Learn the meaning of a narrator, and examine the role of narrators in American novels. Explore the various types of narrators' points of view, and find examples.
Updated: 02/21/2022
The Narrator in Novels Role & Examples
What Is a Narrator?
What does narrator mean, and who is the narrator of a story? The narrator is the person who is recounting the narrative, and is separate from the author, or the actual human who wrote the story. A narrator can be a character within the story, or an outside observer who does not interact with the other characters, but just informs the reader about them. There are several different types of narrators, all of whom serve a slightly different purpose and allow a story to be told in a unique way. This demonstrates a different type of perspective and point of view.
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The Role of the Narrator
What does a narrator do? The role of narrator depends, in part, on what type of narrator they are. Authors make different choices about who will narrate the story, and how they will do it, based on what effect they desire to create with the story. Although the primary role of all narrators is to recount or tell a narrative, they do it in different ways that add nuance to their basic purpose.
The narrator of a story has more power than the other characters, because they control what gets said and what gets left out. They control how details are described, and what aspects of the story are emphasized. Just like people, most narrators have some kind of motive, a reason for telling the story that impacts how they tell it. A group of a hundred people recounting the same event would all portray it slightly differently. People have certain biases and preoccupations that color the way they each tell stories. Likewise, the role of a narrator is to convey to the reader a story, filtered through the lens of their own perspective. This lesson focuses on examples of narrators from American literature.
Role of the Narrator in American Novels
You may be familiar with the concepts of narration and narrators if you've ever had to write a narrative essay in which you talk about your own personal experiences. Simply stated, a narrator is the person who tells a story. When we read a novel, it's the narrator's point of view, or perspective, from which we see the events of the story - it's the narrator's perspective of the events that's our window into the story as readers.
This may seem pretty straightforward and even, perhaps, not particularly important. But when you think about the fact that just like in real life the person who tells us a tale may not know the full story or may not be completely trustworthy, it becomes clear that understanding the role played by a narrator in a novel can add an entirely new dimension of intrigue.
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Types of Narrators
The type of narrator used in a story impacts the role of the narrator. There are several types of narrators, which are discussed below.
First-Person Narrator
A first-person narrator uses "I" to tell a story from their own perspective. In almost all cases, first-person narrators are characters within the story itself, whether they are the protagonist of the story or another supporting character. For example, in Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the first line of the book is "Call me Ishmael." Moby Dick is told from the perspective of a first-person narrator named Ishmael. First-person narration allows the reader to see deeply into the mind of one character. However, first-person narration can be misleading in how trustworthy it is. Sometimes, first-person narrators have reasons to conceal certain details from readers, or they might think they are telling the truth, but they are unaware of how skewed or biased their own perspective is. Overall, first-person narration is fairly common in American literature, though not quite as common as third-person narration.
Second-Person Narrator
A second-person narrator uses "you" to tell a story. Second-person narration can make the events of the story feel very real and close to the reader, since the reader is implicated. However, some second-person narration is not truly "about" the reader, but about some other character or to some generalized "you." Also, the use of "you" does not make the reader the narrator; the narrator is still a separate persona telling the story. In general, in fiction and in American literature, second-person narrators are uncommon. They are used more often in horror stories and choose your own adventure books. One example of a story with a second-person narrator is Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl," which consists of things that are said to the girl, rather than things the girl is saying.
Third-Person Narrator
A third-person narrator tells a story about other people. Third-person narrators use the names of characters, as well as pronouns like "he" or "she," to narrate events. There are different types of third-person narrators, and they are very common in American literature. A third-person narrator never makes "I" statements or talks about themselves, so they tend to feel like less of a character in the text than first-person narrators do. Nonetheless, some third-person narrators clearly have a personality, which can be gleaned from their narration. An example of a third-person narrator is in Joseph Heller's Catch 22, which is about Yossarian, but not told by him. Third-person narration is very common in American literature.
Third-Person Objective Narrator
A third-person objective narrator tells the events of the story without knowing the thoughts or motivations of any of the characters. This type of narrator does not have anything personal at stake in the story, but they can still make judgments about the characters or prefer some characters over others. An example of a third-person objective narrator is in "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, where the narrator does not comment on the characters' thoughts or motivations.
Third-Person Subjective Narrator
A third-person subjective narrator does have access to at least one character's thoughts and motivations. This type of narrator is not an objective observer, but has intimate knowledge of at least one character. This makes them likely to be biased in some way, either for or against that character. An example of a third-person subjective narrator is in George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, where the narrator has access to the minds of all characters.
Third-Person Limited Narrator
A third-person limited narrator only has extensive knowledge of one character. The third-person narrator has access to this one character's thoughts, feelings, and actions at all times throughout the story, though they do not necessarily tell the reader everything they know. In some ways, a third-person limited narrator is similar to a first-person narrator, because the story is being filtered to some degree through the perspective of one character. However, a third-person narrator is a separate person from the character whose perspective they have access to, so they can potentially add commentary that the character themselves would not add. A third-person limited narrator may also dislike or disagree with the character whose perspective they have access to, and may paint a less pleasant picture than a first-person narrator would paint of themselves. An example of a third-person limited narrator is in The Giver by Lois Lowry, where the narrator is not Jonas, but has access to Jonas's thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Third-Person Omniscient Narrator
A third-person omniscient narrator still relates the story in third person, using character's names or pronouns like "he" or "she." However, a third-person omniscient narrator has extensive knowledge about all the characters, rather than just one. An omniscient narrator can see what all characters are doing at any time, and knows the thoughts and feelings of all characters. A third-person omniscient narrator is often more objective than a third-person limited narrator, because they are not limited to one person's perspective. However, an omniscient narrator can still take sides with one character over another. An omniscient narrator may move between the perspectives of different characters, still describing them in third person. An example of a third-person omniscient narrator is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, where the narrator has access not just to the thoughts and feelings of the main characters, but also of the general public in the town.
Multiple Narrators
Some stories or novels are told by multiple narrators: it is not the same person telling the story the whole time. This method allows readers to be exposed to the perspective, insights, and knowledge of multiple characters, rather than just one. The point of view changes throughout the story when the narrator shifts. For example, in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, the narrator rotates between the different members of a grieving family. They all recount their journey to bury their mother's body. Each family member gives different details about the journey and their own experiences, and different perspectives on grief. For example, the five-year-old boy thinks his dead mother is a fish.
Unreliable Narrator
Most narrators are typically assumed to be reliable, meaning the reader does not have reason to seriously question the facts stated and judgements made in the narrator's story. However, some are unreliable narrators: the reader has valid reasons to question that narrator's story. An unreliable narrator may be misinformed or insane, unable to tell the true events of the story, or they might be purposely lying. This is because they have something they want to cover up. In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator, who has a job as a caretaker for an elderly man, sets out to convince the reader he is not mad (insane), but then elaborates on the ridiculous reason why he killed the elderly man: because he didn't like the way his eye looked. Throughout the story, the reader questions the narrator's claims because he seems like an unreasonable person overall (and at the end, the police arrest him for murder).
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Lesson Summary
What does narrator mean and who is the narrator? The narrator is the person recounting the narrative, which is separate from the author. There are many different types of narrators, and the role of narrator depends on which effects the author wishes to achieve. A first-person narrator employs "I" to tell a story from their own perspective, whether or not they are an influential character within the story itself. An example of this is "Call me Ishmael," the first line of Melville's Moby Dick. A second-person narrator uses "you" to tell a story, either implicating the reader or speaking to some other imaginary character. "You enter a room and sit down" is an example of second-person point of view or second-person narration. A third-person narrator uses character's names or pronouns like "he" or "she" to describe a story about other people. A third-person limited narrator has extensive knowledge about one character's thoughts, feelings, and actions, but they do not have access to this knowledge about other characters. A third-person omniscient narrator is all-knowing and all-seeing in that they know the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all characters, not just one (although this does not mean they tell the reader everything).
Some stories are not told by the same person the whole time, but employ multiple narrators who each tell different parts of the story (or narrate the same parts in different ways). Narrators of most stories are assumed to be reliable. This means the reader has no good reason to question the facts of their story or the judgments they make about it. However, many stories have an unreliable narrator, who cannot be trusted to correctly and fairly tell the story. This is either because they are misinformed, they are insane, or they have something to hide or some reason to lie. What does the narrator do? Overall, the author's choice of who will narrate the story is one of the most significant elements that affects the story's meaning, tone, style, and even the plot to some extent.
Point of View
You may have heard of the terms first person, second person, and third person when discussing points of view. The term first person applies to a story told from the 'I' point of view; the narrator him or herself is typically part of the story and relates events from his or her perspective in this type of novel.
An example of a first person narrator in an American novel is the narrator in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Notably, the reader is never told the name of the narrator in this novel; the lack of a name for our protagonist underscores Ellison's point about the loss of identity for African Americans in society. Not to be confused with H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic The Invisible Man, Ellison's Invisible Man involves a symbolic, rather than literal, invisibility.
Our narrator famously explains in the prologue to the novel, 'I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'
Ellison's use of first person narration in Invisible Man very importantly allows us to see the events of the novel from the point of view of our protagonist, to understand intimately why he has literally been driven underground, and beyond that, to see how the actions of others in society directly affect his thinking and identity.
We don't tend to see many novels written from the second person perspective; that would entail telling a story from the 'you' point of view, as though you are a character in the story. It would be pretty awkward for an entire novel to be presented from this perspective (think of those Choose Your Own Adventure children's books, which address the reader directly as 'you,' when you think about second person).
Many American novels are told from the third person point of view, which means that the narrator is external to and apart from the actions of the story. The reader receives something of an outsider's perspective in this type of novel. One type of third person narrator is third person omniscient, in which the narrator is all-knowing and able to tell us about the actions and inner thoughts of all of the characters.
Remember that with this type of narration, there are no real limits on what the storyteller knows or what the reader can be told about. For example, in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, the reader is told that, 'After he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew, saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why.'
Here, the audience is offered a look into both the internal thoughts and the actions of our protagonist, Yossarian. But we're also provided with the inner workings of other characters as well. We're told of another patient, 'The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him. He sent shudders of annoyance scampering up ticklish spines, and everybody fled from him…' The omniscient third person narrator in Catch-22 gives the reader glimpses of what a variety of characters are thinking, feeling, and doing. We're not limited to what one person thinks and observes.
The other type of third person narrator does involve that type of limitation - it's called the third person limited narrator. With this type of narration, the narrator shares only one character's thoughts and doesn't discuss the actions of other characters when they're not interacting with that one character. This type of narrator, as the name indicates, is limited in his or her perspective, somewhat like a first person narrator would be.
Multiple and Unreliable Narrators
Sometimes the identity or role of the narrator is crucial to the meaning of the novel itself. Take the example of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. That novel is famous for being written from four different points of view.
The book, which tells the story of the decline of the Compson family in Mississippi, is literally divided into four sections; the first three of which are told from the first person 'I' point of view by three different characters. Those first three sections are told from the first-person perspectives of brothers Benjy Compson (who is mentally challenged), Quentin Compson and Jason Compson, respectively, and the last section is told by a third-person narrator, though the focus is on the Compson family's servant, Dilsey.
Through the various perspectives offered in the novel, the reader can piece together the story of the Compson family. One notable aspect of this classic is that the perspective of the fourth Compson sibling, Caddy, isn't presented, even though many of the novel's plot points revolve around her. We're left instead with only others' perspectives of her as a kind of silent center of the novel.
In addition to offering readers varied, sometimes conflicting perspectives on a story, authors sometimes also present their audiences with storytellers who may not be entirely trustworthy. An unreliable narrator is one who may or may not be telling the reader the truth or the whole story. Often, the reader realizes gradually when reading a novel that he is dealing with an unreliable narrator. One example of a somewhat unreliable narrator from an American novel is Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Nick, who goes on to befriend the extravagant but troubled Jay Gatsby, clues the reader in early on that his own ideas and status may cloud his view of others and, therefore, his interpretation of events. The wealthy Nick, who tells the story in the novel from the first person point of view, explains, on the subject of his attempts not to be quick to judge others, that 'Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.'
The reader gets hints throughout the novel that the snobbish nature that Nick references at the start of his tale may in fact be influencing how he describes the other characters that he encounters. While we may not have a splashy reveal in The Great Gatsby that the narrator has been lying to us in a dramatic way, the audience is reminded by Nick's characterizations that everything we're seeing is very much colored by how he regards others.
Lesson Summary
We really should think of a narrator as more than just the person who tells a story in a novel. It is true that it's useful to identify the point of view, or perspective from which the story is told, whether it's from the first person, 'I,' point of view or the third person point of view. Remember that third-person perspectives can be omniscient, or all-knowing, or limited, in that they don't see beyond the thoughts or actions of one particular character. The second person, 'you,' point of view is rarely used in novels.
While you'll want to identify the point of view from which a novel is being told, you should do so to do more than just check off a box. Consider how the story is shaped given who's telling it. For example, if a novel has multiple narrators, what does the story gain from being told from multiple perspectives? Which characters were given a chance to share their points of view, and which ones weren't? Consider how that illuminates the story being told.
Learning Outcomes
The outcomes of this lesson should include your ability to:
- Explain who the narrator is
- Demonstrate the different points of view
- Recognize how the identity of the narrator impacts the story
- Discuss multiple and unreliable narrators
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Video Transcript
Role of the Narrator in American Novels
You may be familiar with the concepts of narration and narrators if you've ever had to write a narrative essay in which you talk about your own personal experiences. Simply stated, a narrator is the person who tells a story. When we read a novel, it's the narrator's point of view, or perspective, from which we see the events of the story - it's the narrator's perspective of the events that's our window into the story as readers.
This may seem pretty straightforward and even, perhaps, not particularly important. But when you think about the fact that just like in real life the person who tells us a tale may not know the full story or may not be completely trustworthy, it becomes clear that understanding the role played by a narrator in a novel can add an entirely new dimension of intrigue.
Point of View
You may have heard of the terms first person, second person, and third person when discussing points of view. The term first person applies to a story told from the 'I' point of view; the narrator him or herself is typically part of the story and relates events from his or her perspective in this type of novel.
An example of a first person narrator in an American novel is the narrator in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Notably, the reader is never told the name of the narrator in this novel; the lack of a name for our protagonist underscores Ellison's point about the loss of identity for African Americans in society. Not to be confused with H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic The Invisible Man, Ellison's Invisible Man involves a symbolic, rather than literal, invisibility.
Our narrator famously explains in the prologue to the novel, 'I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'
Ellison's use of first person narration in Invisible Man very importantly allows us to see the events of the novel from the point of view of our protagonist, to understand intimately why he has literally been driven underground, and beyond that, to see how the actions of others in society directly affect his thinking and identity.
We don't tend to see many novels written from the second person perspective; that would entail telling a story from the 'you' point of view, as though you are a character in the story. It would be pretty awkward for an entire novel to be presented from this perspective (think of those Choose Your Own Adventure children's books, which address the reader directly as 'you,' when you think about second person).
Many American novels are told from the third person point of view, which means that the narrator is external to and apart from the actions of the story. The reader receives something of an outsider's perspective in this type of novel. One type of third person narrator is third person omniscient, in which the narrator is all-knowing and able to tell us about the actions and inner thoughts of all of the characters.
Remember that with this type of narration, there are no real limits on what the storyteller knows or what the reader can be told about. For example, in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, the reader is told that, 'After he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew, saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why.'
Here, the audience is offered a look into both the internal thoughts and the actions of our protagonist, Yossarian. But we're also provided with the inner workings of other characters as well. We're told of another patient, 'The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him. He sent shudders of annoyance scampering up ticklish spines, and everybody fled from him…' The omniscient third person narrator in Catch-22 gives the reader glimpses of what a variety of characters are thinking, feeling, and doing. We're not limited to what one person thinks and observes.
The other type of third person narrator does involve that type of limitation - it's called the third person limited narrator. With this type of narration, the narrator shares only one character's thoughts and doesn't discuss the actions of other characters when they're not interacting with that one character. This type of narrator, as the name indicates, is limited in his or her perspective, somewhat like a first person narrator would be.
Multiple and Unreliable Narrators
Sometimes the identity or role of the narrator is crucial to the meaning of the novel itself. Take the example of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. That novel is famous for being written from four different points of view.
The book, which tells the story of the decline of the Compson family in Mississippi, is literally divided into four sections; the first three of which are told from the first person 'I' point of view by three different characters. Those first three sections are told from the first-person perspectives of brothers Benjy Compson (who is mentally challenged), Quentin Compson and Jason Compson, respectively, and the last section is told by a third-person narrator, though the focus is on the Compson family's servant, Dilsey.
Through the various perspectives offered in the novel, the reader can piece together the story of the Compson family. One notable aspect of this classic is that the perspective of the fourth Compson sibling, Caddy, isn't presented, even though many of the novel's plot points revolve around her. We're left instead with only others' perspectives of her as a kind of silent center of the novel.
In addition to offering readers varied, sometimes conflicting perspectives on a story, authors sometimes also present their audiences with storytellers who may not be entirely trustworthy. An unreliable narrator is one who may or may not be telling the reader the truth or the whole story. Often, the reader realizes gradually when reading a novel that he is dealing with an unreliable narrator. One example of a somewhat unreliable narrator from an American novel is Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Nick, who goes on to befriend the extravagant but troubled Jay Gatsby, clues the reader in early on that his own ideas and status may cloud his view of others and, therefore, his interpretation of events. The wealthy Nick, who tells the story in the novel from the first person point of view, explains, on the subject of his attempts not to be quick to judge others, that 'Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.'
The reader gets hints throughout the novel that the snobbish nature that Nick references at the start of his tale may in fact be influencing how he describes the other characters that he encounters. While we may not have a splashy reveal in The Great Gatsby that the narrator has been lying to us in a dramatic way, the audience is reminded by Nick's characterizations that everything we're seeing is very much colored by how he regards others.
Lesson Summary
We really should think of a narrator as more than just the person who tells a story in a novel. It is true that it's useful to identify the point of view, or perspective from which the story is told, whether it's from the first person, 'I,' point of view or the third person point of view. Remember that third-person perspectives can be omniscient, or all-knowing, or limited, in that they don't see beyond the thoughts or actions of one particular character. The second person, 'you,' point of view is rarely used in novels.
While you'll want to identify the point of view from which a novel is being told, you should do so to do more than just check off a box. Consider how the story is shaped given who's telling it. For example, if a novel has multiple narrators, what does the story gain from being told from multiple perspectives? Which characters were given a chance to share their points of view, and which ones weren't? Consider how that illuminates the story being told.
Learning Outcomes
The outcomes of this lesson should include your ability to:
- Explain who the narrator is
- Demonstrate the different points of view
- Recognize how the identity of the narrator impacts the story
- Discuss multiple and unreliable narrators
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to be a narrator?
The narrator is the person telling the story. The narrator is different from the author, or the actual human who wrote the story. The narrator is a fictional invention, even when they are not an actual character in the story.
What are the types of narrators?
There are different types of narrators, which affect what the narrator does and what type of story is told. A first-person narrator uses "I" to tell a story from their own perspective. A second-person narrator uses "you" to tell a story either implicating the reader, or told to another person. A third-person narrator uses names or pronouns to tell a story about others, who they may or may not have something at stake with. Some stories have multiple narrators, rather than being told by one person the entire time. Some stories also have unreliable narrators, where the reader has good reason to seriously question what the narrator says.
How does a narrator affect a story?
A narrator has a lot of power to affect almost any aspect of a story. They decide which details to include, and what to leave out. They decide what order to tell events in, and how much time to spend discussing each one. They decide how to describe events and other characters. They might try to sway the reader toward certain conclusions about what happens in the story, either through overt tactics or covert and subtle tactics.
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