A Sentimental Journey and Persuasion

A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne uses a first-person narrator through its protagonist Yorick who is critical of his opinion of others and often voices them ruthfully. While in Jane Austen’s Persuasion the main character Anne Elliot does not voice her opinions as highly and usually keeps her thoughts to herself all the while letting others create an opinion for her and choose for her since she is easily persuaded into things. Free indirect discourse is third-person narration that can also be deciphered as first-person narration as it is difficult at times to comprehend which characters thoughts are being voiced because it never uses she said or he said, instead a characters thoughts are dominant in the passage and it is up to the reader to decide which character it is who’s doing the narrating. First-person narration is used through a character and it is clear for the reader on what that certain character feels towards others and situations throughout a novel because “I” is voiced straight from the character. First-person narration doesn't create critical distance between the reader and Yorick in A Sentimental Journey because we know exactly what his thoughts are whereas with free indirect discourse it is harder upon the reader to decide whose thoughts are dominant in the passage and whether or not it is a character narrating the passage or the narrator itself whose gender is never revealed in Persuasion, thus why it creates critical distance for the readers and its characters especially its main character Anne Elliot.