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One of the very first, and most significant, decisions a writer makes is from whose perspective the story will be told. In general, the choices of point of view in a novel or short story are the following:
First person: uses “I,” and is a character who is often, but not always, the main character in the story.
Third person: uses “he,” “she,” “they,” and so on, and a narrator who is usually not a character within the story. There are a few different types of third person narration:
An omniscient narrator is one who knows what every character is thinking and can move easily through time.
A limited omniscient narrator is one who knows the thoughts of only one character.
An objective narrator is one who reports the actions and dialogue of the characters and describes the setting, but does not move into the thoughts of any of the characters.
Second person: While it is used very rarely, some authors choose a second person narration, which uses the pronoun “you” to address the reader directly, essentially making the reader like a character within the story.
When connecting point of view to theme, two key questions to ask are:
How does the perspective from which the story or poem is told affect what the reader learns about the text?
What does the perspective reveal and what does it hide?