Lesson Four

LESSON FOUR

Congratulations! You have reached the final Lesson in this Unit. Great job! The topic of Lesson Three was Third-person limited point of view where the narrator sees the world through the eyes of one character and knows and relays the thoughts and actions of only this one character. The narrator follows this character throughout the entire composition. He cannot see into the thoughts of any other character. He cannot act for any other character.

This lesson focuses on one of the four different authors' points of view called the Third-person omniscient (all-knowing) point of view. With this point of view, the narrator knows and relays thoughts and actions of all the characters. This point of view is commonly used in writing fiction. It allows for more flexibility in writing but can be difficult to manage. However, with practice, like anything else, the Third-person omniscient point of view will become easier. Then you will have so much fun creating wonderful word pictures with your writing.

In the Third-person omniscient point of view, third-person personal pronouns are used. These pronouns include: he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, them, their, theirs. If you are using dialogue and placing the speaker's actual conversation in direct quotes, then you will need to use first-person pronouns such as the words I, me, my, mine, we, our, us, ours along with third-person pronouns.

EXAMPLE OF THIRD-PERSON LIMITED

“Day had dawned cold and gray when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail. He climbed the high earth-bank where a little-traveled trail led east through the pine forest. It was a high bank, and he paused to breathe at the top. He excused the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning. There was no sun or promise of sun, although there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day. However, there seemed to be an indescribable darkness over the face of things. That was because the sun was absent from the sky. This fact did not worry the man. He was not alarmed by the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun.” (Excerpts from To Build a Fire by Jack London)

Please read the following narrative paragraph and pay special attention to the underlined first- and third- person pronouns. Then answer the questions that follow the paragraph.

Please read these sentences and think to yourself whether each pronoun is a first- or third-person pronoun.

1. The word I is a _________ person pronoun.

2. The word she is a __________ person pronoun

3. The word they is a __________ person pronoun.

4. The word their is a __________ person pronoun.

5. The word my is a __________ person pronoun.