Whose View?

In general, your point of view is the way you look at things, or your perspective. Sometimes it means what you can physically see of an object or scene. Sometimes your point of view is how you see the world based on your background, your education, or your beliefs. In literature, point of view is an element of fiction that refers to the perspective from which the narrator tells the story.

Think about it this way: You are walking down the sidewalk, and you witness a car running a red light and hitting another car. You aren’t the only witness, and as police question all of the people who witnessed the accident, several stories emerge. One person thinks the driver was driving erratically before the accident. Another person thinks the other car had run its own red light. Yet another person thinks the car was a runaway without a driver. You ultimately find out that no one has a story that’s similar to anyone else’s. How can that be when all of you saw the same accident? It seems that everyone has his or her own point of view. Point of view has to do with you actually seeing the accident happen, but it can also have to do with your past experiences. Take, for example, the person who thought the driver was erratic; perhaps this witness had an experience with a careless driver in the past so is mindful of that kind of driving. Perhaps the person who thought the car was a runaway had a poor vantage point and simply couldn’t see the driver. Perhaps the witness who thought the other car was at fault had been wrongly blamed for something and didn’t want to automatically assume that the first driver was at fault.

The way a writer uses point of view informs and changes our understanding of the story. Writers vary point of view depending on what they want us to know and think about events. For example, look at the cartoon on the left. The remarks are made from the soldier’s point of view and not a narrator’s, which makes the reader think more about what the soldier is actually saying. Having him “say” the words give them more weight.

Points of View

There are a few different points of view, or perspectives, from which a story can be told.

First person: The story is written in the first person, using I. The narrator can relate only what he or she sees, hears, feels, and thinks.

Third person: The story is told from the third person, using he or she. The narrator does not participate in the story but only observes. There are three types of third-person point-of-view perspectives: limited, objective, and omniscient.

In this lesson, we will discuss the different points of view and how point of view shapes a story.