Chapter 2: Point of View

Omniscient or all-knowing narrator

A narrator who has the ability to move freely through the consciousness of any character. The omniscient narrator also has complete knowledge of all of the external events in a story.

Participant or first-person narrator

A narrator who is a participant in the action. Such a narrator refers to himself or herself as "I" and may be a major or minor character in the story.

Unreliable Narrator

A narrator who--intentionally or unintentionally--relates events in a subjective or distorted manner. The author usually provides some indication early on in such stories that the narrator is not to be completely trusted.

Consider who is telling the story.

A story's point of view determines how much confidence a reader should have in the events related. A story told from a third-person omniscient point of view generally provides a sense of authority and stability that makes the narrative seem reliable.

Stream of consciousness

A type of modern narration that uses various literary devices, especially interior monologues, in an attempt to duplicate the subjective and associative nature of human consciousness.

Nonparticipant or third-person narrator

A narrator who does not appear in the story as a character but is usually capable of revealing the thoughts and motives of one or more characters.

Innocent or naive narrator

A character who fails to understand all the implications of the story he or she tells. The innocent narrator--often a child or childlike adult--is frequently used by an author to generate irony, sympathy, or pity by creating a gap between what the narrator perceives and what the reader knows.

Observer

A first-person narrator who is relatively detached from or plays only a minor role in the events described.

Interior monologue

An extended presentation of a character's thoughts in a narrative. Usually written in the present tense and printed without quotation marks, an interior monologue reads as if the character were speaking aloud to himself or herself, for the reader to overhear.

Think about whether anything important is being left out of the story.

Is something of obvious importance to the situation not being reported? Understanding the limits of a narrator's point of view is key to interpreting what a story says.

Objective point of view

Point of view in which the third-person narrator merely reports dialogue and action with little or no interpretation or access to the characters' minds.

Editorial omniscience

Point of view employed when an omniscient narrator goes beyond reporting the thoughts of his characters to make a critical judgement or commentary, making explicit the narrator's own thoughts or attitudes.

Impartial omniscience

Point of view employed when an omniscient narrator, who presents the thoughts and actions of the characters, does not judge them or comment on them.

Total omniscience

Point of view in which the narrator knows everything about all of the characters and events in a story. A narrator with total omniscience can move freely from one character to another. Generally, a totally omniscient narrative is written in the third person.

Limited or selective omniscience

Point of view in which the narrator sees into the minds of some but not all of the characters. Most typically, limited omniscience sees through the eyes of one major or minor character.

Ask why the narrator is telling the story.

The use of a first-person narrator, on the other hand, often suggests a certain bias, especially when the narrator relates events in which he or she has played a part. In such cases the narrator sometimes has an obvious interest in the audience's accepting his or her version of the story as truth.