Coffin And Svoboda

Orbit Unlimited, part four.

At the end of section 4, Joshua Coffin:

longs to be back in space;

experiences burning eyes;

tries to stand but lacks will and strength;

feels that nothing matters;

overhears a conversation behind a closed door;

stands on the second attempt;

goes to a window and stares out;

hates Rustum;

despises Jan Svoboda;

feels guilt;

is baffled by Svoboda's merriment with his accuser, Wolfe.

Thus, Coffin is the viewpoint character of this passage. 

The opening paragraph of section 5 describes:

"The east side of the tableland called High America..." (p. 12)

At the end of the second paragraph, Svoboda looks with awe. Thus, we are now in the viewpoint of the man whom Coffin had despised even though the two men are now walking together down into the Cleft that splits the cliffs. Coffin's voice is loud and ugly to Svoboda. This happens all the time. We perceive others who perceive us. However, in real life, each of us is directly acquainted with only one viewpoint, his own, whereas, in fiction, the omniscient narrator can show us Coffin's viewpoint in section 4 and Svoboda's in section 5. Novelists have been developing these techniques since the seventeenth century.