Point Of View

vi) POINT OF VIEW (P.O.V)

Point of view is when the story is told from a consistent perspective, that perspective is called point of view. Narrative point of view derives its lexicon from the number and person of its pronouns: first person, second person, third person.

	1ST PERSON	2ND PERSON	3RD PERSON
SINGULAR	I, me, my, mine, myself	you; your; yours; yourself	he, she, it; his, her(s), its; him, her, it; himself, herself, itself
PLURAL	we, us, our, ours, ourselves	you; your; yours; yourselves	they; them; their(s); themselves

OMNISCIENCE 

A consistent point of view limits the range and amount of knowledge the narrator can invoke to tell the story. This is called omniscience. Depending on the narrator's relationship to the story and its characters, the degree of the narrator's intelligence may be classified as either omniscient, objectice, subjectice, or episodically limited.

	FIRST PERSON		THIRD PERSON
OMNISCIENT	The storyteller is, both, a central ego in the story and has godlike abilities to move in and out of time, place, and character consciousness.	The storyteller is a disconnected, disembodied voice--a floating consciousness that approximates the reader's own consciousness

Narrative Point of View	Advantages	Disadvantages
First Person	Eyewitness account, gives immediacy, realism to story Author can create dramatic irony Narrator can be unifying element	No direct interpretation by the author Bias or limited knowledge of narrator Danger that narrator may transcend his knowledge
Third Person Omniscient	God-like narrator gives thoughts of character, dimension to story Most flexible: author can control omniscience	Author can come between reader and story Shifting from character to character may destroy unity
Third Person Limited Omniscient	Realistic; we see world through one person Ready-made unifying element Useful characterization of point-of-view character	Limited field of observation Difficulty having character aware of all important events

Examples ; 

In The Necklace, the story is told in third-person omniscient because you know the thought and feelings of Madame Loisel and her husband. You see Madame Loisel's thoughts in the beginning of the story when she is fantasizing about what her life should be like. You also see Monsieur's thoughts after he heard how much the beautiful dress for the ball would cost, which is 400 francs. The narrator explains how pale he turns to.

We hope this helps ! Regards.