Who Tells The Story

Author’s Note: I wrote this to show my knowledge on point of view. In addition to the essay I wrote a creative piece, which is a scene from Fallen but instead I told it from Daniel’s point of view, instead of Luce’s.

Picture learning at seventeen that you have lived over ten past lives and are doomed to live and die and not remember it, because in your first life you fell for an angel. Well in the book Fallen, by Lauren Kate, you read the story from the main character, Luce’s point of view. The book, Fallen is about a teenager who is sent to a reform school and learns something very interesting about herself. She meets a intriguing boy named Daniel and when he seems to want nothing to do with her she can’t help but feel more and more like she needs to be with him, like she knows him from somewhere. Later she learns one of his deepest secrets, Daniel is really an angel and he was punished for falling for a mortal, so now every seventeen years he meets Luce but she doesn’t remember him and every time she dies a painful explosion death. The novel is told from the main character, Luce’s point of view.

The book is told from Luce’s point of view, because of whose point of view the story is told from it really changes how the reader reacts to certain things. For example, because Luce is the narrator she doesn’t have a clue about the truth behind Daniel, therefore the reader doesn’t either. Because of this, Luce does find out the Daniel is an angel; the reader is shocked as well. For a while, Luce is totally confused. Because of all the confusion, Luce is feeling the reader also becomes confused and frustrated that they don’t have a clue what’s going on. The quote, “'I don’t believe you,'" she said, feeling her voice tremble. "‘I don’t believe any of this.’” Gives a good example of how Luce feels when she finds out Daniel’s big secret, and how her shocks transferred to the reader as well.

The point of view of a story really changes how the reader feels about certain things. What if the point of view were to change? Would the reader feel completely different about the story? If the point of view of the story changed, and it was now told from Daniel's point of view, the reader would react completely different. So if the entire book you were reading about how Daniel saw things and how Daniel felt about it all, you wouldn’t have as much surprise. In the quote, "Luce gripped the windowsill as Cam made the first move, running at Daniel and slamming into him with his shoulder." You see how rather than surprise and suspense there’d be a lot of action, because when Daniel fights in the action scenes you’d be reading everything Daniel was feeling while fighting Cam instead of how Luce was feeling when the two boys were fighting in front of her.

The point of view stories are told from really gives the reader different thoughts and feelings while reading depending on whose telling the story. Fallen is told from Luce’s point of view. Depending on what the character is like and whose telling the story, the reader gets a lot of different emotions while reading from different characters points of view.

  

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It had been just a regular day at Swords and Cross, but then I saw her. I couldn’t help but think to myself, don’t go near her, avoid her at all costs. I couldn’t let what happened to her so many times before happen again. She looked right at me, but I quickly looked away, she had not seen me looking at her. Then all of a sudden, she waved and smiled, I had to think fast. How do I make her not ever want to look at me again? I did what I had to do, so I slowly raised my hand to her and shot my middle finger at her. It worked she quickly turned her head the other direction and pretended she had never even looked at me.

It gave me a horrible feeling in my gut to think that I was the reason for that surprised yet sad face she made, but I know it was for her own good. I can’t let it happen again, not again, this time I can never tell her anything, I can’t lose her, not again. Luce didn’t remember anything from her past lives, and I plan on keeping it that way. I know now what I didn’t know for the many times I’ve met her before this. I now know that in some lives just a single kiss will send her into an explosion of fire and flames. I also know that too much information about her past lives and what is going on will also take her from me.

I have decided that the only way to ensure her safety I must avoid her and make her think I don’t even want to see her face again. In her past lives, I'd never been able to stay away from her, but for the seventeenth time I’ve now learned it’s more painful to have her ripped from me than to never be able to talk to her and tell her how much I love her and how I’ve always loved her. The pain will get to me, but I have to stay strong, not for me, but for her. Just another day of being an angel.