A First Person Is You!

Okay, so for no particular reason (alright there was totally a reason, but I'm not telling you) I was thinking about first person perspective in storytelling.

You know the one that goes "I" rather than "You" (second), or "Bob" (third).

I remembered an occasion in my grade twelve English class when my teacher said that she hated first person perspective and would never read it because she didn't like being made into the narrator. Now, at the time I didn't think much on it, I just put it down to a difference in opinion. I love first person, I find it creates a more intimate experience where I can really get to know characters and become immersed in their world.

It's only later that I became aware of how strange that viewpoint is to me. I realized exactly what my teacher was saying. She couldn't separate herself from the narrator, she immediately read "I" like it should be an internalized thought originating in her own mind and felt violated by the trespass.

I can't get over how bizarre the entire notion is. When I read "I", it seems to me as if the main character is telling me a story of personal experience, as if I myself am inside the character's own head. The idea that I was the character never even crossed my mind.

I think this teacher was having a similar reaction to first person perspective that I have to second person, the feeling that an unseen omnipotent force is attempting to direct my actions.*

I wonder if she has trouble reading opinion pieces, unable to separate the author's thoughts from her own. Could she read this blog post comfortably, automatically feeling it was me the student writing it, or would she have to constantly make an effort of will to remain separate from the narrator.

How does a person come to understand first person in such a way? Why is it some people might not be able to see the division between "I" said as a mental realization of self, and "I" said as a person referring to themselves. Is it a difference in education? Or is it a difference in intelligence? Is it in fact indiscriminate across intellectual levels and a result of something completely unrelated? A result of how our brains are wired?

I have done a lot of research about the different perspectives and have written in all three. I am confident I have the correct interpretation, but is it possible that the people who think as I do are the ones inclined to write about it in the first place. Do all people with no desire to write see as my teacher did? Or is it that most people see as she does and revel in the perversity of seeing themselves as the character? Is it even a perversity? Perhaps the intention of first person is to put the reader in the story. Are my teacher and I both odd in that she was uncomfortable with the idea and I simply misinterpreted it?

Am I the one who is in fact perverse? Enjoying an intimate view in a fictional stranger's life?

How do you read first person? Where do you stand when you are behind the words? Are you thinking them or are they thought to you?




* When I read second person I have to remind myself that they are not referring to "me" directly but an unknown hypothetical and possibly very specifically idealized reader. Perhaps the "you" was never even meant to read it, but the author wrote it to express certain feelings to a particular person or group of people.