POINT OF VIEW
First Person
The narrator is a character in the story who can reveal only
personal thoughts and feelings and what he or she sees and is told
by other characters. He can’t tell us thoughts of other characters.
Second Person
The narrator is speaking directly to you
Third-Person Objective
The narrator is an outsider who can report only what he or she
sees and hears. This narrator can tell us what is happening, but he
can’t tell us the thoughts of the characters.
Third-Person Limited
The narrator is an outsider who sees into the mind of one of the
characters.
Omniscient
The narrator is an all-knowing outsider who can enter the minds
of more than one of the characters.
Narrative Perspective Initial Practice
Name _______________________
Read each passage, determine the point of view.( First Person, Second Person, Third Person
objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient) Circle the correct perspective, highlight
the clue that determined your answer.
The Abominable Snowman
By R.A. Montgomery
You are a mountain climber. Three years ago you spent the summer at a climbing
school in the mountains of Colorado. Your instructors said that you had natural skills as a climber.
You made rapid progress and by the end of the summer you were leading difficult rock and ice
climbs.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
Outside the Box
By Dan Allosso
Three shots like thunderclaps rang out from surround speakers in the basement rec room. A white
controller jumped in Reid Anderson’s hand each time he squeezed the trigger. Tactile feedback.
A speaker in the controller made snapping sounds like the action of a pistol. Reid felt this more
than he heard it. The shots made his ears ring.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
Teen Idol
By Meg Cabot
I witnessed the kidnapping of Betty Ann Mulvaney. Well, me and the twenty-three other people in
first period Latin class at Clayton High School (student population 1,200).
Unlike everybody else, however, I actually did something to try and stop it. Well, sort
of. I went, “Kurt, what are you doing?”
Kurt just rolled his eyes. He was all, “Relax, Jen. It’s a joke, okay?”
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
Understood Betsy
By Dorothy Canfield
Aunt Harriet never meant to say any of this when Elizabeth Ann could hear, but the little girl’s ears
were as sharp as little girls’ ears always are, and long before she was nine, she knew all about the
opinion Aunt Harriet had of the Putneys. She did not know, to be sure, what “chores” were, but
she took it confidently from Aunt Harriet’s voice that they were something very, very dreadful.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
I Am Number Four
By Pittacus Lore
The man brings his legs over the front of the cot when the shake starts again. A longer,
firmer shake, and another crash, this time closer. The man gets to his feet and walks slowly to the
door. Silence. The boy sits up. “No,” the man whispers, and in that instant the blade of a sword,
long and gleaming, made of a shining white metal that is not found on Earth, comes through the
door and sinks deeply into the man’s chest.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body
By Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
It all began when Ms. Frizzle showed our class a film strip about the human body. We knew
trouble was about to start, because we knew Ms. Frizzle was the strangest teacher in the school.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
Glinda of Oz
By Frank L. Baum
Ozma took the arm of her hostess, but Dorothy lagged behind. When at last she rejoined Glinda
and Ozma in the hall, she found them talking earnestly about the condition of the people, and how
to make them more happy and contented– although they were already the happiest and most
contented folks in all the world. This interested Ozma, of course, but it didn’t interest Dorothy very
much, so the little girl ran over to the big table on which was lying open Glinda’s Great Book of
Records.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
By Sean Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Teens
Habit 1: React - Blame all of your problems on your parents, your stupid teachers or professors,
your lousy neighborhood, your boyfriend or girlfriend, or something or somebody else. Be a victim.
Take no responsibility for your life. Act like an animal. If you’re hungry, eat. If someone yells at
you, yell back. If you feel like you’re doing something you know is wrong, just do it.
First Person
Second Person,
Third Person objective
Third person limited
Third person omniscient
Eragon (Inheritance)
By Christopher Paolini
Eragon knelt in a bed of trampled reed grass and scanned the tracks with a practiced eye. The
prints told him that the deer had been in the meadow only a half hour before. Soon they would bed
down. His target, a small doe with a pronounced limp in her left forefoot, was still in the herd. He
was amazed she had made it so far without a wolf or a bear catching her.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient
The Grapes of Wrath
By John Steinbeck
The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the
road. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so
long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a
line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went
away, and in a while they did not try anymore. The weeds grew darker green to protect
themselves, and they did not spread anymore.
First Person
Second Person, Third Person objective, Third person limited, Third person omniscient