50 Years after Apollo 11: Armageddon’s Film Review

by Laura Lai/ Review

What is the difference between the Atlantis shuttle from the movie ‘Armageddon’ and Apollo 11? In 1969, on July the 20^th, Apollo 11 made a ‘small step on the moon’ after a 4-day trip and it returned to Earth. 1969 is actually the Cold War period engaging the USA and the USSR. This space race was won by the United States of America because President J.F. Kennedy increased NASA’s budget with 300%, but President Kennedy did not live long enough to witness this great achievement. It was President Richard Nixon, who made the call to the moon – the longest distance phone call ever recorded. It could definitely not be a collect phone call, but a call on NASA’s budget. On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary since the three American astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins – made the ‘giant leap for mankind’ on the moon and collected some rocks, the U.S. President Donald Trump committed to an American return to the moon by 2024 and to a ‘sustainable presence’ on the moon by 2028, from where further space exploration to be possible. And maybe the collect phone call, too. To mark this 50^th anniversary event, the U.S. National Air and Space Museum in Washington displayed for all its visitors – as the entrance is free – Neil Armstron’s space suit.

The space suit ware by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) in the movie ‘Armageddon’ (directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, 1998) seemed pretty close to the original suit of Neil Armstrong. ‘Armageddon’ is a science-fiction movie about an asteroid, which is about to collide with the Earth in 18 hours. The impact would mean the end of the world (Armageddon), as some parts of the world would be wiped out, a part of the world population would freeze to death and the other one would be incinerated by the heat.

The movie starts with the explosion in space of the shuttle Atlantis and NASA looking for Harry Stamper and his team used to drill on any kind of surface, in order to send them in space to drill 800 feet under a high time pressure and place a bomb on the asteroid. Two shuttles were organized, Freedom and Independence, but their trip to space, as well as the drilling stay is full of unpredictable events under a high time pressure. There is also a love story unfolding in the movie: it involves Harry Stamper’s daughter, Grace (Liv Taylor) and A.J. (Ben Affleck). From my point of view, this love story had a great role in balancing the drama of the movie, as well as opposing the sensational experience of the father and fiancé in space to the agony of daughter and fiancée watching the whole trip and waiting for their return from the NASA Space Centre.

On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the first small step for the man on the moon, I wanted to particularly recall the movie ‘Armageddon’ for several reasons. First, it seems to somehow connect to each other: Now that Apollo 11 returned in 1969 from space, then that Harry Stamper and his team succeeded in destroying the asteroid and the Earth survived in 1998, President Donald Trump and NASA can focus on the next trip by 2024 and to a sustainable human presence by 2028 for further explorations. Second, I am a fan of movies with Bruce Willis, which are usually action movies, but not necessarily. For example, the very first sequence of this movie showing Harry Stamper playing golf on the petrol platform interpreted by Bruce Willis with his original mixture of fun with cynicism and his typical smile reminded me of the character David (interpreted by Bruce Willis) from the TV comedy series ‘Maddie and David – Moonlighting’, which I enjoyed watching in the 1990s.

            Another reason I thought of this movie is that I am also a fan of movies with Ben Affleck, but given the age difference between them, I think I’ve seen more movies with Bruce Willis. However, this movie cast with great movie stars’ names was very well chosen. Last but not least the movie ‘Armageddon’ is a great suspense movie, with a beautiful music and great special effects.

British Conservatives’ Last Hustings: Bojo vs. Hujo

For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.

by Laura Lai/ Comment

I have never been preoccupied by the conservative hair dying topic, but now that I know that Boris Johnson’s golden hair color is God given and not some cosmetics industry achievement, I can sigh of relief and concentrate better on the last hustings of the British Conservative Party for the party leader and Prime Minister vacancies. This last hustings took place in London, on Friday, the 19^th of July and it was moderated (and broadcasted live) by Ian Dale from radio LBC. Each of the last two finalists, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, had one hour. In this one hour, they were each introduced by a supporter, hold a 15 to 20 minutes speech and took questions from the conservatives attendees.

All hustings for the Prime Minister vacancy addressed only the Conservative Party members, because it is them who will elect the party leader and the new Prime Minister for the whole United Kingdom (UK) due to the British voting system.

            Broadly speaking, there are two major voting systems: a majority and a representative one (there is a mixed one, too, but this is another discussion). The UK voting system is called ‘first-past-the-post’ and is a majority voting system. It basically means that the candidate with the largest number of votes in a constituency wins the elections for that constituency. It is a typical voting system for countries with two major political parties (ex. United States of America, UK, etc) and frequently met among the Commonwealth countries (ex. Australia, New Zealand, etc). This voting system disadvantages political parties usually ranked 3^rd or 4^th (for ex. the Liberal Democrats (LibDem) in the UK), because the percent of the casted votes does not reflect in the number of seats the party gets (usually less seats than votes). But this voting system advantages the regional political parties (ex. the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein also from Northern Ireland, Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) from Scotland, etc.). It also advantages even smaller parties: A candidate from the ‘Drivers’ Party’ or ‘Electric Cars Party’ can also win a constituency. Theoreticians consider this voting system as being more stable in democracy, because the government cannot fall, unless there is turmoil inside the ruling party. The discussions on Brexit, as well as the defeat of the Conservative Party in the European elections – won by the Brexit Party – lead to the resignation of the current Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the beginning of a hustings for this vacancy among the members of the Conservative Party.

After successive hustings and a large number of candidates, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are the finalists. One of them will be the next UK Prime Minister. Last Friday each of them had a last opportunity to convince their colleagues to cast their votes for one or the other.

            I have heard two speeches of two candidates, who are proud of the British democracy. The style is different, though. Jeremy Hunt is more the showman type, slightly academic – although an entrepreneur – with lots of names and quotes. Boris Johnson was the typical politician who has prepared a written speech that he presented in an energetic way. I think it was a great idea for Boris to visually show what the European Union (EU) requires from the UK, by bringing that kipper and the ice plastic bag required by the EU, the ice bag actually making the kipper more expensive.

            They both talked in collegial terms about each other and about their predecessors. Jeremy mentioned Margaret Thatcher, but Boris… very surprising to me – and this is something I appreciated a lot – Boris mentioned Theresa May, from whose Cabinet he resigned over Brexit issue, whom he appreciates for her green policy ambitions. He mentioned her following a question from the public and by the way the answer was formulated, I have no doubts that it was spontaneous bringing to light a great political quality for the common good of Boris Johnson. They both opposed their speeches to Jeremy Corbyn, as the common political adversary and both avoided to give a date for the Queen speech. They are both feminists, understood as the equality among sexes and encouraging more women in politics, but based on meritocracy.

I also think that a woman can undertake political tasks as good or as bad as a man does, but given the fact that politics is about back stage discussions, more or less dirty compromises, more or less caring about the people, and public appearances sometimes, both genders must have a certain character for politics. And whatever that character feature is – because I do not know to publicly name it – can very well exist in a woman as well as in a man. I studied for a doctoral degree in Political Sciences, because I like to swim among theories … like a fish. I found it exciting and challenging, but due to lack of financial resources … no doctoral degree, no teaching, but also no regrets. However, I agree with Boris that imposing quotas, as the European Union does, is discriminatory towards the qualified men. The quotas imposes on a selection committee to pick a woman, although she may not be as qualified as a man counter candidate. Jeremy also is in favor of backing women based on meritocracy.

            Both candidates identified the same needs of the British society that they want to tackle once elected for the Prime Minister open position. They can be categorized as follows: economy, Brexit, infrastructure and environment. For Boris to level up the education is highly important, too, while for Jeremy the allocation of two percent for defense is among its priorities.

The two candidates mainly differ at the top priority: For Boris Johnson the first among its priorities is delivering Brexit, while for Jeremy Hunt the first among its priorities is to fire up the economy and the country’s GDP and make the British economy a green one, a high tech one and more pro-business oriented, actually the ‘next Silicon Valley’. On Brexit issue Jeremy Hunt is convinced that he can re-open the negotiations with the Europeans. His conviction is based on the fact that he is the Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s Cabinet and this makes him familiar with Brussels and its bureaucrats. Boris Johnson also spent many years in Brussels, as a journalist, and he must also be familiar with the environment and the European bureaucrats, who have actually repeatedly said that there would be no further Brexit negotiations.

Therefore there are speculations on the creative ways Brexit will unfold next in order for the government to deliver on the majority’s democratic referendum demand. It seems that Boris Johnson understood better the reason why the Conservative Party got such a low score in the European elections and the reason why the Brexit Party of Nigel Farage won these last elections. It was not about GDP or percentage allocated to the defense, it was neither about environment nor about education, it was not about the percentage of women in politics or about whether or not women can do the same political job as men do. Why did the Conservative Party lost and the Brexit Party won?

The U.S. Southern Border Crisis: Who’s the Man in this HuMANitarian Crisis? (I)

by Laura Lai/ Essay

It was at the beginning of June 2019, when the New York Times was asking: ‘When Will the Congress Get Serious about the Sufferings at the Border? And a week later, the U.S. President Donald Trump announced that ‘next week the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.’

            Although the U.S. President used every single public opportunity he had to remind the Congress to get rid of the loopholes in the immigration laws and to fix the ‘broken’ American asylum law, the U.S. southern border crisis saga rolled on reaching the point of humanitarian crisis and threat to the national security. However, it seems that the problems existed long before Trump’s Administration. For example, the Obama Administration deported 409,000 people (2012), while the highest number of deportees made by the Trump Administration is 256,000 (2018). In April 2019 around 100,000 were apprehended crossing into the U.S. from Mexico – the third consecutive month topping 100,000 apprehensions. And at the end of June 2019, almost a quarter of the Americans (23%) – but more than ever – named in a Gallup poll the illegal immigration as a threat to the American security and a burden for the American taxes system. 

            The U.S. southern border crisis is a complex saga of, on the one side, sexual assaults (on women and children), of drug smuggling and human/children trafficking; and, on the other side, a rolling on saga of political bureaucracy, of long and expensive research to impeach the president. When politics is human-centered and it is about efficient decision-making in the best interest of the people, I wonder: Who’s the man in this huMANitarian crisis?

The United States of America has a so-called ‘limited presidential executive’ system, usually referred to as a ‘presidential system’. In the U.S. political system, the president is both head of state and of government. And for each of these political positions, he has precise attributions. As a head of government, he is the main legislative initiator, as well as the Commander-in-Chief and he is in charge with the American foreign policy. The President of the United States, as head of government, governs through a cabinet of advisers, appointed by the president and directly accountable to him. The President himself has a 4-year mandate and cannot be removed unless impeached.

         The legislative power is represented by the 2-Chamber Congress (House of Representatives and the Senate) whose election procedure, mandate and organization are settled by the U.S. Constitution. Although the Congress has legislative power, the President alone can veto its decision, but the veto can be overruled by 2/3 of the Congress. Therefore, any legislative initiative of the U.S. President is ‘limited’ by the approval of the Congress.

            A Republican party majority in both chambers of the Congress would have definitely been of a greater support for the laws initiated by the (Republican) President, Donald Trump. The Republicans still have the majority in the U.S. Senate, but not anymore in the House – elected every two years. The U.S. House of Representatives belongs to the Democrats and is chaired by the Speaker Nancy Pelosi. U.S. Constitution obliges the U.S. President to present a state of the nation in front of the Congress. And in his last address in 2019, the U.S. President Donald Trump named the safe and legal immigration policy second on his mandate’s priority list after the booming economy.

At the southern border the weak spots are used by drug cartels to smuggle drugs in the United States, in a context in which drug addiction is already a devastating epidemic in the U.S. The loopholes in the American immigration and asylum laws encourage human trafficking. Children are used and reused, in order for illegal migrants, to pose as a family and be released from detention centers into the United States in a matter of days, rather than of months as for the single adults. In order to pose as a family children are either robbed from their mothers, without any sense of conscience, or they are bought. The price of a child? 7,000 pesos or 350 USD! One-third of women are raped by the paid smugglers without any sense of humanity; all girls over 10 years old are given pregnancy tests (which does not mean that girls under 10 were not rapped). The Washington Examiner reported on June 20^th, 2019 that nearly 170,000 children have surrendered at the U.S. southern border in the last seven months, more than 50% of them being under the age of 12. Fox News reported on May 22^nd that ‘Border Patrol estimates its agents have apprehended 44,835 unaccompanied minor children this fiscal year alone’.

            This overstretching of the facilities and programs did not remain without consequences: the Department of Health and Human Services – mainly responsible for providing shelter to the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children – ran out of financial resources; the Border Patrol – saving lives with the limited human resources – need more personnel; the Office for Refugee Resettlement – a U.S. agency in charge with the (English) education, recreational programs and legal procedures of the unaccompanied migrant children – ran out of funds.

The U.S. President as head of state and government issued in February 2019 a national emergency declaration due to the constant growing humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border with Mexico. On May 1^st, 2019 Donald Trump called for the Congress to immediate a USD 4,6 billion aid for humanitarian assistance (to increase shelter capacity, to feed, care and transport migrants) and for border operations (personnel expenses, combating human smuggling and trafficking and upgrading the information and technology systems – to read the whole call of the President, click here) (to be continued)

The U.S. Southern Border Crisis: Who’s the Man in this HuMANitarian Crisis? (II)

For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.

by Laura Lai/ Essay

But not having a Republican majority in both chambers of the Congress is definitely hard on the (Republican) Donald Trump to pass his initiated legislation and even harder when the House Democrats does not even acknowledge the existence of a crisis at the southern border. ‘How bad does it have to get for Pelosi to care?’ was wondering Fox News on May 22^nd. 

            After long and repeated appeals to the House Democrats made by the President, his Republican fellows, Border Patrol officers and the press to acknowledge the southern crisis, at the end of June 2019, Donald Trump hold a speech at the Faith &Freedom Coalition, a non-profit organization, and he declared that:

‘Democrats are solely responsible for the humanitarian crisis because they have refused every single effort to shut off the magnets of child smuggling.’

            It is interesting to explore the reasons why the House Democrats ‘played politics with people’s lives’. There several hypothesis I would reflect upon. First, I would name the House Democrats’ commitment to impeach the U.S. President as a … solution to all internal and external challenges that the United States is facing. At least, I assume so. Otherwise why would the House commit to years long and very expensive research on ways to impeach the U.S. President? Although the ‘Russia lead’ did not bring arguments to impeach Donald Trump, on May 22^nd – when the humanitarian crisis was at its climax at the southern border – the House Democrats was still exploring other impeachment leads and Nancy Pelosi was committed to follow the facts:

‘We believe that no one is above the law, including the President of the United States. And we believe that the President of the United States is engaged in a cover up.’

The House Democrats ‘believes’ that there is a cover up, but they do not believe in a humanitarian and security crisis at their own border. America is founded on the freedom of belief, but for an outsider this ‘detective story’ unfolding at the top of the American politics in order to impeach the U.S. President – who he himself most probably believes that he is not above the law – seemed for long the only topic on the political agenda of the Democrats.

            Second, acknowledging the existence of a humanitarian and a security crisis at the southern border would automatically imply the need for the Democrats to work together with the Republicans in finding solutions, while if there is no crisis all legislative initiatives of the president can be rejected and public money invested in discovering the cover up. It is definitely a great advantage to be at that level of politics, because one can dispose of the public money for whatever belief one may have and if the investigations do not lead anywhere, the initiators of the public investigations do not have to pay the damage! And all Americans voted, in order for the Congress to play ‘Tom and Jerry’ at the top of world politics, instead of working together in their best interest.

            A third and last hypothesis I could possibly think of in this long Democrats’ denial attitude that there is a crisis at the southern border is the ‘open border’ mentality that they have and in which they … believe. They base their ‘open border’ position on the fact that the U.S. is a successful country of immigrants. I personally do not know how successful it really was before the economic achievements of the Trump Administration for the well being of all Americans – Democrats and Republicans alike, and I strongly doubt that the U.S. is a country of illegal and undocumented immigrants, human traffickers, drug smugglers and abused children and women. However, this ‘open border’ mentality rings European bells to me. Back in 2015 Europe faced a massive migration wave that border countries like Greece, Italy and Spain could not face anymore. Their appeals to Brussels had no effect. Then the migrants – some of them undocumented and potential terrorists – marched north towards Austria, Germany, Hungary and even Denmark and Sweden. Similarly to the U.S. Democrats, Brussels had no solutions, but opposed and found ridiculous Hungary’s initiative to build a fence for protection, Brussels being also a promoter of the ‘open border’ mentality.

            If the U.S. Democrats were inspired by their fellows Europeans, they did not get it right, because the Europeans promote in a hypocritical way this 'open border' issue: inside the European Union, there are no borders, but it has external borders and Brussels is so keen on having strong external borders (which clashes with the preached ‘open border’ idea) that it does not accept to integrate into their external border security system not even their own member states, which fulfill their border security criteria from all technological points of view, because those border countries have the reputation of being corrupt. Brussels’ argument is that when people are corrupt, technology is kind of useless. They have their point. Therefore, the ‘open border’ American and European mentalities although looking similar, they are also different. (to be continued)

The U.S. Southern Border Crisis: Who’s the Man in this HuMANitarian Crisis? (III)

For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.

by Laura Lai/ Essay

A country – be it small like Hungary or big like the United States of America – is defined by some elements, and among these state features is also the idea of having a border. If a country is the house of its inhabitants, then a border to the country is like a door to the house. The migrant – and this concept I understand well, as I have been trying and I still do to legally establish myself in another country than that of origin – is a person in ‘its pursuit of happiness’, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence states.

Therefore, if the Democrats promote the ‘open border’ mentality, it means that they can comfortably live without a door at their house and let in the whole world who wants to come to the U.S. I would definitely not mind to be able to come to the United States without visa struggling, to accommodate myself free of charge at Mrs. Pelosi, to help myself from her fridge until a find a job and if the American tax payer would like to pay a degree for me at Harvard or Yale, I – and no other migrant – will say ‘no’. Most probably, she would tell me that I am not a child anymore for this gratitude, although to me it fits perfectly in the ‘open border’ and ‘against discrimination’ policies. Then I would ask: ‘What about the 170,000 children at the southern border, can they come? Can they be put into the best American schools on the tax payers’ money?’ Maybe this way the Democrats understand the fear of the 23% of the Americans recently polled by Gallup. I am starting to like this ‘open border’ mentality that I do not know anymore why I am writing this essay. Ah, yes! I remember! It was about who’s the man in this southern border humanitarian crisis?

            Meanwhile, on May 17^th Donald Trump presents his new U.S. immigration policy (click here for the video) and on June 7^th the U.S. President met the President of Mexico to work together, in order to address the migration challenge and the constantly increasing flow of migrants coming from Central America through the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico (to read the joint declaration, click here). And no later than the end of June, the Washington Examiner presented figures showing that the Mexican government is respecting its part of the deal and started deporting the Central American citizens illegally in Mexico. On June 25^th, the Democrats acknowledged the border crisis, but not the humanitarian one, somehow suggesting ‘that it is still the Republicans who lack compassion’.

What do the Democrats believe that the Republicans are lacking? The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘compassion’ as a feeling: ‘Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.’

            On the 2^nd of July 2019, the U.S. President signed the USD 4,6 billion in humanitarian and border assistance for the southern border. It was a bipartisan bill after a long struggle with the Democrats. This bill provides the financial needs for shelters, medical supplies, English courses and recreational programs, law enforcement procedures, etc. The man in this southern border huMANitarian crisis was Donald Trump for having acted with compassion. And if ‘man’ was spelt the way it is pronounced, with a ‘e’, the ‘men’ in this ‘huMENitarian’ crisis were the Border Patrol officers, who cared least about impeachments and cover ups and who were not passive at human sufferance, as well as all Church organizations, which with small donations and divine inspiration answered as humane as possible to this great challenge. (the end)

Creative Writing Exercise #7

by Laura Lai/Uncategorized

Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson are competing to become the next British PM. They both ‘threaten’ the Britons with Brexit. Some Britons believe this threat, some others don’t, some others don’t know what to believe… . But yesterday, the 4^th of July 2019, as I was listening Radio LBC ('Leading Britain's Conversation) – as I regularly do, due to the diversity of opinions and multitude of thoughts one can hear in a 1-hour show – I heard that Jeremy Hunt took a short break from Brexit discourse and focused on hunting foxes with dogs as being part of Britain’s heritage and countryside. Thanks to the LBC I was inspired to make this creative writing exercise by adapting a fable of Aesop ‘The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf’ that I have in French, but a very good version in English I found on the website of the Library of the Congress.

THE SHEPHERD BOYS AND THE 'BREXIT' WOLF[i]

Jeremy and his cousin Boris were two politicians who shepherded a flock of sheep near a village in the beautiful Britain’s countryside. As life in the countryside and with the sheep was sometimes quite dull, one of the two shepherd boys, Jeremy, thought of a plan to amuse themselves. One day, at the end of March, they run to the village shouting ‘Wolf! Wolf! Help!’ And as expected the villagers dropped their work to come and save the flock of sheep from the wolf. The boys amused themselves for weeks, even months. And at the end June, they tried this farce again: they run towards the village shouting again as loud as they could ‘Wolf! Wolf!’And the villagers gathered again to protect the whole flock of sheep from the bad wolf.

But one chili and raining evening, at the end of October, the wolf truly came. The shepherd boys were terribly frightened to see the wolf. It was huge and black, had scary claws and a frightful look in his eyes. This was the most terrible of all wolfs, as he was from the no-deal breed. In terror the boys run again towards the village and shouted ‘Heeelp! The Brexit wolf! Please heeelp! The Brexit wolf! The villagers heard the two shepherds shouting, but as they were already fouled twice by their fake news, they didn’t come. And the Brexit wolf became the shepherd of the flock of sheep.

The moral: People don’t believe the politicians not even when they speak the truth.

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[i] If any of the characters feels offended by this creative writing exercise, I would like to apologize in advance.

The POV in Writing (I)

by Laura Lai/ Uncategorized

The POV means ‘point of view’ and in writing it stands, formally, for the perspective from which the story is told. Informally, it is about the person used to tell the story. Usually it is either the first or the third person. It seems, though, that the third person has several nuances called ‘third person objective’, ‘limited’ and ‘omniscient’ depending on whether the narrator knows nothing about what its characters think, or knows only what one character thinks or all of them. Hereafter I chose four texts and I tried to exercise the POV playing with the original texts.

First Person POV:

‘I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.’ Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

From First Person to Third Person Objective POV:

He shall turn out to be the hero of his own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin his life with the beginning, he records that he was born (as he has been informed and he seems to believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and he began to cry, simultaneously.

From First Person to Third Person Limited POV:

He wants to be the hero of his own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin his life with the beginning, he knows he was born (as he was informed and he believes) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and he began to cry, simultaneously.

Third Person Objective POV:

‘As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything.’ Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray

From Third Person Objective to First Person POV:

As I closed the door behind me, I touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with lamps and drew the blinds down. I waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything.

From Third Person Objective to Third Person Limited POV:

As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down. He was impatient for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything.

From Third Person Objective to Third Person Omniscient POV:

As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with lamps and drew the blinds down. He was impatient for him to go. The man wasn’t impatient to go and was taking an interminable time over everything.

The POV in Writing (II)

by Laura Lai/ Uncategorized

Third Person Limited POV:

‘At last the door opened, and his servant entered. He turned gazed eyes upon him.

‘Mr. Campbell, sir,’ said the man.

A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back to his cheeks.

‘Ask him to come in at once, Francis.’ He felt he was himself again. His mood of cowardice had passed away.

The man bowed and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coalblack hair and dark eyebrows.’ Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray

From Third Person Limited to First Person POV:

‘At last the door opened, and my servant entered. He turned gazed eyes upon me.

‘Mr. Campbell, sir,’ said the man.

A sigh of relief broke from my parched lips, and the colour came back to my cheeks.

‘Ask him to come in at once, Francis.’ I felt I was myself again. My mood of cowardice had passed away.

The man bowed and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coalblack hair and dark eyebrows.’

From Third Person Limited to Third Person Objective POV:

‘At last the door opened, and his servant entered. He turned gazed eyes upon him.

‘Mr. Campbell, sir,’ said the man.

A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back to his cheeks.

‘Ask him to come in at once, Francis.’ He seemed to be himself again. His mood of cowardice looked as if it never was there.

The man bowed and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coalblack hair and dark eyebrows.’

From Third Person Limited to Third Person Omniscient POV:

‘At last the door opened, and his servant entered. He turned gazed eyes upon him.

‘Mr. Campbell, sir,’ said the man.

A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back to his cheeks.

‘Ask him to come in at once, Francis.’ He felt he was himself again. His mood of cowardice had passed away.

The man bowed and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked in, he was stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coalblack hair and dark eyebrows.’

Third Person Omniscient POV:

‘Jude was too much affected to go on talking at first; she, too, was now such a mere cluster of nerves that all initiatory power seemed to have left, and they proceeded through the fog like Acherontic shades for a long while sound or gesture.’ Thomas Hardy – Jude The Obscure

From Third Person Omniscient to First Person POV:

Jude was too much affected to go on talking at first; I was, too, now such a mere cluster of nerves that all initiatory power seemed to have left, and we proceeded through the fog like Archerontic shades for a long while sound or gesture.

From Third Person Omniscient to Third Person Objective POV:

Jude looked too much affected to go on talking at first; she, too, seemed now such a mere cluster of nerves that all initiatory power seemed to have left, and they proceeded through the fog like Acherontic shades for a long while sound or gesture.

From Third Person Omniscient to Third Person Limited POV:

Jude looked too much affected to go on talking at first; she, too, was now such a mere cluster of nerves that all initiatory power seemed to have left, and they proceeded through the fog like Acherontic shades for a long while sound or gesture.