Understanding Point of View in Literature

Point of View in Literature

Point of view is the manner in which a story is narrated or depicted and who it is that tells the story.

Simply put, the point of view determines the angle and perception of the story unfolding, and thus influences the tone in which the story takes place.

Types of Point of View in Literature

There are three major types of Point of View in Literature:

First Person
Second Person
Third Person

First Person Point Of View

This point of view is in use when a character narrates the story with I-me-my-mine in his or her speech.

The advantage of this point of view is that you get to hear the thoughts of the narrator and see the world depicted in the story through his or her eyes.

The first person POV is an evergreen viewpoint in literature. Check these examples

Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain
Great Expectations	Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee
The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald
Moby Dick	Herman Melville

Second Person Point Of View

The second-person point of view is a point of view where the audience is made a character.

This is done with the use of the pronouns «you», «your», and «yours.»

The narrator is trying to address the audience, not necessarily directly, but rather to administer more of a connection

Third Person Point Of View

In the third-person narrative mode, characters are referred to by the narrator as «he», «she», or «they», but never as «I» or «we» (first-person), or «you» (second-person).

This makes it clear that the narrator is an unspecified entity or uninvolved person who conveys the story and is not a character of any kind within the story, or at least is not referred to as such.

Third Person Limited

The Third person limited point of view is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character.

Third person limited is a popular POV in mystery novels because when we don’t know what secondary characters are thinking and feeling explicitly, they remain a mystery.

The Giver	Lois Lowry
Ender’s Game	Orson Scott Card
1984	George Orwell
A Storm of Swords	George R.R. Martin
Orphan Train	Christina Baker Kline
Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell
The Quest	Nelson DeMille

Omniscient

The third person omniscient point of view is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows what every character is thinking.

Using the third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator is able to relate information to the reader about each character that some of the characters in the story might not know about each other.

Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen
Hard Times	Charles Dickens
The Scarlet Letter	Nathaniel Hawthorne

Point of View in Literature Exercises

These are some worksheets that will help you identify the POV in literature