Point of View

First Person, Third Person, and Beyond

Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. It helps readers understand who is speaking, what that speaker knows, and how events are described. Learning point of view makes it easier to follow a text and explain how a narrator shapes the story. It also helps students become stronger readers and writers.

Writers choose point of view to control the reader's experience. In first person, the narrator is part of the story and uses words like I and we. In second person, the narrator speaks directly to the reader using you. In third person, the narrator tells about others using pronouns like he, she, they, and the amount of knowledge can be limited to one character or expanded to many characters in omniscient point of view.

Key Facts

First person uses I, me, my, we, and our to tell the story.
Second person uses you and your to place the reader inside the action.
Third person uses he, she, it, and they to describe characters from outside the story.
Third person limited shows the thoughts and feelings of one character.
Third person omniscient shows the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters.
Signal pronouns help identify point of view: first person = I, we; second person = you; third person = he, she, they.

Vocabulary

Point of view: Point of view is the position from which a story is told.
Narrator: A narrator is the voice that tells the story.
First person: First person is a point of view where the narrator is part of the story and uses I or we.
Third person limited: Third person limited is a point of view where the narrator tells about characters but reveals the thoughts of only one character.
Third person omniscient: Third person omniscient is a point of view where the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of many characters.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Confusing narrator and author, because the narrator is the voice inside the story while the author is the real person who wrote it.
Choosing point of view by one pronoun only, because a single word like you can appear in dialogue even when the whole story is not in second person.
Mixing up third person limited and omniscient, because limited stays close to one character's thoughts while omniscient can reveal many characters' minds.
Assuming first person is always the main character, because a narrator can say I and still be a side character telling someone else's story.

Practice Questions

1 Read this sentence: "I grabbed my backpack and ran to the bus before it left." What is the point of view, and which pronouns helped you decide?
2 Read this sentence: "Maya looked calm, but inside she was worried about the test." Is this third person limited or third person omniscient? Explain your answer using the information the narrator gives.
3 How would a scene change if it were told in first person instead of third person omniscient? Explain how the reader's knowledge would be different.