This, then, is the readiest means of dramatically heightening a
reported impression, this device of telling the story in the first
person, in the person of somebody in the book; and large in our
fiction the first person accordingly bulks. The characterized "I" is
substituted for the loose and general "I" of the author; the loss of
freedom is more than repaid by the more salient effect of the picture.
Precision, individuality is given to it by this pair of eyes, known
and named, through which the reader sees it; instead of drifting in
space above the spectacle he keeps his allotted station and
contemplates a delimited field of vision. There is much benefit in the
sense that the picture has now a definite edge; its value is brought
out to the best advantage when its bounding line is thus emphasized.
Moreover, it is not only the field of vision that is determined by the
use of the first person, it is also the quality of the tone. When we
are shown what Esmond sees, and nothing else, there is first of all
the comfortable assurance of the point of view, and then there is the
personal colour which he throws over his account, so that it gains
another kind of distinction. It does not matter that Esmond's tone in
his story is remarkably like Thackeray's in the stories that _he_
tells; in Esmond's case the tone has a meaning in the story, is part
of it, whereas in the other case it is related only to Thackeray, and
Thackeray is in the void.
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