What is point of view

What Is Point of View?Omniscient Point of View Third-Person-Limited Point of View First-Person Point of View Determining a Story’s Point of View Voice Tone Practice Point of View Feature

What Is Point of View?

Omniscient Point of View

Third-Person-Limited Point of View First-Person Point of View

Determining a Story’s Point of View Voice

Tone

Practice

Point of View

Feature Menu

Point of view is the vantage point from which a

writer narrates or tells a story.

What Is Point of View?

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Omniscient Point of View

In the omniscient point of view, the all-knowing

narrator

• knows and can tell what

any character is thinking

and feeling

• plays no part in the story

• knows what is happening

in all of the story’s

settings

How can you tell that this excerpt is written from the omniscient point

of view?

Omniscient Point of View

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Quick Check

The frown on the bachelor’s face was

deepening to a scowl He was a hard,

unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her

mind

The smaller girl created a diversion by

beginning to recite “On the Road to

Mandalay.” She only knew the first line, but

she put her limited knowledge to the fullest

possible use It seemed to the bachelor

as though someone had had a bet with her

that she could repeat the line aloud two

thousand times without stopping

from “The Storyteller” by Saki

Third-Person-Limited Point of View

In third-person-limited point of view, the

narrator

• knows and can tell what a single character

is thinking and feeling

• plays no part in the story

Third-Person-Limited Point of View

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Quick Check

So they parted; and the young man

pursued his way until, being about to turn

the corner by the meeting-house, he

looked back and saw the head of Faith still

peeping after him with a melancholy air, in

spite of her pink ribbons

“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his

heart smote him “What a wretch am I to

leave her on such an errand! She talks of

dreams, too.”

from “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

How can you tell that this excerpt is written from the

third-person-limited point of view?

First-Person Point of View

In first-person point of view, the narrator

• knows and can tell only

what he or she thinks and

feels

• is a character in the story

• may be reliable and

trustworthy or an

unreliable narrator

First-Person Point of View

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Quick Check

At three o’clock I cried, “Print off,” and

turned to go, when there crept to my chair

what was left of a man He was bent in a

circle, his head was sunk between his

shoulders, and he moved his feet one over

the other like a bear I could hardly see

whether he walked or crawled “Can

you give me a drink?” he whimpered

I went back to the office, the man

followed with groans of pain, and I turned

up the lamp

“Don’t you know me?” he gasped

from “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling

How can you tell that this excerpt is written from the

first-person point of view?

Determining a Story’s Point of View

When you read fiction, ask the following five

questions about point of view:

1 Who is telling the story?

3 How much does the narrator want me to know?

2 How much does the narrator know and

understand?

4 Can I trust the narrator?

5 How would the story be different if someone

else told it?

Determining a Story’s Point of View

It is eight suns’ journey to the east and

a man passes by many Dead Places The

Forest People are afraid of them but I am

not Once I made my fire on the edge of a

Dead Place at night

from “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét

Which excerpt

is written from the first-person point of view? Which is written from the

third-person-limited point of view?

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Quick Check

They would hate him with cold and

terrible intensity, but it really didn’t matter

He would never see them, never know

them He would have only the memories to

remind him; only the nights of fear

from “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin

A compelling narrator has a distinctive voice,

carefully crafted by the narrator’s

• use of language

• choice of words, or diction

• attitude, or tone

Listen to the description of a injured man in the

voices of two narrators.

My patient had clearly been

through a painful ordeal

and required immediate

surgery and long-term

therapy to restore the full

use of his injured arms,

legs, and back

The man’s doctor: The man’s wife:

I fought back tears, trying

to be brave for him, but the sight of my strong, tall husband so terribly injured and so weak was almost too much to bear At last I gave way to grief

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Tone is the attitude a narrator takes toward a

subject, another character, or the reader.

Tone

The narrator’s tone may be optimistic, sad,

curious, irritable, astonished, bitter, and so on.

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Take a story you’ve read recently, and

do the following exercises:

Practice

• Explain how changing the point of view affects the story.

• Imagine the story as told from a different point

of view, and write the opening paragraphs.

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