Artworks have point of view as well. Whose point of view do you have when you look at Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez (1656)? (click to enlarge)

Point of view is mainly concerned with who is telling a story. When one asks, “What is the point of view in the story?” the question essentially means, “From whose perspective is the story told?” The person telling the story is the narrator, and if we consider that person’s role in the story, we can figure out the point of view. It’s important to remember that the narrator is different from the author. While the author actually writes the story, the narrator is the character who tells it. For example, you might write a fictional story with a main character named Charlene. If Charlene is the one telling her story, she is the narrator, and you are the author.

Why Consider Point of View?

Before we discuss the different possible points of view, it’s important to focus on the benefits of identifying point of view when reading fiction. Why do we consider it in the first place?

Imagine you get into an argument with a sibling. In your eyes, you were just minding your own business before she started yelling at you, so it was certainly her fault. A few minutes later, however, she tells your parents her side of the story, in which you are the one who started the argument. As a result, they are pretty upset with you, and they ask you to apologize. If only they had heard your side of the story! Things looked quite different from your perspective!

In this example, we see that interpreting a story without considering the point of view can mean that we are lacking some major pieces of the picture. Your sibling told the story from her point of view, so the listeners (your parents) only understood the event through the lens that she provided. Were there emotions involved that may have skewed the way in which the story was told? Did something happen of which only one person was aware? Was there a misunderstanding that could alter our understanding of key events?

To be clear, only hearing your side of the story would not be a full picture of the argument either. This is why understanding point of view is so crucial. If we add point of view to the context in which we analyze and understand a story, we recognize the intricacies–and sometimes shortcomings–of only hearing one side. Since experiences are subjective, we all interpret the same events quite differently from one another, and those differences leak into our words when we tell stories.

Point of View: Terminology

Now that we’ve discussed its importance, let’s look at the major types of point of view. Note that the pronouns the author uses are one way we might be able to determine the type:

• First-person: One of the characters tells the story from their own perspective. This character is frequently the protagonist, and will use first-person pronouns like “I,” “me,” and “we.”
  • “I was walking to the market when I ran into Lindsay. I was pleasantly surprised to see her.”
• Second-person: While less common in literature than the other types, narrators using this point of view address readers directly using the second-person pronoun “you.”
  • “You were walking to the market when you ran into Lindsay.”
• Third-person: The narrator tells the story from an outsider’s perspective, and will use third-person pronouns like “he,” “she,” and “they.”
  • Third-person limited: Follows one character while telling the story. Readers understand events from this character’s perspective, but the character is not the one telling the story.
    • “She continued on her walk to the market. As she turned the corner, she was surprised to run into Lindsay. It felt good to see a friend from her hometown.”
  • Third-person omniscient: Narrator knows information about all the characters, and can tell stories from various plotlines in a more removed and objective fashion.
    • “Amanda continued on her walk to the market. As she turned the corner, she ran into Lindsay. They each felt a sense of nostalgia as they reminisced about their hometown so many years ago.”

An Example

Let’s turn to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” for an example:

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off–the paper–in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

Here, we have a first-person account of the narrator’s new bedroom. Since the point of view is first-person, readers only see the room as she sees it. The ring in the wall, torn wallpaper, and barred windows signal to the narrator that this room must have been used for children before she arrived. By the end of the story, however, readers’ understanding of how the room came to look this way changes drastically:

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner – but it hurt my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it!… But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

Now it seems that readers have witnessed the narrator’s descent into madness, and that she is the one who caused such destruction in the bedroom. First-person point of view is crucial for the journey of the narrative; readers endure the experience as the narrator sinks more deeply into her mental illness. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” would therefore not work as a third-person narrative because readers would not experience the altered reality that takes place in the narrator’s mind.

Unreliable Narrators

Unreliable narrators cannot be trusted to present the story accurately or with credibility because they have a skewed view of life events. This may be due to the narrator’s mental health state (i.e.: depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, etc.), or it may be due to the narrator’s devious nature (i.e.: murderer, rapist, thief, compulsive liar, etc.). The unreliable narrator may tell lies, withhold information, assess situations incorrectly, contradict information, etc.

Unreliable narrators may reveal their character flaws in three ways:

• They may openly admit their problem at the beginning of the story.
• They may gradually reveal it throughout the story.
• They may wait until the end of the story, which can create a plot twist for readers.

Naive Narrators

Naive narrators are innocent, inexperienced individuals. They lack knowledge about the events (scenes) that are unfolding in the story. This may be due to age, such as a young narrator or senile narrator, or it may be the narrator’s limited experience with a different culture or country. Readers may view the narrator as unreliable because of their lack of experience and/or knowledge.

Multiple Points of View in Novels

Because a novel has multiple chapters, it’s possible to have more than one narrator. Chapter 1 may be told in first-person point of view by one character, and chapter 2 may be told in first-person point of view by another character.  Usually, this is done with two narrators (characters) alternating in the chapters. However, it can be three or more narrators if the writer knows what he or she is doing. This type of writing requires a strategic plan identifying which scenes which narrators will tell to move the plot, so that scenes are not repeated by the different narrators. It also requires that the writer develop a unique voice for each character who narrates.