Point of View

1. Point of View notes

2. Point of View • The perspective from which a story is told.

3. First Person • One of the novel’s characters narrates the story. • For example, a sentence in a novel in the first person might read, “As I waited on the corner, I remembered the last time I had seen her.”

4. First Person • This writing style is accomplished through the main character’s narration of events that occur to him or her, past or present. • Capturing the voice of one particular character.

5. First Person • I remember standing in that small, dimly lit room. There was no air circulation. Each breath I took felt like a mass of congealed soup slipping into my lungs.  The ripe smell in the air lingered around; silently mocking and tormenting me with its invisible tendrils of death and decay.  My mind forced me to look away, yet my eyes kept gravitating back with an impossible will of their own.

6. Second Person • “You”—rarely used. • The narrator tells the story to another character using "you," so that the story is being told through the addressee's point of view.

7. Third Person Limited • The third person limited point of view tells the story from the third person, with a knowledge of only what the main character thinks. • For example, a sentence from a story in the third person limited might read, “As she waited on the corner, she remembered the last time she had seen him.”

8. Third Person Limited • So, for third person limited, you’re allowed to go through every single thought, feeling, and action, but with only one character. • In third person limited, you’re allowed to view all of the action, but only with one character.

9. Third Person Omniscient • In a novel written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, the reader knows what each character does and thinks.

10. Third Person Omniscient • Tells the reader exactly what is going on inside multiple characters’ heads in regards to their thoughts and feelings, while also showing their actions. • An “all-knowing” point of view.

11. Third Person Omniscient example: • John couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He thought the flash of bright, red light that streaked across the sky might’ve been lightning. He was nervous. His friend,Paul, stood rubbing his eyes, he looked a second time and realized, as it flashed in the same place again, that it wasn’t, nor was it a figment of their imagination.

12. Third Person Omniscient example For example, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by American writer Carson McCullers opens with this description: In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The two friends were very different. The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless gray sweater. His face was round and oily, with half closed eyelids and lips that curved in a gentle, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and soberly dressed.