SOURCE: Parr, James A. “Extrafictional Point of View in Don Quijote.” In Studies on Don Quijote and Other Cervantine Works, edited by Donald W. Bleznick, pp. 20-30. York, S. C.: Spanish Literature Publications Company, 1984.

In the following essay, Parr discusses narrative point of view in Don Quixote.

A recent, thoughtful statement about point of view reads as follows: “All too frequently … point of view has been conceived in terms of a single, surface-structure relationship between narrator and narrated event. Such a relationship leaves no room for exploring the relationships of narrator to audience or narrator to authorial voice. Even more reductive are concepts of point of view that restrict themselves to a technical ‘angle of vision’ through which the story is perceived, ignoring the vital but more elusive and often shifting elements of distance, tone, and attitude.”¹

With that as a succinct philosophical point of departure, I have...