Point of View
In some ways, analyzing point of view is less direct than examination of syntax or diction, but it is still founded on the text - point of view is not found between the lines at all - but does require some supposition.
Asking some questions helps:
What is the attitude of the author toward her subject, toward his main character, toward the society in which the story is told?
What abut HOW the author presents her topic indicates her feelings about the topic. Are these feelings sympathetic, ironic, critical, laudatory, investigative?
What in the personal story of this writer - Elie Wisel for example - might tell something about his general orientation in the world, then, more specifically, about this subject.
If you have read Kincaid's Annie John, you know the author is from a Caribbean island, grew up poor but well and became a sensation on her arrival in New York. Understanding the point of view of Girl then becomes a matter of referring to what one already knows about the writer. If this is the only piece by Kincaid one has read, determining point of view is a bit more of a chore but still is easily done by attention to detail. Take her passage from Girl:
"Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don't eat fruits on the street - flies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button . . . ."
The title is a clue. Kincaid takes the point of view of the girl, not, necessarily, the mother. In the text, the girl denies the "benna singing" rumor and is ignored, over-talked and outtalked. She is accused of wanting to be a slut, though there is little evidence this is anything more than her mother's fear. So, the point of view is sympathetic to the girl. Sympathy toward the mother might emerge later but initially the author presents the dilemma of a growing young islander being instructed by her mother.
Hurston is immediately sympathetic to her story teller and her subject. We are seated in the kitchen or by the stove and know by the title (revised from the manuscript title "Now You Cookin' with Gas") that the author is unafraid of using slang in her story and, thus, probably studies it and admires slang's ability to convey story.
How does Hurston present Jelly? Well, she clearly sympathizes with him and presents him as some sort of hero out on the Avenue, but she shows him as a victim/hero too. The last lines of the story tell the reader this, "He was remembering those full, hot meals he had left back in Alabama to seek wealth and splendor in Harlem without working. He had even forgotten to look cocky and rich." His foibles and pretensions are his downfall; all he misses here, though, is a few hot meals for no work and, maybe, gains a bit of humility.
Hemingway's view of subject is not immediately clear, but by the end of the passage the horrors of war and its destructive powers become clear. The cholera epidemic is the firm indication of difficulties in war, but the dust coating the trees and leave, and everything else too, is an early indication of antiwar sentiment. Otherwise, Hemingway appears neutral in voice, a newspaper man to the finish, but that bare style actually serves to under score in a deadpan fashion the horror of what he describes.
Kozol's point of view is clear from the beginning of his article. He is an advocate of equal education and a critic of the new segregation he sees growing in the nation's schools. His role, then, is to expose the situation to public view.
