Focalizers


If we are made to look at something from a particular point of view, we say that our perspective on that thing has been focalized. The object or person who determines the point of view we have been offered is the focalizer.

Individual studies of narrative do not always make it clear whether they are using the term focalizer to denote the person or object upon whom the narrative is focalized or the person or object through whom it is focalized. We should ourselves be more careful and precise than this and specify in exactly which sense we understand a character or object to be acting as a focalizer in our discussion, although the word focalizer‘s two different senses do often tend to blend into one in practice. A novel about the Trojan War that focused for the most part on the experiences of one of the regular (lowly and unremarked) soldiers in the Trojan army, for instance, is more than likely to end up representing the war from that particular soldier’s particular point of view.

Narrators are always going to be among a narrative’s most influential and notable focalizers, although other objects and agents can serve this role as well. As such, they provide a multiplicity of alternative perspectives on events that can give us a fuller understanding of what happens and either uphold or subtly question the presentation and interpretation of those events offered by the narrator. This is a very important point. For it is through the introduction and play of different voices that we are awarded a certain distance from or ‘perspective’ on each of them – a position from which we can decide whether they are sincere or sarcastic, truthful or deceitful, neutral or biased, informed or ignorant.

For this reason, it is vital we are able to distinguish focalizers from narrators when their roles diverge. To do this, some narratologists have suggested that we ask two separate questions:

  • who is telling the story at this particular moment? (this is the narrator)
  • through whose eyes, ears, feelings, associations, memories and so on are we at that moment perceiving the events of the story? (this is the focalizer)

If the answer to those two questions is the same person, the narrator is also acting as the focalizer. If the answer is different, we have two (or more) separate points of view in play at once: the narrator’s and the focalizer’s. This is important to establish because every additional and different point of view we are offered affects the way in which we respond to and interpret every other point of view we are offered – as well as the overarching point of view of the narrative as a whole (if there is such a thing). If a narrator tells us that Magnus went to sea because he wanted to see the world, for instance, we may simply have to take this on trust. If one of the story’s focalizers comments, however, that Magnus had fallen into debt, married the wrong girl, and simply wanted to get away, the situation changes. We may lose confidence in the veracity of the narrator and become suspicious of his or her presentation of other events in the story as well; we may alternatively have so much faith in the narrator that we immediately view that particular focalizer as a liar and a gossip; or we may simply throw up our hands in despair and accept we can never really know why Magnus boarded that ship.

Identifying how a story is focalized is accordingly a crucial element in any narratological analysis. To read more about some of the different forms of focalization narratives use and some of the techniques of focalization they employ, click on those links.

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