Is omniscient genderless?

[janus40s]

Hi Janus, don't think we've met.

I'm new around here.

No, omniscience by itself does not imply what you note (why you mention moral purity I don't know), .

Attempting to make a point (and failing): Impartiality and objectivity seemed like forms of moral purity, in that they are theoretical but not attainable. Omniscience is another form of absolute (albeit not a 'moral' purity). Hence, a narrator could have omnicience without necessarily being objective.

and a TPO is not supposed to be impartial (an impossibility), but if it is a true TPO it cannot be gendered, it is an it. .

Ah, and here is why I "stepped away from the orthodox view of TPO". TPO has a reasonably well understood definition. However, the real question is, "Can a narrator be omniscient and possess a point of view (including gender) while remaining in the third person?" It is likely that such a narrator would be outside the scope of the TPO definition, but so what?

One can of course guess or presume a gender for the author or the author's narrator, but it (the presumption or guess) has no meaning; it's inherent in the definition. This is why TPO is rarely used anymore and has always been extremely difficult to do.

Exactly the point.

I daresay if you come up with an example it will easily be a variant of TPO.

regards, Perdita (who is now bemused at the protests, i.e., for me it's like trying to redefine a color without knowing one is looking through a prism)

Agreed. I have little interest in whether or not the color is definitionally "green". As an artist, I *am* interested in way that blues and yellows can be combined to make interesting colors; including colors that defy definition.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

I really believe that the narrative types are NOT (like
e.g. the planets or species) distinct areas off by
themselves. Rather they are like US precinct lines. They
are divisions in a continuum. So a male (or a female)
3rd-person omniscient narrator is possible. Whether one
could write a good story from it is another question.

 

[Icingsugar]

Ok, that was alot of thread to parse, but I don't think it even touched upom the thing I'm wondering.

First, I fail to see why a TPO narrator have to be genderless. It can not speak In I and Me, and can therefore not tell you straight out of gender and other characteristics. But that doesn't mean that it can not have a personality, values, opinions that it lets shine through in how it describes the characters and situations.

Now to my question:
Does omniscient also equal omnipresent?

If I have a narration who knows every breath and thought of one character, but has to intepret the world through that character's eyes, isn't that narrator omniscient but non-omnipresent?

 

[Pure]

The case for the gendered TPO is made by a couple posters, but best by Lauren, as in



I don't know... I don't recall any specif example, but theoretically, the narrator, i.e. the entity telling the tale, is a character in itself.

It may be part of the action or not, but it has a personality, which usually comes across as the author's style or whatever you want to call it, a way of telling the story, vocabulary, rhythm, --it can formulate judgments-- sometimes to an extent that will, in fact, be creating a discernable, distinct character. That being the case, I don't see why one of those distinguishing characteristics can't be gender.

[another posting, in part]
Being omniscient simply means that the narrator has complete awareness and understanding of every event in the story, and insight into every character's mind. In telling a story, anyone can be omniscient, or fake it. Neutrality, regarding gender or anything else, has nothing to do with it...

[another posting, in part]
5. Provide general reflections, judgements and truths.
- Exactly my point. If as TPO narrator I can provide general reflections, judgements and truths, they will be my reflections, my judgements and my truths. Those reflections, judgements and truths can amount to: personality. From my TPO objective point of view I can clue you in to what type of entity I am, if I'm benign, cynical, narcissist, good-humoured, witty, sophisticated, or technologically challenged, and maybe, if I really want to, my --the narrator's, not the author's!-- gender.
----

What you're saying is that only a non-entity can be omniscient; that once the narrator, participant or not, hints at personal general reflections, judgements and truths (a mark of TPO according to Janet Burroughway), it ceases to be TPO, even if it is TPO.


Perdita says "omniscient" is by definition genderless.

Icing gives examples of a very common technique which is TPO but with omniscience exercized on one main character, who of course has a gender. That would not 'engender' the narrator by any means.

My opinion is that Lauren's arguments, while detailed and well-said, do not persuade. I think Perdita's point can be stated quite simply. A third person narrative can be from a person's pov., OR it can be from a kind of etheric entity's pov. The latter, not being a person is by definition without gender.

Lauren puts a little too much pressure on Burroughway's text, to suit her own point (with which B would not, I think, agree), in speaking of 'general reflections" and "judgments". These Lauren argues, can amount to personality, hence have gender. Not in my opinion.

IF the 'personality', i.e, personal characteristics implied a gender, it would be a person narrating, not an omniscient entity.

Consider: What sex is God. Usually we say 'no sex'; why, because the question makes no sense. How about a sexed god, like Athena. That's the closest to what Lauren would want.
Athena tells a tale. Well, in a strict sense though, her 'gender' is very odd. Does she have a period? A bra size. A 'bad day.' No; what makes her 'she'?

Even were we talking Aphrodite who fucks like a minx, that isn't quite a 'gender', it's just too insubstantial---is her vagina small? does it lubricate well?
Lauren would say, maybe, "Well she gets in lust with male deities. and they fuck." Well, that's, I would say, gender by extension, by a common agreement to look at godlike entities that way. Ares, the fucker, is gendered by extention only.

What are the marks of this entity argued to be genderless.
Well it flits about. Goes into rooms, looks at the people. Tells you what one (maybe more)main character is thinking, but then appears a hundred miles away describing a truck driver's condition, maybe his thoughts as his vehicle approach the critical intersection where the truck collides with the main character, crossing the street.

That entity, being so wraithlike, etheric, NOT obeying restrictions of time or space cannot have a gender (except by extension, as with Athena; as with Casper the ghost who's supposedly male.)

Suppose however, there is a third person narrator of the events above, who is person. How could that person know things about the truck driver. Well, he could read the court transcripts, go interview him etc. He could interview the main character, too, and learn details.

The story would look quite different, though:
There would be a general disclaimer, or specific ones, as in "According to his later testimony, the truck driver had his thoughts on his wife, who was ill. No more is known about his thoughts, since his testimony went on to other topics. But this is what the main character was doing, in the meantime." The narrator will make it plain he's not in two place at one time, it's that he researched the events and can put accounts side by side.
And he know nothing beyond the accounts.

Either the narrator flits about, without apparent means of flight or knowledge**{Added, below}, OR is bound into personhood. Only the first counts as TPO.

As one secondary point, Lauren clearly distinguishes author and narrator; Perdita does not. Here I agree with Lauren. The entity, no matter how 'glacial' etc. is an author's construct; it's not the author. A novel is not like a personal letter. The madame bovary narrator can be distinguished from Flaubert. How? well, he never excuses himself to go take a leak. He doesn't interrupt the account because a doorbell rings.

Good contributions by all, imo.

J.

PS. Lauren has an interesting analogy.
//You're saying that royal blue, cobalt blue and baby blue aren't blue because they're not blue...//

Answer. No, I'm saying that the radiant blue of Athena's tunic, which, at a gathering of the gods, attracted Zeus's attention to his daughter is not a 'real blue'. You could go to a paint store with 1000 chips of different shades of blue; the 'radiant blue of Athena's tunic' would not be there.

{Added: This 'means of knowledge" point is perhaps not stressed sufficiently. The TPO has weird (essentially supernatural) means; gets into heads, into the unconscious; can in principle find out anything, i.e., 'Mary's real feelings." A person has limited means: watching Mary, reading her diary, interviewing her. In the end it would NOT be certain 'what she was feeling when she heard the news of...''. She told the interviewer one thing (happy) but went home and cried, so says the sister who was at home. There can be no authoritative resolution of the matter, in this 'personal', non TPO narration.}

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I don't think presence has anything to do with anything. Omniscience renders presence useless, as far as the narrative is concerned.

On the other hand, if the narrator is omnipresent, i.e. is physically present while all scenes unravell, it ceases to be pure 3rd person. It will be an active character, even if it's just "that guy always standing in a corner", it will describe the scenes from a particular (physical) point of view, and it will undoubtedly fall into 1st person. It was also make omniscience less believable...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

IF the 'personality', i.e, personal characteristics implied a gender, it would be a person narrating, not an omniscient entity.

I can't fathom a reason why a person can't be omniscient.

I can't fathom a reason why God should be genderless in my story, if I decide It is not.

Or consider this: a child asks you for a bedtime story. You tell him/her about Little Red Riding Hood, and her mother and her Grandma all alone on the other side of the Forest and the Big Bad Wolf that lurks in the short-cut and blah-blah-blah. You're the one narrating the story. You have a personality and a gender. You will intercalate the story with personal comments and judgements, whether it is to say that Lil Red looked really hot in that short hood and nothing else or that wolves are endangered and the woodcutter would have the Feds on his back soon enough.

Is the child going to ask you how the hell you know all that? Did you witness it with your own eyes, read the court transcripts and had a team of profilers trying to discover what each imaginary character was thinking at each time?

You'll simply know these things because you're making it up as you go along. You don't have the least bit of influence on the story itself--you're not a character--but you know everything. And you exist outside the realm of the story. Now transcribe what you said to the child and there you have it: 3rd person omniscient narrator with personality, political convictions, social awareness and gender...

 

[Pure]

I'll let others respond, except to say,
regarding the Lil Red Riding Hood example,
you proposed that we consider a story-telling session (of your invention), mom narrating.

That tends to breach the author narrator distinction you elsewhere subscribe to. Mom can add, "And you, Melissa, should remember not to go into the woods out in back of our house. There are no wolves, but there are bears, sometimes." Yes that really is 'gendered' mom talking.

This is NOT a parallel to an insertion, in an 18th century novel. "Reader, you will have to wait to see the outcome of Robert's trickery." That's the narrator talking (probably non-gendered).

I want to talk about novels, short stories, etc. writings as per the original topic. A transcript, even, of a story-telling session, is a hybrid entity, not a short story.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

That's not what I was talking about, but enough has been said for each person to draw his/her own conclusions. I'm not too pleased about being involved in yet another thread with gender in the title.



«She put out her already almost completely consumed cigarette under an impossibly high heel and walked up to him. She coughed softly, and the sound played his eardrums like the chant of a Siren. She crossed her leg, and Alex noticed, with all the amplitude the corner of his eye allowed, that it was a fantastically well-shaped line, freely flowing from underneath the hem of a dark short dress that clung tightly to her body. His iris almost disappeared in an effort to capture her hand as it traced a line up that leg, holding itself on her silky, sun darkened thigh. His hands began to shake. His cock stirred in his pants. Fuck, even mine would have. She was hot.»

Et voilà...

 

[raphy]

«She put out her already almost completely consumed cigarette under an impossibly high heel and walked up to him. She coughed softly, and the sound played his eardrums like the chant of a Siren. She crossed her leg, and Alex noticed, with all the amplitude the corner of his eye allowed, that it was a fantastically well-shaped line, freely flowing from underneath the hem of a dark short dress that clung tightly to her body. His iris almost disappeared in an effort to capture her hand as it traced a line up that leg, holding itself on her silky, sun darkened thigh. His hands began to shake. His cock stirred in his pants. Fuck, even mine would have. She was hot.»

Err, not wanting to throw a spanner into the works, but that's not TPO, is it.. The instant you say 'even mine would have', it becomes a first-person story, not a third-person story.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Howcome?

 

[Guest]

 

[ffreak]

I think this thread should be referenced in the Writer's Resources. It's a very educational discussion that shows how writers stretch and mold the rules to fit their story and are still willing to argue their perspectives on the issues.

Don't let me interrupt - I'm just having a good time reading and trying to keep up.

 

[Sultan Mad Cat]

NO!!

I write most of my stuff in third person and I find that.... You couldn't tell gender from anything.

 

[Dumpling]

Re: NO!!

I write most of my stuff in third person and I find that.... You couldn't tell gender from anything.

Please Excuse the interuption I just came bye to say HI Mad Cat

 

[ffreak]

Well, stick around and say some more.

(Nice smile, BTW)

 

[gauchecritic]

Well that was interesting. I honestly thought there would be a yes or no answer. But then neither KM nor Harold (or even DcM) have weighed in yet.

The reason for the start of the thread was that other thread that Angeline mentioned, gender prediction.

I suppose logically, (agreeing with Per) by their omniscience, the 3rd person (oft known as the narrator) cannot be gendered.

Thinking in terms of a narrator in a film who will give voice to his/her gender then the 3rd person here (as elsewhere) is the writer/director.

Putting words in people's mouths and thoughts in their heads makes you not only omniscient but also omnipotent. This then is gender free rather than genderless. Anyone can do it. Conversely, putting words thoughts etc gives no free will so here we have Deism in a sense. (Dict. def.)

Whether the story is believable or not is down to the author's skill. This skill is gender free. The application of this skill is, I believe, as Lauren, Jenny, Lime and others think, subject to the sex of the writer.

However, this being A Truth would preclude any sex from writing as any other sex which is blatantly untrue.

I can see both arguements but am still non-the-wiser.

Gauche

 

[Sultan Mad Cat]

Perhaps

Gauche has something but I think he might be over analizying things Just a tad.....

 

[Jenny _S]

I've thought about this seriously. And I see two different situations.

First is the situation where you have a "God-Like" creature who is uninvolved in the story, all knowing of past and future. This fits perdita's definition. The creature acts only as a narrator.

But there is a second situation where one of the characters is acting as narrator telling a story of a previous occurance about which he has all the qualities of the creature in the first situation and is a character in the action of the story too. The character/narrator would have gender, investment in the story and still tell it from the third person POV.

Why wouldn't this situation qualify?

 

[Pure]

I think the idea of 'gender of author' prediction, discussed elsewhere is a fairly separate issue. Presumably the writer's peculiarities as male or female in our culture, leads him/her to write a little differently, in a group statistical sense. That is the claim.

Presumably, however, the works examined included several points of view in narration, though I'd guess 'third person, restricted omniscience' is pretty common. The *narrator's gender* as we've looked at it, this thread, relates to how the narrator talks, as it were, in character. If the narrator is a chatty female 'neighbor' that's shown as much in topic as in style.

 

[ffreak]

Good show, Jenny.

I think that the story within the story allows the author to distance themselves from the reader with the extra wall of another narrator's voice (fictional author).

Sure, I still think the gender of the original author makes imprints that mark them as man or woman - especially when a woman is trying to write a too macho man, or a man is trying to write a too feminine woman.

But when additional devices come into play to distract the reader, it becomes harder for the reader to recognize any origin of gender. Maybe because it allows the writer to appear more objective.

Now add to all this that when a writer sticks to a single presentation form, it is probably impossible to tell the true gender of someone writing cross-gender.

Also add, most readers, given the opportunity, will gladly sublimate the narrator as long as the narrator cooperates, giving that omniscient aura even if the writer didn't know they were being a quiet God.

 

[Pure]

To Perdita and other literary experts{added: I mean those very well versed in literary criticism, at least by the standard of literotica forums}.

I think the kind of case Jenny and some others have in mind, as 'gendered and omniscient' would be something like this, when the narrator has a good command of what various people were thinking and doing in different locations. Perhaps you could comment.

==
A Local Incident

The shabby old guy, Fred Williams, whom everybody remembered as always having resided on the street recounts this story to everyone who moves in here. The facts had come out after a spectacular trial in the local courthouse, which a great many of the neighbors had attended, and in the newspapers. That was fifteen years ago. Almost all, by now, had moved away to less exciting towns. Fred had stayed.

"About five years ago, a young couple moved into number 65, and for the first few months everyone thought they looked pretty happy, your everyday newlywed types. One day the wife, Sarah --she was a real looker, by the way--said to her husband.

"'Frank, dear, I'm going to the market in Grimsby. Go ahead and eat on your own, at suppertime, I may be a bit later.'

"That's a small town maybe 40 odd miles from here. In fact, however she hadn't any intention at all of going to the market. She was headed for Malten, a ways further, to meet someone she had contacted through the 'Personals' section of the paper, in a secluded little inn.

"Her husband thought twice about this plan of hers: he merely figured Sarah was on one of her antique-hunting "sprees" as he called them. He wasn't worried a bit, and after she'd left in the car could be seen whistling happily while working in the front yard. He gave the little tree he'd just planted--it looked half dead-- more thought than he gave his wife, and was thinking to himself about what he'd need to do to bring the thing back to life. Speaking of which, Sarah, on the way to Malten, was thinking of bringing herself back to life in just a wee bit different way. The ad had said, "Extremely fit, considerate male, 30s, single, seeks loving woman for old fashioned romance."

"She hadn't told her husband, about as stupid as a bag of hammers, but she'd grown bored with his bedroom stuff, which there wasn't much of, anyway, and was going to do something about it. By meeting "Arthur" in Malten. What she didn't know, was the real background of the fellow supposedly named Arthur Rehnquist, who had already booked in a cosy little place called Millie's Country Hideaway.

"His real name was Jason Edward Abbot, and he was a con artist with pretty impressive credentials. While able to romance the ladies like Carrie Grant, he had, since his release from prison, about five years earlier, conned a dozen of them in five states of a huge pile of money, five to ten grand apiece. So, while Sarah was expecting to meet the handsome accountant whose face showed in a picture she'd received, "Arthur" was thinking he'd found another easy mark. He was right. And ordering beautiful flowers for the room, charged to his phoney name on a Mastercard."
===

 

[Sultan Mad Cat]

you know

Once upon a time I wrote..... a story from the third person perspective and I would jump into a first person perspective, via narrator... was actually my first erotic peice.... it was probably very bad as I had no idea what I was doing at the time.... but it was a concept that perhaps some might find interesting?

 

[oggbashan]

Almost any technique or none are valid - if they work.

Og

 

[raphy]

Lauren:

By saying 'Even mine would have' you give the narrator an identity - You're telling the story from the POV of a 'someone' ..

I'm of the belief that TPO narrators are, for want of a better word 'identity-less' .. They're not a 'someone', they're a 'no-one'. They're non-entities. Even giving them a term such as 'narrator' is somewhat misleading, because it implies identity

The only real way I can describe it is to maybe liken it to watching a movie with and without narration. Bladerunner is about the best example I can give, because it has narration in one version, and no narration in the other.

In the original release version, it's narrated by Harrison Ford in that laconic Sam Spade style and so it becomes a first person story, told from the point of view of Deckard.

Take the narration out, and there's nothing that really gives the storyteller gender, because (and I think this is the important bit) .. There is no storyteller, no 'person' saying 'This happened, then that happened', etc etc. You're just witness to those events.

I'm really having a hard time explaining myself here, and I apologize for that, but my take on it is this:

In a TPO story, there is no narrator, just the events. With no narrator, there cannot be gender.

Tomorrow, you go the shopping mall. You're watching a woman on the street walk into a store. She bumps into the door, drops her purse, then bends to pick it up...

You didn't tell that story. You're not the narrator. But you're witnessing the events, and you know what happened when she bumped into the door.

So 'who' told the story? TPO aims to be (but often isn't, because after all, we're still human beings) like that.

Err, did any of that make any sense?

p.s. edited cuz I aer gud speeler

 

[Guest]

Almost any technique or none are valid - if they work.

Ditto what Ogg says.

Last words on this from me: I am not a 'literary expert' (don't know what that means), simply have more real time experience reading and thinking about what I read than most of you except for Ogg.

The woman I (and the academic multitudes) regard as an expert in the study of literature, language and how it all works backs me up in what I've said so I don't give a fuck about anything contradictory to it. (Which is not to say I don't wish you all well in figuring out what you're trying to say.)

Perdita

edit p.s. I rec'd an inquiry re. my mood. It is fine. If the above came across as otherwise I apologize. Perdita is happy today, just doesn't have more to say on this thread.