Understanding Point of View
The point of view of a piece of writing is the perspective from which it is told.
The three different points of view correspond to the grammatical concept of person in pronouns.
First personI and we
Second personyou
Third personhe, she, and it
The point of view from which you write defines your relationship to your subject.
First-person point of view brings immediacy to your writing.
First-person point of view in Nonfiction
In nonfiction writing, the first-person point of view is used whenever you want to tell about your own ideas or experiences. The point of view is used in personal essays, in most letters, and in most autobiographies or memoirs. The following is an example of first-person point of view.
“I also wrote plays, and songs, for one of which I received a letter of congratulations from Mayor La Guardia, and poetry, about which the less said, the better. My mother was delighted by all these goings-on, but my father wasn’t; he wanted me to be a preacher. When I was fourteen I became a preacher, and when I was seventeen I stopped.”
James Baldwin, “Autobiographical Notes”
Second-person point of view uses the imperative tone in giving directions, commands, or requests and is most often used in nonfiction writing. The second-person point of view is used almost exclusively in nonfiction, and then only in special circumstances, as when giving directions or instructions. Technical writing is often done in the second person. Benjamin Franklin used the second-person point of view in one part of his autobiography, when he made a list of virtues in the form of commands to himself. Notice that the “you” that is the subject of each sentence is implied.
- Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
- Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
- Order. Let all things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography
Third-person point of view can create an objective distance. The third-person point of view is used in biographies and, generally, in nonfiction writing in which the emphasis is on what is being told rather than on the teller. The following is a passage from an article about Ellis Island in New York.
“Close to 900,000 came through Ellis in 1907, its peak year. And that included only steerage passengers—the great majority. They were barged or ferried to Ellis from Manhattan piers, while first- and second-cabin passengers were cursorily processed on shipboard.
For 17-year-old Myron Surmach from Ukraine, Ellis Island marked the first day of a long life in America. He came in 1910 intending to work for a few years in the Pennsylvania coal mines, then return to his homeland.”
Alice J. Hall, National Geographic
Point of View in Fiction
First-Person Point of View. Fiction writing from the first-person point of view tends to be immediate and forceful. Everything is seen from the perspective of the character who is telling the story.
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Phillip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
When you write fiction in the first person, you must limit yourself to what your persona can see, hear, and experience.
Third-Person Point of View. When writing fiction in the third-person, an author can choose between two forms, based on the scope of the narrator’s knowledge. If the narrator’s knowledge comes form the perspective of a single character, then the story is being told from a third-person limited point of view. In the following passage, the point of view is limited to the perspective of the boy Arnold. All the action is seen through his eyes. Only that which he senses is described; Eugene’s actions are presented only as Arnold sees them.
“Arnold drew his overalls and raveling gray sweater over his naked body. In the other narrow bed his brother Eugene went on sleeping, undisturbed by the alarm clock’s rusty ring. Arnold, watching his brother sleeping, felt a peculiar dismay; he was nine, six years younger than Eugie, and in their waking hours it was he who was subordinate. To dispel emphatically his uneasy advantage over his sleeping brother, he threw himself on the hump of Eugie’s body.
“Get up! Get up!” he cried.
Gina Berriault, “The Stone Boy”
If the narrator’s knowledge extends to the internal experiences of all the characters, then the story is being told from a third-person omniscient point of view. The word omniscientsimply means “all-knowing.” In the following passage, a young man and woman are falling in love. Because the narrator is speaking from the third-person omniscient point of view, he or she can describe the feelings and motivations of the characters. As a result, the reader gets a relatively objective view of both characters.
“When the moment of sophistication came to George Willard, his mind turned to Helen White, the Winesburg bander’s daughter. Always he had been conscious of the girl growing into womanhood as he grew into manhood. Once on a summer night when he was eighteen, he had walked with her on a country road and in her presence had given way to an impulse to boast, to make himself appear big and significant in her eyes. Now he wanted to see her for another purpose. He wanted to tell her of the new impulses that had come to him. He had tried to make her think of him as a man when he knew nothing of manhood, and now he wanted to be with her and to try to make her feel the change he believed had taken place in his nature.
As for Helen White, she also had come to a period of change. What George felt, she in her young woman’s way felt also. She was no longer a girl and hungered to reach into the grace and beauty of womanhood.”
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio