Final answer:
The term 'point of view' refers to the narrative perspective from which a story is told, impacting various elements of the story such as tone and plot. The four main points of view are first-person, second-person, third-person limited, and third-person omniscient.
Step-by-step explanation:
The perspective from which an author tells a story is referred to as the point of view (POV). This is not only a grammatical choice, as it impacts pronoun use, but significantly influences the tone, mood, scope, voice, and plot of a narrative. There are four main points of view:
- First-person narration using 'I' and 'me', which provides a personal and intimate perspective.
- Second-person narration using 'you', which directly addresses the reader and is less common in narrative prose.
- Third-person limited narration uses 'he', 'she', 'they', or nouns, aligning the reader with the perspective of one or several characters, revealing only what those characters know.
- Third-person omniscient narration provides an 'all-knowing' perspective, where the narrator knows all characters' thoughts and actions, regardless of their presence in a scene.
An omniscient narrator stands outside the story and sees it from a broader angle. In contrast, a narrator with a limited perspective presents a story from one, often the main character's, point of view, which may reveal a biased or partial understanding of events and other characters within the narrative.