Focalization

Focalization is the regulation of narrative information according to what a character or narrator perceives and knows. It distinguishes the source of a narrative’s information from the voice that tells it.

Narrative perspective: The position or viewpoint from which a narrative presents events and information. Focalization specifies whose perception or knowledge shapes this perspective.
Narrative discourse: The representation and organization of events in a narrative text. Focalization is one way narrative discourse organizes information.
Unreliable narrator: A narrator whose account is compromised by limited knowledge, bias, deception, or misunderstanding. Focalization can restrict information or expose discrepancies in a narrator’s account.
Gérard Genette: A French literary theorist known for influential work on narrative structure and narratology. Genette systematized focalization as a tool for analyzing narrative information.
Narrator: The voice or agency that presents a narrative to an audience. The narrator tells the story, but need not be the source of its perceptions.
Story and discourse: The distinction between events in a narrative’s world and the way a text presents them. Focalization concerns the presentation of story information in discourse.
Dramatic irony: A literary effect in which an audience knows something that a character does not. Shifts in focalization can give the audience knowledge withheld from a character.
Narratology: The study of narrative structure, forms, and techniques across media and genres. Focalization became a central analytical category within structuralist narratology.
Narrative voice: The distinctive manner and position from which a narrative is told. Separating voice from focalization clarifies who speaks versus who perceives.
Diegesis: The world and events represented within a narrative. Focalization shapes which parts of the diegetic world become accessible.

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