Narrative perspective

Narrative perspective is the position and viewpoint from which a narrative presents events and information. It shapes what the narrative can reveal and how readers interpret it.

Narrator: The voice or agent that recounts events in a narrative. The narrator is the voice through which a narrative perspective is conveyed.
First-person narrative: A narrative in which a narrator recounts events using first-person pronouns. It anchors the account in a narrator who presents events as personal experience.
First-person peripheral narrator: A first-person narrator who recounts a story centered on another character. Unlike a protagonist narrator, this viewpoint witnesses another character’s central story.
Epistolary novel: A novel told through documents such as letters, diaries, or emails. Its documents make perspective depend on who records each part of the story.
Focalization: The selection and restriction of narrative information according to a character’s or narrator’s knowledge and perception. Focalization clarifies whose perceptions and knowledge shape the presented events.
Third-person narrative: A narrative in which events are recounted using third-person pronouns. It permits perspectives ranging from one character’s limited knowledge to broad narration.
First-person protagonist narrator: A first-person narrator who is also the central character in the narrated events. This perspective makes the narrator’s own experience the story’s primary focus.
Rashomon effect: A situation in which different accounts of the same event conflict or cannot be reconciled. Conflicting testimonies expose how perspective can shape competing versions of events.
Point of view: The position or stance from which a story, argument, or scene is presented. This closely related term often names the perspective adopted by a narrative.
Omniscient narrator: A narrator with access to information beyond any single character’s knowledge or perception. This perspective can disclose events and thoughts unavailable to the characters.

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