In my last year at the Texas State graduate Creative Writing program, I took a class that discussed the use of point-of-view in fiction. We were required to write informal journals every week. Below is one of my best attempts at a journal entry:
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There’s a book by Roger Zelazny that uses the first person in an unusual way. Today We Choose Faces is the story of a futuristic civilization devastated by nuclear war. They decide to abandon space exploration and confine themselves to structures called Houses, which are miles-wide, windowless buildings as big as cities. The narrator is a man named Lange, who works behind-the-scenes to keep humanity inside the Houses. He believes that is the best way to maintain control and keep mankind away from the violent tendencies of its ancestors. No one should be aware of his existence--not politicians, clergymen, businessmen, or other residents of the Houses--but someone has discovered he exists, and that someone is determined to kill him.
Humanity dwells within the Houses for hundreds of years. Technology has not advanced enough for a person to live that long, so Lange keeps himself alive through cloning. A batch of clones is created in each generation. Each clone has the personality and memories of the generations that came before them, and all the living clones share a telepathic link. When one clone dies, the other clones absorb his memories.
The point-of-view in the novel switches rapidly between each clone in one generation. The mystery killer is hunting each of them down and killing them one-at-a-time, all within the same day. As soon as one clone dies, the point-of-view switches to the next clone, who has just psychically experienced the late clone’s death. Each clone narrates their chapter of the story with the help of the first person point-of-view. Their personalities are practically identical, so it felt like the same character each time, as if one consciousness had jumped from one body to the next. Still, the clones are supposed to be their own people. I couldn’t distinguish many differences between each clone based solely on their inner monologues, but before they band together to stop the hunter, each clone had moved into a different House and had successfully led his own life. One is a musician, while another is a political adviser, and so forth. One clone wishes he could be as decisive as the dead clones, and it does take him longer than his “brothers” to decide on what actions he wants to take. Still, for the most part, they are the same person.
It’s an intriguing idea to tell a story through a group of characters with the same physical features and the same personality. There are many stories out there that experiment with that sort of plot. Body swap stories, I’ve found, are often fascinated with all the little bits of body language and dialogue that define a person and make him or her identifiable, no matter what physical features the person may have. Identical twins have the same features, but their personalities are not alike. Clones, meanwhile, have a strange bond; I expect them to act the same no matter what situation they are in, but why would they? Sure, they are the same person up until the cloning takes place, but after the cloning process, each clone is exposed to different experiences and influences. Zelazny’s novel doesn’t spend much time on this, but I think it’d be fascinating to explore just what made the musician version of Lange become a musician or what led the other clones to pursue their own careers. Today We Choose Faces is heavily plot-oriented, and each clone is mainly concerned with staying alive long enough to identify or stop the person who is killing them all off. There isn’t enough time in the novel to explore the unique attributes of each clone.
It’d be awesome to explore the clones’ differences, but the 1st person point-of-view may not be appropriate for such a story. The first person is used in Zelazny’s novel to bring the clones together; a story exploring their differences would set them apart. Though they live their own lives, the first person perspective reminds the reader that this is one person in multiple bodies. That’s also how they see themselves. When one clone dies, the next narrator says that, “I had just been murdered,” not that his “brother” was just murdered. Perhaps a story that explores their differences would benefit more from the third person point-of-view and its range of pronouns. Instead of using “I,” no matter what clone is in control, one version of Lange would be “he,” while the other clones would be “the other versions of himself.” This could put some distance between them and allow them room to grow as individuals.
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Humanity dwells within the Houses for hundreds of years. Technology has not advanced enough for a person to live that long, so Lange keeps himself alive through cloning. A batch of clones is created in each generation. Each clone has the personality and memories of the generations that came before them, and all the living clones share a telepathic link. When one clone dies, the other clones absorb his memories.
The point-of-view in the novel switches rapidly between each clone in one generation. The mystery killer is hunting each of them down and killing them one-at-a-time, all within the same day. As soon as one clone dies, the point-of-view switches to the next clone, who has just psychically experienced the late clone’s death. Each clone narrates their chapter of the story with the help of the first person point-of-view. Their personalities are practically identical, so it felt like the same character each time, as if one consciousness had jumped from one body to the next. Still, the clones are supposed to be their own people. I couldn’t distinguish many differences between each clone based solely on their inner monologues, but before they band together to stop the hunter, each clone had moved into a different House and had successfully led his own life. One is a musician, while another is a political adviser, and so forth. One clone wishes he could be as decisive as the dead clones, and it does take him longer than his “brothers” to decide on what actions he wants to take. Still, for the most part, they are the same person.
It’s an intriguing idea to tell a story through a group of characters with the same physical features and the same personality. There are many stories out there that experiment with that sort of plot. Body swap stories, I’ve found, are often fascinated with all the little bits of body language and dialogue that define a person and make him or her identifiable, no matter what physical features the person may have. Identical twins have the same features, but their personalities are not alike. Clones, meanwhile, have a strange bond; I expect them to act the same no matter what situation they are in, but why would they? Sure, they are the same person up until the cloning takes place, but after the cloning process, each clone is exposed to different experiences and influences. Zelazny’s novel doesn’t spend much time on this, but I think it’d be fascinating to explore just what made the musician version of Lange become a musician or what led the other clones to pursue their own careers. Today We Choose Faces is heavily plot-oriented, and each clone is mainly concerned with staying alive long enough to identify or stop the person who is killing them all off. There isn’t enough time in the novel to explore the unique attributes of each clone.
It’d be awesome to explore the clones’ differences, but the 1st person point-of-view may not be appropriate for such a story. The first person is used in Zelazny’s novel to bring the clones together; a story exploring their differences would set them apart. Though they live their own lives, the first person perspective reminds the reader that this is one person in multiple bodies. That’s also how they see themselves. When one clone dies, the next narrator says that, “I had just been murdered,” not that his “brother” was just murdered. Perhaps a story that explores their differences would benefit more from the third person point-of-view and its range of pronouns. Instead of using “I,” no matter what clone is in control, one version of Lange would be “he,” while the other clones would be “the other versions of himself.” This could put some distance between them and allow them room to grow as individuals.
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