Point of View: 6

If an author wanted the audience to feel part of the story, which point of view would they use?

• first person

• third person omniscient

• third person limited

Fern came almost every day to visit him. . . . Here she sat quietly during the long afternoons, thinking and listening and watching Wilbur. The sheep soon got to know her and trust her. So did the geese, who lived with the sheep. All the animals trusted her, she was so quiet and friendly. . . . It made her happy just to be near the pig, and it made Wilbur happy to know that she was sitting there, right outside his pen.

• third person objective

• third person limited

• third person omniscient

Brian shrugged. . . .

But it ate at him. What they were going to do proved nothing. They were playing a game and it struck him that Derek did that—his whole life was that. He knew it was unfair to think of the man that way—he didn't, after all, know him very well. But he acted that way. Like it was all a game and Derek was approaching this whole business that way. Just a game.

• first person

• second person

• third person

When he takes us to the park, Uncle Robert tells us, If you catch a dandelion puff, you can make a wish. Anything you want will come true, he says as we chase the feathery wishes around swings . . .

• first person

• second person

• third person

It is June 1959. You are twelve years old, and in one week you and your sixth-grade classmates will be graduating from the grammar school you have attended since you were five. It is a splendid day, late spring in its most lustrous incarnation, sunlight pouring down from a cloudless blue sky, warm but not too warm, scant humidity, a soft breeze stirring the air and rippling over your face and neck and bare arms.

• first person

• second person

• third person