04_Biblica_1_A_Ossandon_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:18 Pagina 380 380 JUAN CARLOS OSSANDÓN rator can coincide with the point of view of the narration, as is al- ways the case in a first-person narrative, but this coincidence is not necessary. The narrator can convey the point of view of a character, leaving the voice to him or to her, but expressing distance, showing somehow that he does not share it. On the contrary, the narrator can adopt the point of view of a character keeping his own voice 9. The subtleness of Genette’s distinction should not cause one to forget a basic aspect of the expression of point of view: when the voice heard is not that of the narrator, but that of a character, that is, when the narrator reproduces a character’s words in direct speech, that character normally enunciates his or her own point of view 10. As a result, in order to analyze the point of view, one must take into consideration who speaks (the voice), and not only the mode. In the case of Mark, taking the narrative voice into consideration becomes decisive in order to analyze correctly the point of view. The analysis has to pay attention to how the story is narrated, con- sidering who speaks or acts, and what he or she does or says 11. 2. The Narrative Point of View in Mark In Mark 10,46-52, the narrative is in third person. More pre- cisely: the narrator is not one of the characters of the story. This “external” position allows him to use several combinations. As we shall see, he adopts for some part of the episode Bartimaeus’ point of view on the psychological plane. Most important, at the end the narrator leaves the word to Jesus to offer the hermeneutic key: the 9 “(…) ce qui reste, et qui fait partie des acquis insurpassés (et insurpas- sables) de Genette, c’est la distinction mode/voix, c’est-à-dire la possibilité pour le narrateur de raconter avec sa propre voix tout en faisant entendre le point de vue d’autres sources énonciatives, quand bien même elles ne pren- nent pas la forme d’un discours”, A. RABATEL, ‘Points de vue et représenta- tions du divin dans 1 Samuel 17,4-51: Le récit de la Parole et de l’agir humain dans le combat de David contre Goliath’, Regards croisés sur la Bible. Études sur le point de vue. Actes du IIIe colloque international du RRENAB (Paris 2007) 15-55, here 20. 10 Except in the case of irony, free indirect discourse, expression of hy- pothesis, or heterodiegetic narratives: RABATEL, “Points de vue”, 21. 11 See Y. BOURQUIN, “Vers une nouvelle approche de la focalisation”, Ana- lyse narrative et Bible. Deuxième colloque international du RRENAB (eds. C. FOCANT ‒ A. WÉNIN) (BETL 191; Leuven 2005) 497-506.