The more common type of third-person point of view is third-person limited narration. This approach appears in other books of the era-in Vanity Fair the omniscient narrator, at one point, mentions going to a party at Becky Sharp’s house-but has fallen out of fashion since then. The narrator interrupts the story to inject their own opinion, making themself a character. The narrator of Middlemarch (who may or may not be George Eliot, depending on whom you ask) objects here to the fact that we only ever hear Dorothea’s POV and never her husband’s. “One morning, Dorothea-but why always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage? I protest against all our interest.” In Middlemarch, the narrator periodically interjects with opinions or commentary on the story. Some of my favourite books from the Victorian period use a type of omniscient narration in which the narrator is not a character in the story but is an active participant and storyteller. (This, as those of you who studied books will know, is a fun trick called “dramatic irony.” Maybe we’ll get into that some other time.) Through the omniscient narration, we as readers gain access to more information than either of the characters does. Think about, for example, Pride and Prejudice, in which the same chapter might describe Lizzy’s distaste for Darcy and also Darcy’s thoughts on Lizzy’s fine eyes. This style of narration often jumps between characters’ viewpoints. Omniscience narration allows a writer to tell a broad story without being confined to one character’s thoughts and knowledge. When choosing a POV, a writer asks the question: Who is telling this story? Third-person point of view: the omniscient, interrupting narrator At other points, we’ve had trends of immediate, close up narrators, bringing the reader into the moment with the character.ĭifferent narration styles and points of view depend largely on what is popular at a given time, but the choice of narrator and POV dramatically change how a story gets told. At some points in novel history, we had omniscient narrators with insight into all characters’ thoughts and feelings, telling us what happens from a removed, all-knowing point of view (POV). First person, second person, third person limited, third person omniscient… Over the years, different narration styles have gained and lost popularity in fiction.
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