Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🔦 A focusing device 👁️ Narrative viewpoint
focalizer

focalizer

9.5
A person or thing that shows a story from one viewpoint
  • noun
  • /ˈfoʊkəˌlaɪzər/
  • Jargon
translation icon : focalizador
  • In the novel, the author uses the main character as a focalizer to reveal her thoughts and emotions.
  • narrator and a focalizer
  • external focalizer
  • internal focalizer

So Homer brings the marginal into being the focalizer of the whole story.

Examples

  • In The Mill on the Floss, not only does the heterodiegetic narrator clearly side with Maggie, but Maggie is also the dominant focalizer, so it is easy for the reader to empathize with her and accept her value system rather than that of the Dodsons.

    Academic text (2001)

  • Early in the film, Sayles establishes Sam Deeds as Lone Star's principal focalizer.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Only in the first sections of each part is there no clear internal focalizer.

    Academic text (2009)

  • So Homer brings the marginal into being the focalizer of the whole story.

    Stanford

  • As such, it can readily be identified with Eveline's thoughts, thus making her the focalizer.

    Academic text (2016)

  • Though Fan herself demonstrates a considerable amount of agency in the novel, she is conspicuously absent as a focalizer for her own actions.

    Academic text (2018)

  • Interestingly, the delirium is quite often presented by an external focalizer.

    Academic text (2009)

  • The short fifth part of the novel starts with external focalization, then moves to Karin as focalizer and finally to Weber.

    Academic text (2009)

  • Fugard develops this by deftly switching points of view and employing multiple characters as focalizers for the narrative.

    Academic text (2008)

  • In narratology, she proposes a formulaic notation distinguishing focalizers, levels, and perceptibility of focalized objects.

    Academic text (1996)

How Central

focalizer
  • Jargon
9.5
narrator
202 3.5
character
∞ 3.2
observer
305 2.8
bystander
84 3.4

Surface Forms

focalizer singular
focalizers plural

Morphology

focalizer = focalize (semi-transparent) = focal + ize + er

The narrative/person sense is an agentive and figurative extension of 'focalize' where 'one who determines perspective' is a metaphorical role, so learners may not infer the exact sense without context.

Etymology

Focalizer comes from the word focus, meaning 'center' or main point, and the ending -izer, meaning 'one that makes'. So a focalizer is the person or thing that makes a certain point of view the 'center' of a story, like a lens that decides what the reader sees.