Omniscient Point of View

In “The Storyteller,” what do we learn about each character through the omniscient point of view? How does this choice of narrator affect the plot? How would the story be different if told by either the aunt or the bachelor from the first person point of view? What would be lost?

Saki chose to tell the story "The Storyteller" through a third-person omniscient point of view. He chose this perspective and not, say, a first-person point of view, for specific reasons. An omniscient perspective allows the reader to observe all of the developments and the events that are unfolding in the carriage, and allows us to delve into the minds of some of the characters in order for us to observe their thoughts and opinions. In addition, this specific type of perspective gives us an unbiased account of the series of events that occurs in the story.

Through the omniscient point of view, we are able to look into the thoughts of some of the characters (as the narrator permits). By utilizing the third-person omniscient perspective, the reader's view and understanding of the story is not limited towards a specific character. With this point of view, we are able to learn the thoughts and allows us to infer the personality of the bachelor. Through the third-person perspective we learn how annoyed he is with the children's constant movement, how he finds the aunt's teaching method's laughable, and his thoughts surrounding the incident afterwards. We can also learn about the aunt's thoughts; upon first impression she finds the bachelor a "hard, unsympathetic man" and cannot think of good replies to the children's constant stream of questions ("she was utterly unable to come up to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other field").

This choice of narrator greatly affects the plot. For one thing, if the story were to be told from another point of view, such as first-person, the tone of the story would be based on the personality of the person who is telling the story. With the third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator keeps an unbiased account of the plot. If the story were to be told from another point of view, such as from the perspective of the aunt, we would be reading a story that would include dissenting opinions of the bachelor's story; if we were reading it entirely from the bachelor's perspective we would read about the bachelor's strong opposition towards the aunt's methods of quieting the children.

If the story was not told form a 3rd-person perspective, the unbiased account of the story would be lost.