Every story has a narrator, who presents the action from a particular, identifiable point of view. The narrator may be a character in the story who speaks in the first person. More often, the narrator views the action from a vantage point outside the story, speaking in the third person. When such a narrator seems to know everything about all the characters, he may be called omniscient. Sometimes a narrator will seem to know everything about only one character, or perhaps two, offering a kind fo selective omniscience. The narrator allows us to feel the impact of event on certain characters as if we had complete access to their minds.
Reaske, Christopher R. Mirrors: An Introduction
to Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1988, 161.
In literature, point of view refers to who narrates a story and how much that narrator knows. In a story told from the first-person point of view, the writer chooses to have a character within the story narrate it, using the first-person pronouns I and me. This method of storytelling lets the reader see and know only what that character, the narrator, sees and knows.
Literature and Language: English and World Literature.
Evanston, Illinois: McDougal, Little & Co., 1992, 153.
When planning a story, an author usually chooses
between first-person point of view, in which the narrator is a character,
and third-person point of view, in which the narrator is not a story
participant.
Third-person narrators can be classified as omniscient
or limited, depending on how much they know. In the omniscient
point of view, the narrator is all-knowing and so can describe every
character's thoughts. By contrast, a narrator in a third-person limited
point of view possesses limited knowledge, often confined to one or
two characters.
Literature and Language: English and World Literature.
Evanston, Illinois: McDougal, Little & Co., 1992, 615.