What Is the Difference Between

First- and Third-Person Narration?

Feature Menu

Introduction
Autobiography and First-Person
Point of View
Biography and Third-Person Poin
t of View
Shifting Points of View
Your Turn
 Introduction

Who is speaking?

That is one of the first

questions you should
ask when you read.
 Introduction

Nonfiction writers often tell their own life stories,

but they also frequently describe the lives of
others.
Autobiography An account of a
person’s own life

Biography An account of
another person’s
life
 Introduction

When you read nonfiction, it’s important to

• identify the speaker, or

narrator

• recognize different types

of narration
Autobiography and First-Person Point of View

The most personal kind of nonfiction writing is

autobiography.

An autobiography is a writer’s
account of his or her own life.

auto- + -bio- + -graphy

“self” “life” “writing”

Autobiography and First-Person Point of View

First-Person Narration
An autobiography is written from the
first-person point of view.
The writer uses first-person pronouns:

we us
our
me
my

mine
I
Autobiography and First-Person Point of View

Here is an example of the first-person point of

view in an autobiography.

I was eleven years old when I visited a

big city for the first time. Everything
amazed me: the crowds, the traffic,
the excitement. What impressed me
most was the sight of a man washing
windows near the top of a skyscraper. I
couldn’t believe how calm he looked
while hanging in midair. I decided right
then that when I was old enough, I’d
learn how to do that job.
Autobiography and First-Person Point of View

Quick Check
I didn’t know anything about my What words in this
heritage until I was almost ten paragraph tell you
years old. Then my cousins from it is written from
Armenia came to visit our family the first-person
in Fresno for two weeks. What a point of view?
wild experience that was!
Fortunately, they spoke English
very well. They told us
fascinating stories about the
village where our great-
grandparents lived.
[End of Section]
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

A biography is a person’s
life story written by another
person.

Biographers spend a lot of

time—sometimes Harriet
many Tubman:
years—learning asMoses
The muchofasHer People
they can aboutSubject:
their Harriet Tubman
subjects.
Author: Sarah Bradford
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

A biographer may collect information from many

different sources.

Firsthand Accounts Secondhand Accounts

• interviews • newspaper and

magazine articles
• letters
• historical accounts
• diaries
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

If the person lived long ago, the biographer reads

historical accounts of the time.

• These sources help the

writer understand the
world in which the
subject lived.
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

If the subject is still living, the biographer may

interview him or her.

• If the person died in

the recent past, the
writer often can find
and interview people
who knew the person.
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

Third-Person Narration
Biographers do not write as “I” because they are
not the subject of the life story.

Instead, they write from the third-person point

of view.

his he
They use
third-person she
pronouns her
such as they
their
them
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

Here is an example of third-person narration in a

biography.
The famous writer William Saroyan was
born in Fresno, California, in 1908. His
parents, who were Armenian
immigrants, struggled to support their
four children. William’s father died
young, and William and his siblings
spent several years in an orphanage.
William left school early but continued
to educate himself at Fresno’s public
library. Smart and talented, he knew by
age twelve that he wanted to be a
writer.
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

No book is large enough to tell everything about

a person’s life.

A biographer must decide

what to include—and what
to leave out.

The biographer chooses

events that reveal
something important
about the person.
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

When you read a biography, think about

• what details are

included

• what they tell you

about the subject
 Biography and Third-Person Point of View

Quick Check
Success was slow in coming to What important
William Saroyan. Despite many details does the
rejections, he kept writing his unique writer give? What
stories and sending them to do they tell you
magazines. Finally, in 1933, Story about the subject?
magazine published his story “The
Daring Young Man on the Flying
Trapeze.” Saroyan then boldly wrote
to the editors to tell them that he
would send one new story a day for a
whole month. He did—and many
were later published.
[End of Section]
 Shifting Points of View

In both autobiographies and

biographies, writers may
change the point of view from
which they record events.

First-Person Point of View

Allie was my best friend in middle school. We
spent hours playing kickball in my backyard,
studying together, and sharing secrets.
Third-Person Point of View
When her mother got sick, Allie had to take
over many of the household chores.
Amazingly, she still got straight A’s that year.
 Shifting Points of View

Quick Check
I heard the following South At what point in this
African folk tale when I was a passage does the
child. One day, a jackal and a point of view change?
hyena took turns jumping up
onto clouds and eating them.
When the jackal had to come
down to earth, the hyena
caught him. When the hyena
needed help, however, the
jackal played a mean trick.

[End of Section]
 Analyze Elements of Nonfiction

Your Turn

1. Explain the difference between an autobiography

and a biography.
2. Choose an event from your life, and write about it
using first-person narration.
3. Write about the same event using third-person
narration.
4. How are your two accounts different? How are they
the same?
The End