From whose perspective...? POINT of VIEW From whose perspective...?

1st Person POV I Me My We Our

Story is told from a main character’s POV First person Narrator Uses “I” Story is told from a main character’s POV

Benefits: First person Narrator Readers see events from the perspective of an important character Readers often understand the main character better

First person Narrator Disadvantage: The narrator may be unreliable—insane, naïve, deceptive, narrow minded etc... Readers see only one perspective

First person Narrator “ The dogs were still running at a lope, though we had come over seven miles, and I was full of them; my life was full of them. We were, as it happens sometimes, dancing with winter. I could not help smiling idiotically at the grandness of it. Part of the chant of an ancient Navajo prayer rolled through my mind: Beauty about me. Beauty above me. Beautify before me…That is how I felt then and frequently still feel when I am running with dogs.”—Gary Paulsen, Woodsong

First person Narrator 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.    -Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body

2nd Person POV You Yours Your Yourself

A second-person POV is rare Uses “you” and presents commands

Often the narrator is speaking to him/herself 2nd Person POV Often the narrator is speaking to him/herself

2nd Person POV --Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it;” --Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”

2nd Person POV 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. –R.A. Montgomery, The Abominable Snowman

3rd Person POV Omniscient Limited Omniscient Objective

3nd Person POV He She Her They Them

Omniscient All knowing…the narrator can see into the minds of all characters

3rd Person POV: Omniscient can enter character's minds knows everything that is going on, past, present, and future. May be a narrator outside the text

3rd Person POV: Omniscient Advantage:  very natural technique author is, after all, omniscient regarding his work.

3rd Person POV: Omniscient Disadvantage: not lifelike; narrator knows and tells all; can feel artificial

3rd Person POV: Omniscient “ Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced for the end of the melon patch near the wall.  "I was not a day too soon," he said; for he could see the baby cobras curled up inside the skin, and he knew that the minute they were hatched they could kill a man or mongoose.  He bit off the tops of the eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras.  Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of her eggs.  She saw she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the last egg lay between Rikki-tikki's paws.” --Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-tikki-tavi 

3rd Person POV: Omniscient “ Annabel," said Jimmy, "give me that rose you are wearing, will you?"  Hardly believing that she had heard him right, she unpinned the flower from her dress and placed it in his hand.  Jimmy Valentine put on his coat and walked outside the railing toward the front door.  As he went he thought he heard a faraway voice that he once knew. O. Henry, Retrieved Reformation 

Limited Omniscient Narrator can see into ONE character’s mind.

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient All characters have thought privacy except ONE.

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient Gives the impression that we are very close to the mind of that ONE character, though viewing it from a distance.

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient Sometimes this narrator can be too focused or may impose his/her own opinions with no grounds.

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient The girl he loved was shy and quick and the smallest in the class, and usually she said nothing, but one day she opened her mouth and roared, and when the teacher--it was French class--asked her what she was doing, she said, in French, I am a lion, and he wanted to smell her breath and put his hand against the rumblings in her throat. --Elizabeth Graver, “The Boy Who Fell Forty Feet” (1993)

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient     Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” So she was considering, in her own mind whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. –Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel, Alice's adventures in Wonderland

3rd Person POV: Limited Omniscient On the first day of school, Victor stood in line half and hour before he came to a wobbly card table. He was handed a packet of papers and a computer r card on which he listed his one elective, French. He already spoke Spanish and English, but he thought some day he might travel to France, where it was cool; not like Fresno, where summer days reached 110 degrees in the shade. Gary Soto, Seventh Grade

3rd Person POV: Objective Narrator only describes and does not enter characters’ thoughts.

3rd Person POV: Objective Like a video camera, the narrator reports what happens and what the characters are saying.

3rd Person POV: Objective The narrator adds no comment about how the characters are feeling.

3rd Person POV: Objective The narrator offers no comment on the mood of the setting—no mention of awkwardness, ease, tension etc...

3rd Person POV: Objective The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.  The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.       --Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (1948)

3rd Person POV: Objective They spoke no more until camp was made. Henry was bending over and adding ice to the bubbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. Henry grunted with a tone that was not sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight. An icy wind circled between them and the fire. Jack London, White Fang

Who is telling the story? End of presentation. POINT of VIEW Who is telling the story? End of presentation.