It is important to consider:
•
the narrator’s perspective
• the narrator’s personality
 First person point of view
 Second person point of view
 Third person point of view
 The story is told from the point of view of “I” or “we.”
 The narrator participates in the action and tells the
story in his/her own voice.
 We share all the limitations of the narrator, and we
must question how valid his or her observations are.
 A first person narrator often suggests a bias, especially
when the narrator is describing events in which he/she
played a part.
 Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia”
 Raymond Carver, “Cathedral”
 Alice Munro, “How I Met My Husband”
 Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”
 John Updike, “A & P”
 Indicates that the reader is him/herself a character in
the work being narrated.
 “you”
 This strategy is rarely used because it seems artificial
and self-conscious.
 Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings”
 Michael Lassell, “How to Watch Your Brother Die”
 The narrator is a non-participant, an observer:
someone outside the story who refers to all the
characters by name or as “he,” “she,” “they.”
 Since the narrator is not a character in the work, this
narrator can generally be seen as more reliable than
the first person narrator.
 Omniscient = the narrator can enter the minds of all
(or some) characters to reveal how they think or feel.
This makes us aware of multiple perspectives by
showing different views of the same situation.
 Objective = the narrator does not enter the mind of
any character but describes events from the outside =
the “fly on the wall.”
 Don Lee, “The Price of Eggs in China”
 Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
 Luisa Valenzuela, “The Censors”
 Reliable narrator = can be counted on to know the
truth and reveal it to the reader.
 Unreliable narrator = a character who may be beset
with limitations and personal prejudices that color
his/her values and point of view.
 Subjective narrator = makes judgments about
characters and events.
 Objective narrator = appears to present a totally
neutral interpretation of events and does not make
judgments about characters.