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Amy has MA degrees in History, English, and Theology. She has taught college English and religious education classes and currently works as a freelance writer.
One of the first questions a reader must ask when picking up a new piece of fiction is, 'who is telling this story?' This is a question about the story's point of view.
Point of view is essentially the eyes through which a story is told. It is the narrative voice through which readers follow the story's plot, meet its characters, discover its setting, and enter into its relationships, emotions, and conflicts. Point of view allows readers to experience the story as it unfolds.
Authors can choose from the first person, the second person, or the third person point of view. We'll spend the rest of this lesson exploring each of these and practicing identifying them.
In the first person point of view, one of the story's characters serves as a narrator and readers watch the story unfold through that character's eyes. First person point of view is easy to identify because the character or narrator speaks to readers in his or her own voice, frequently using the pronoun 'I'.
The character or narrator is often a main character who is actively involved in the story's events, but sometimes authors choose to tell the story through the eyes of a minor character who merely witnesses the unfolding story or even through the eyes of a character who didn't directly witness the events, but retells them secondhand. In any case, this point of view allows readers access only to the narrating character's limited knowledge and understanding of the story and of his or her fellow characters.
Examples of famous works with a first person point of view include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, in which supporting character Dr. John Watson narrates the great detective's adventures; Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which is narrated by the title character; and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, in which a child character tells the story.
The second person point of view is relatively rare because it makes the reader a character in the story and directly addresses the reader as 'you'. The Choose Your Own Adventure series of the 1980s and 1990s features the second person point of view and allows readers to make decisions that affect the story's plot and lead to various outcomes.
In the third person point of view, the narrator is someone outside the story, who frequently uses pronouns, like 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to describe the characters. The third person point of view is divided into three subcategories:
1. The objective third person, in which the narrator knows or reveals nothing about the characters' internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations but sticks to the external facts of the story (as in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter)
2. The limited third person, in which the narrator describes the internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations of one character, usually the main character (as in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series)
3. The omniscient third person, in which the narrator knows and at least partially reveals the internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations of all the characters (as in E.B. White's Charlotte's Web)
Let's practice identifying points of view. For each of the following writing samples, decide whether the point of view is first person, second person, objective third person, limited third person, or omniscient third person.
1. You're walking along the street, wondering if you have enough time to stop for an ice cream cone on the way to your next appointment. It is hot, and you are dreading your meeting, so you decide that an ice cream cone might be just the thing to give you a boost.
Did you say 'second person'? If so, you're right! Notice how the narrator is addressing the reader directly as 'you'.
2. She walked along the street, wondering if she had enough time to stop for an ice cream cone on the way to her next appointment. It was hot and she was dreading her meeting, so she decided that an ice cream cone might be just the thing to give her a boost. The owner of the ice cream shop saw her peering through the window and wondered who was that beautiful girl he had never seen before.
This one is omniscient third person. Notice how the narrator gives us a peek into the thoughts of both the walking woman and the shop owner.
3. She walked along the street on the way to her meeting, stopped in front of an ice cream shop, and peered through the window. The shop's owner peered back at her.
We don't hear about the thoughts or feelings of either of the characters in this sample, do we? This is the objective third person.
4. I walked along the street, wondering if I had enough time to stop for an ice cream cone on the way to my next appointment. It was hot and I was dreading my meeting, so an ice cream cone might be just the thing to give me a boost.
The pronoun 'I' should be your tip-off that this sample is in the first person point of view.
5. She walked along the street, wondering if she had enough time to stop for an ice cream cone on the way to her next appointment. It was hot and she was dreading her meeting, so she decided that an ice cream cone might be just the thing to give her a boost. As she walked into the ice cream shop, the owner greeted her pleasantly.
Notice how we only see the thoughts and feelings of one of the characters. This is limited third person.
Let's review:
Point of view is essentially the eyes through which a story is told. It is the narrative voice through which readers follow the story's plot, meet its characters, discover its setting, and enter into its relationships, emotions, and conflicts.
Authors can choose from the first person, the second person, or the third person point of view. In the first person point of view, which frequently uses the pronoun 'I', one of the story's characters serves as a narrator and readers watch the story unfold through that character's eyes. The second person point of view makes the reader a character in the story and directly addresses the reader as 'you'. In the third person point of view, the narrator is someone outside the story, who frequently uses pronouns, like 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to describe the characters.
The third person point of view is divided into three subcategories: the objective third person, in which the narrator knows or reveals nothing about the characters' internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations, but sticks to the external facts of the story; the limited third person, in which the narrator describes the internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations of one character, usually the main character; and the omniscient third person, in which the narrator knows and at least partially reveals the internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations of all the characters.
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