in his own country, his reputation underwent a renaissance at the beginning of the twentieth century; so much so that now many hundreds of scholars have studied and criticized him and his works from multiple perspectives. Almost all his works have won universal praise, from his early vigorous and billowing sea stories, through his dangerous and exotic adventure stories and philosophical love stories, up to the short stories and poetry which came to dominate his later writing career. But it is surely his masterpiece — Moby Dick — that establishes his overwhelming literary prestige. This novel, like most of his sea stories, bears an obvious feature — its vivid portrayal is at least partly based on his early personal experiences.The thesis aims to study the functions of two different points of view from the perspective of narratology, namely, the point of view of the adult and the one of the child, in two of Herman Melville's early stories, and will draw its conclusions from the unique, perspective of the child. By comparing these two novels and using the relevant works of James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for reference, the author of this thesis arrives at the conclusion that the child has a unique and significant perspective in Melville's works.