Point of View or Narration or Voice—Through whose eyes does the reader “see” the story? Perspective?

I. First-person Point of View (or Participant Point of View)

Uses first-person pronouns such as I, me, my, we, us and our to tell the story.

Two types: (Consider singular or plural 1st person)

● When the narrator, or person telling the story, is a major character in the work.
● When the narrator is a minor character rather than a major focal point in the story.

Advantages of using a first-person narrator: (Disadvantage: 1st person narrator is very limited in view.)

● Intimacy. Other characters easily approached.

● Can serve as an eye-witness and recount and interpret what he sees other characters saying and doing.
● Can briefly sum up an event and choose to expand upon what he has seen or move on.

II. Third-Person Point of View (or Non-participant Point of View) (NOTE: Do NOT confuse the pronouns in “dialogue” w/ POV.)

Uses third-person pronouns such as he, she, they, him, her and them to tell the story.

Three types: 3rd Person Objective narrator: The narrator does not tell the story from any clear character’s point of view.
Rather, the author or some unknown voice seems to tell the tale. We get no judgment.

● Fly-on-the-wall or movie camera recording

● Readers must make inferences about the story. Characters do not offer insight or opinions.

3rd Person Omniscient narrator: An omniscient narrator knows all and sees all about all characters. He can recount
the story from inside the minds of any of the characters. Perspective moves around. The reader has multiple ways to view the
story.

3rd Person Limited omniscient narrator: The tale is told from the mind of a single character or a limited few characters.

● Develops other characters through what narrator views or thinks of them.

● More like real life perspective. (Short stories tend to be limited if omniscient since there are few characters.)

III. Second-Person Point of View (Reader is a participant or witness. The narrator speaks directly to the reader. )

1. Uses the second-person pronouns you and your(s) as if the narrator is speaking to the reader. This creates involvement or intimacy for the reader.
Some writers break occasionally from first-person narration to second-person inclusion to moralize about something or ask for the reader’s advice.
2. There are also a few stories written in which YOU really are the protagonist! Choose Your Own Adventures and Five-Minute Mysteries
have narration in which YOU are a participant in the story. There are very few second-person POV novels.

IV. Narrative Reliability (To what extent can we believe or trust the narrator?)

● Reliable/credible—The narrator seems trustworthy, honest, believable.

● Unreliable—Details of the story suggest that the narrator might be biased, untrustworthy, unstable. .
● Naïve—The reliable is too innocent, too young, too inexperienced to be totally reliable.
● Story of Reflection—A wise narrator looking back on his/her youth. Both POVS included.
● Stream of consciousness is a special type of POV in which the narrator is free associating or “saying” whatever comes into
his/her head. We know the character is naive, unstable, stressed, unstable.. We feel that as we are reading this style POV.

V. Notes How does POINT OF VIEW shape, reveal, indicate THEME and/or PURPOSE?

● Narration may be singular or plural (We, They…) or sometimes both within a story.
● Some authors experiment with multiple narrators within one work of literature. This allows us to consider various POVs.
● The choice of narrative style totally shapes what we as readers know or don’t know or feel or experience!
HW/PRACTICE: BEFORE you start this homework, go through the definitions page and open each linked sample.

Part I. Find Evidence of POV. Use THREE of the summer or fall story collection stories to examine point of view (not “Higher
Education” and not “Tell-Tale Heart”). For each story, tell the title and WHO the narrator is, identify all point of view lit terms that
apply, and find a quotation that illustrates something about the point of view in that story. Please work alone for this activity.

Title of story? List all lit. terms that describe the point of view:
WHO is the narrator? -1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person
singular -plural
-objective, omniscient, limited omniscient
Cite a quotation of at least one complete sentence that
exemplifies one or more of the lit. terms you
identified to describe point of view.
Provide context to introduce the quotation. Cite the
author and page number.

-reliable, unreliable, naïve Color-code what point of view terms you are trying
to illustrate in the passage you quoted.
-major character, minor character

-stream of consciousness

Other notes?: (optional)

SAMPLE
POV = 1st person singular (We get only his
“The Tell-Tale Heart” thoughts)
Unnamed adult male Unreliable narrator--He seems crazy!
narrator
Major character: He is the protagonist.
Other interesting point: The way he speaks--
interrupting himself, repeating, stalling, lots of
punctuation--creates a clear sense that we cannot
trust his point of view.
Context:
As the narrator is creeping around the house at night,
he talks about how careful he is:
Evidence:
“I kept quite still and said nothing. For another hour I
did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not
hear the old man lie down. He was still sitting up in
the bed, listening; — just as I have done, night after
night, hearkening to the death-watches in the wall”
(Poe 2).

1. Title: Context:

Narrator:

Evidence

2. Title:

Narrator:

3. Title:
 Narrator:

Part II. Identify and Analyze POV. In each passage, identify all of the point of view terms that you believe
the passage illustrates. Again, color-code your choices. Finally, practice offering your analysis of the purpose
or effect of those specific POV techniques. (Give it a try. This is the complex part of POV analysis.)

Passage #1: Point of View--Wilbur from E.B. White's Charlotte's

Web

"Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her

children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new
spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She
was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone
comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

What point of view literary terms can you apply to this passage? List them but remember to color-
code. (Highlight the term and its evidence in the passage as you did in Part I.)

Given the POV terms you identified here, what might you say the effect of that POV is? In other
words, speculate about why the author might have crafted this particular POV style for what you know
about the story from this brief passage? Give it a try. This is practice.
 Passage #2: Point of view in “Bread” by Margaret Atwood

“Imagine a piece of bread. You don’t have to imagine it, its right here in
the kitchen, on the breadboard, in its plastic bag, lying beside the bread
knife. The bread knife is an old one you picked up at an auction; it has the
word BREAD carved into the wooden handle. You open the bag, pull back
the wrapper, cut yourself a slice. You put butter on it, then peanut butter,
then honey, and you fold it over. Some of the honey runs onto your fingers
and you lick it off. It takes you about a minute to eat the bread. This bread happens to be brown, but there is also white
bread, in the refrigerator, and a heel of rye you got last week, round as a full stomach then, now going moldy.
Occasionally you make bread. You think of it as something relaxing to do with your hands.”

What point of view literary terms can you apply to this passage? List them but remember to color-
code. (Highlight the term and its evidence in the passage as you did in Part I.)

Given the POV terms you identified here, what might you say the effect of that POV is? In other
words, speculate about why the author might have crafted this particular POV style for what you know
about the story from having read it in the fall story collection? Give it a try. This is practice.
Part III. Manipulate and Analyze Changes in Point of View
Choose one of the two passages above from Charlotte’s Web or “Bread.” Rewrite the text, changing to
another point of view. If you choose to change the point of view of “Bread,” you may shorten how much of
the passage you rewrite. (Optional challenge: See if you can combine POV techniques. For example, instead of writing a clear
3rd person singular POV, manipulate the text so that you try an unreliable narrator or plural point of view or stream of consciousness,
etc.)

Your revision of the passage:

What point of view literary terms did you apply to this passage? List them but remember to color-
code. (Highlight the term and its evidence in the passage as you did in Part I.)

Metacognition: Given the POV terms you identified above, what might you say the effect of that POV
is? In other words, explain WHY you rewrote the passage in this particular POV style? How does
your revision seem to affect the purpose or message or theme of the passage?
Additional videos to support your study of Point of View:

1. 2nd Person Point of View (2:34 min.)

2. 3rd Person Limited (singular) Point of View (3:07 min.)

3. 3rd Person Omniscient Point of View (3:31 min.)

4. Stream of Consciousness Point of View (3:34 min.)

5. The POV Song. (This is absurd, so I had to include it. Don’t blame Mr. Dolan.)