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Point of view in a Passage from Fanny and Annie by D. H. Lawrence
Our answer for task B (part b)
And what can we learn about the story itself?
Lawrence has effectively dramatised a serious misdemeanour on Bob's part,
but we are still in suspense about what exactly he is guilty of. It transpires
soon after this passage that he has made one of Mrs Nixon's daughters
pregnant but has refused to marry her because he wants to marry Fanny.
What is interesting about the rest of the story is that:
- Although in the narrative we have seen things mainly from Fanny's
viewpoint up until now, from now on we hardly get her viewpoint at all.
The narrator withdraws from her viewpoint. We do not know directly what
she is thinking any more, and are left to infer her attitudes from what
she does and says.
- This withdrawal from her perspective means that it is difficult to
be sure what motivates her decisions from now on. But at the end of
the story she indicates indirectly from what she says that she is going
ahead with the marriage in spite of (because of?) Frank's behaviour.
She calls Mrs Goodall 'mother' for the first time in the story (cf.
conceptual, social and attitudinal viewpoint). This internal deviation
is clearly highly foregrounded, highly interpretable and yet difficult
to interpret. At the end of the story we are left wondering why Fanny
suddenly makes up her mind about the marriage. Has Frank's notoriety
made him more attractive to her (he is not a nobody any more, after
all)? Has the attack on 'her man' made her want to 'close ranks' with
him and his family? Is she motivated by a combination of these things
or maybe by something else we have not thought of? In this way Lawrence
leaves us hanging in the air at the end of a story acknowledged by the
critics to be one of his best.
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