Characteristics and Effect of the three main narrative perspectives

	First-person	Third-person limited	Third-person omniscient
Character-istics	z.B. ¯      Narrator identical with one character in the story  (in most cases protagonist) ¯      Knows feeling and thoughts of this character	z.B. ¯      Story told from outside ¯      Narrator knows only about the feelings and opinions of one particular character a but narrator is not identical with this character	z.B. ¯      Story told from outside and inside ¯      Narrator knows feelings and thoughts of different characters

Effect

z.B. ¯      Reader has got access to this characters’ feelings and thoughts ¯      emotionally strongly involved and likely to identify with the narrator a identification figure (L-Ergänzung) ¯      reader is constantly informed about the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings

z.B. ¯      limited, possibly biased/unreliable information about events and other characters ¯      not enough information a may create suspense and encourage interpretation

z.B. ¯      reader gets comprehensive characterisations and interpretations