Question

Read the excerpt below from East of Eden by John Steinbeck and answer the question that follows.

I must depend on hearsay, on old photographs, on stories told, and on memories which are hazy and mixed with fable in trying to tell you about the Hamiltons. . . . Young Samuel Hamilton came from the north of Ireland and so did his wife. He was the son of small farmers, neither rich nor poor, who had lived on one landhold and in one stone house for many hundreds of years. Source: Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin Group, 1952. Google Books. Web. 16 May 2011.

Based on the excerpt, what is the point of view of the narrator?
-first-person observer only
-first-person major character
-third-person limited
-third-person omniscient

Answer 1

First Person Observer only

Answer 2

Answer: A) First-person observer only.

Explanation: when writing, an author can use speakers that narrate the story from different perspectives, in order to create different impacts on the readers. In the given excerpt we can see an example of first-person observer (which uses the pronoun “I” and presents the events of the story and the actions of other characters through his point of view and may participate in the events of the story).