Point of View

point of view: in literature, the perspective from which the story is told. There are two general divisions of point of view and many subdivisions within those.
     The first person narrator tells the story with the first person pronoun "I," and is a character in the story. This narrator can be the protaganist (the main character or hero/heroine), a participant (a secondary character), or an observer (a character who merely watches the action).
     The third person narrator relates the events with third person pronouns "he," "she," "and "it." There are two main subdivisions to be aware of: omniscient and limited omniscient. In the third person omniscient point of view, the narrator, with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters. This all-knowing narrator can reveal what each character feels and thinks at any given moment. The third person limited omniscient point of view, as its name implies, presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the action of all remaining characters.

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
                                                                                             -The Catcher in the Rye
                                                                                                     J.D.Salinger
J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in first person point of view, and in so doing made the novel more personal. When "I" say something, "I" am talking to you; however, when "he" says something, as in third person point of view, "he" could be talking to anyone. By using a first person narrator Salinger made the novel a personal recounting of a life. The reader feels sorry for the person telling them the story, who seems a little off. The reader may not agree with his actions, but has certainly felt a similar way, or thought a similar thought. Only then does the author inform the reader that they were just relating to a mentally ill teenager, who is currently in an asylum. Salinger uses the first person point of view to uncover the mental "offness" in the reader, suggesting that everyone is at least slightly similar to Holden. 

Onomatopoeia

onomatopoeia: a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words

"plumping volley"
            -The Red Badge of Courage
                     by Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel, which documents the experience of a youth, Henry Fleming, who comes to the realization of the mortality of the human, specifically of himself. Crane uses onomatopoeia to draw the reader's attention to this theme in the excerpt above. "Plumping" is how Crane describes the bullets, this gives the reader an auditory image of war and carnage. Bullets do not normally "plump," this is the sound they make when entering a body; Crane uses this to emphasize the carnage of war and the mortality of the body. Fleming is surrounded by bullets making this noise, which tells us, in effect, that he is surrounded by dead and dying men, a place in which the mortality of the body would be quite obvious.

Stream of Consciousness

stream of consciousness: refers to an attempt on the part of the author to reproduce the unembellished flow of thoughts in the human mind with its feelings, judgements, associations, and memories

"...When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be defeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could take back to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.
       But, as he mortally feared these shafts, it became impossible for him to invent a tale he felt he could trust..."
                                                                                                    -The Red Badge of Courage
                                                                                                            by Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane uses stream of consciousness throughout The Red Badge of Courage to enhance its effectiveness as a war story. By writing in the same way a person thinks he made the story more realistic, and was able to show how soldiers thought and felt during battle. The use of stream of consciousness forces the reader to focus on what is happening to the main character, not what is going on around them. This makes the novel more of an experience and less of a story. Crane also used this technique to showcase the confusion of war. Stream of consciousness passages are not necessarily in a logical order; they are often confusing and difficult to follow. However, this quality also makes them an ideal medium for expressing a soldier's thoughts and feelings during battle.