A Text World Theory approach to viewpoint analysis, with special reference to John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy

In this paper I investigate the contribution Text World Theory (Werth 1999, Gavins 2007) can make to an understanding of how viewpoint effects are brought about in prose fiction. Text World Theory is concerned with how language, as well as the context in which it is produced/received, leads the participants in the discourse to build mental representations for the situations being described, despite not necessarily having been present for the original event, or the event itself not having happened (e.g. in fictional and hypothetical worlds). The theory has been applied to prose fiction to explain how fictional worlds are created and how they develop and change as a text progresses. Because these worlds are necessarily established from a particular perspective, or range of perspectives, such as from that of a narrator telling the story, and/or character(s) belonging to the story world, I will argue that adopting such an approach can lead to further insights into how particular point of view effects are realised. I support this through presenting my findings from an analysis of an extract from le Carré’s A Perfect Spy, a novel which displays a complex style of viewpoint presentation with frequent shifting from one character’s or narrator’s perspective to another, as well as ambiguities as to exactly whose viewpoint is being presented. I assess the extent to which the theory can account for such complex viewpoint effects, showing that an analysis of the number and types of sub-world established in the extract contributes to an understanding of how the gradual shift from a more external, narratorial viewpoint to the internal perspective of the character is brought about. However, the analysis also shows that the theory is unable to account precisely for viewpoint ambiguities, often resulting from the more indirect indicators of character point of view.