The POV Narrative Strategy

George R. R. Martin is an American writer and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, who possesses a concise, visual and dynamic style of writing. A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of fantasy novels in which five books have been published from1996to2011, is Martin’s representative work. After the publication of the first book, A Game of Thrones in1996, the A Song of Ice and Fire series immediately became one of the most popular fantasy works in the world. It has been translated into more than twenty languages and has won many influential awards all over the world, being considered a milestone in the field of epic fantasy fiction over the past fifty years.Drawing inspiration from the Wars of the Roses, Martin created a complicated mediaeval world where people from different Houses fight in the court and battlefield, playing the game of thrones. The strong sense of historical fiction and moderate appearance of magic made A Song of Ice and Fire different from most contemporary fantasy novels. This is a cruel and bloody story that very often makes you afraid to turn to the next page; a story exposes the darkest side of a person when facing life and death. There are betrayals more than love, machinations more than honour, and dreams and perseverance are always challenged by temptations and interests. In A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin uses a POV narrative strategy, which means every chapter of the novel is narrated from a specific character’s perspective. In each chapter, the story shows the thoughts and desires of one particular character, everything he or she sees and hears, and what they know and remember, without the thoughts of other characters and events occurring outside of his or her sight. Through the eyes of the POV characters, readers see the process of the character growing up as well as their complex human nature as if the reader were in the scene along with the characters.This thesis looks closely at the text, examining what effect Martin has achieved by using the POV narrative strategy, and how this strategy helps the readers explore the themes surrounding A Song of Ice and Fire, and, as a result, have a more profound and comprehensive understanding of the work. The first chapter gives an introduction to fantasy literature, including its origin, definition, history and development since1900, and its sub-genres. Next, an introduction to A Song of Ice and Fire and its author is given in chapter2, along with reasons for the worldwide popularity of the book. What’s more, this chapter investigate the previous and current studies of A Song of Ice and Fire both nationally and internationally, followed by the definition of point of view from both a general sense and a narrow sense theoretically. This chapter finalises with my own view of the research, mainly regarding the reasons why I studied A Song of Ice and Fire from the narrative strategy aspect. The third chapter looks at the POV narrative strategy in the book, by giving a brief introduction to third person limited point of view. Additionally, we explore the primary POV characters and illustrate the principles of choosing the POV characters. The fourth chapter examines the effects achieved by using POV narrative strategy, and analyses some examples from the first three books to see how Martin expresses the themes of A Song of Ice and Fire by dramatizing the story and characters. In its conclusion, this thesis looks back at George Martin’s writing style, the success of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, themes of the work, and the narrative strategy used in it. By exploring Martin’s work, this thesis attempts to give a comprehensive analysis of the novel from a narrative perspective, and provide answers to the questions of how the POV technique is used in Martin’s writing, what effect he achieves by using a POV narrative strategy, and what themes are presented from the POV characters’track of growing up and human nature. At the end of the conclusion, some limitations of the thesis are stated and additional possibilities for future study are provided.