Exploring Different Perspectives: Understanding Point of View

Point of view is defined as the viewpoint a story is told from. In other words, it is who tells the story. Is it the main character, God, a third party (limited or all-knowing)? Each of the types of point of view is quite different, and each impacts the way a story is told.
Firstly, one type of point of view is first person. In first person point of view, the main character tells the story. They cannot enter the minds of other characters, so the story is told only from their view. This allows you to see from their eyes very easily. For example, “A&P” is told from first person point of view; the reader is able to see very clearly how the main character (Sammy) sees the events unfold, what he thinks, and what he does afterward. John Updike, the author of “A&P,” says, “She held her head

In third person limited, the story is told by a narrator who is not part of the story and knows only the thoughts of one character. For this reason, the reader can better understand what that one character is thinking while also seeing everything going on around them. “Miss Brill” is told in third person limited. It says in the story, “Other people sat on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday after Sunday, and- Miss Brill had often noticed- there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as if they’d just come from little dark rooms or even- even cupboards (paragraph 5)!” This tells the thoughts of Miss Brill from an outside perspective, and the reader is able to not only understand her but also see what is going on around her, like the people conversing and the band playing. This person limited is like seeing the whole picture but being able to zoom in on one part, or character in this case, in order to see what they are