Change in the View

Author’s Note: I am doing my point of view piece about if the whole book was from a different character’s point of view.


13 year-old Nathaniel is a boy who is an indentured servant working on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, living in the year 1775. He has a friend on that plantation named Moses. However, soon after, he is sold to a kind, elderly schoolmaster named Basil. Nathaniel is separated from Moses, and finds out that the people where Moses is don’t like the idea of liberty in a country that depends on slaves and indentured servants. Moses’s only chance of liberty is to run away and join the British Royal Ethiopian, a regiment of escaped Virginian slaves. I am going to describe how the book would be different if it was told from Moses’s point of view.

Moses was separated from Nathaniel, and the things that Moses saw weren’t mentioned often because they were two different stories taking place at the same time. If it was Moses’s point of view, there wouldn’t be much information about the war going on. The reader would be much more confused, just as Moses would’ve been. This is because Moses’s top thing on his priority list was to escape to gain his liberty. The reader would be curious about Nathaniel, because it was Nathaniel’s job to help Moses without being caught by Basil because he was known to be trustworthy.

Not only does the book mention how Nathaniel is friends with Moses, but the part where they are separated would be much different from Moses’s point of view. He would’ve had the same emotions, but he would have to form his plan to escape, and Nathaniel didn’t know exactly what his plan was. He just had to help Moses because they were friends, and they didn’t want to not be friends anymore just because they were separated. The reader would’ve felt much different about the war taking place if it was from Moses’s point of view, because Moses would’ve played a different role if he was free in the first place.

As you can see, if the point of view in a book like this changed, the reader would’ve felt much differently about the situation going on. They would’ve also felt different because the thoughts that go through the characters’ heads would convince the reader to think different things about the situations in the book. The point of view in a book or story or any type of literature is very important.