15 Examples of First, Second and Third Person Narrator - encyclopedia

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Narrator types
Examples of first person narrator
Examples of second person narrator
Examples of third person narrator

The storyteller it is the entity that tells a story. It is important to distinguish the narrator from the actual writer. The narrator is not a real person but an abstract entity. For this reason, in some cases the narrator may be the very protagonist of the story, that is, a fictitious character.

Narrators can be classified according to the person they use the most in their narration. The third person (he / they), the second person (you / you, you), the first person (me / us).

First person. It is used to narrate the events from the point of view of the protagonist or one of the characters involved in the story. In these cases we speak of the internal narrator, that is, they belong to the imaginary world of the narrative.
Second person. It is used to create a real or imaginary listener or reader. It is also used in dialogues, but in that case it is not the narrator who speaks.
Third person. It is used when you do not want to involve the narrator in what is being told.

It is important to note that third person texts may not include the second and first person. However, when there is a second- or first-person narrator, many third-person snippets are often included as well, as will be seen in the examples.

Narrator types

In addition, the three forms can be used in different types of narrator according to the knowledge of what they narrate:

Omniscient narrator. He knows all the details of the story and unfolds them as the story progresses. It conveys not only actions but also thoughts and feelings of the characters, even their memories as well. This narrator usually uses the third person and is called "extradiegetic" because it does not belong to the world of what is narrated (diegesis).
Witness narrator. He is a character in the narrative but does not intervene directly in events. He tells what he observed and what he was told. It may include assumptions about what other characters are feeling or thinking, but they are not certainties. He usually uses the third person and occasionally the first person.
Main narrator. Tell your own story. He tells the facts from his point of view, shares his own feelings, thoughts and memories, but does not know what other characters think. In other words, his knowledge is less than that of the omniscient narrator. It mainly uses the first person but also the third person.
Equiscient narrator. Although he narrates in the third person, his knowledge is the same as that of one of the characters. It is usually used in mystery or police stories, accompanying the investigator in his gradual discovery of the facts.
Encyclopedic storyteller. It is not usually found in works of fiction, but it is in historical or sociological works. Facts are narrated with the greatest possible impartiality. Always write in the third person.
Poor narrator. The knowledge it transmits is less than that of the characters. It tells only what can be seen or heard, without conveying the characters' thoughts or feelings.
Multiple narrator. The same story can be told from different points of view. This can be presented, for example, by dedicating a chapter to each witness narrator, or with an elusive narrator who recounts the events in the third person, first detailing the information known to one of the characters and then detailing the information known to another of the characters.

Examples of first person narrator

The Bliss of the Veil Tenant, Arthur Conan Doyle (witness narrator)

If you consider that Holmes remained actively practicing his profession for twenty years, and that for seventeen of them I was allowed to cooperate with him and keep a record of his exploits, it is easy to understand that I have a great deal of material at my disposal. My problem has always been to choose, not to discover. Here I have the long row of annual agendas that occupy a shelf, and there I also have the boxes full of documents that constitute a true quarry for those who want to dedicate themselves to studying not only criminal acts, but also the social and governmental scandals of the last stage of the it was victorian. With regard to the latter, I want to say to those who write me distressing letters, begging me not to touch the honor of their families or the good name of their famous ancestors, that they have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense of professional honor that have always distinguished my friend continue to act on me in the task of selecting these memoirs, and no confidence will ever be betrayed.

Gulliver's journey to Lilliput, Jonathan Swift (main narrator)

I acted as a physician on two ships in succession and over six years made several voyages to the East and West Indies, which allowed me to increase my fortune. I spent my leisure hours reading the best ancient and modern authors, as I always carried many books with me. When I was on land, I studied the customs and the nature of the population, and I tried to learn their language, which helped my good memory.

Memories of the subsoil, Fyodor Dostoevsky (main narrator)

Even now, after so many years, that memory remains extraordinarily vivid and disturbing. I have many unpleasant memories, but ... why not interrupt these memories here? It seems to me that it was a mistake to start them. Yet at least I have been ashamed for the entire time I wrote them, so they are not literature but punishment and atonement.

Funes the memorable, Jorge Luis Borges (witness narrator)

I remember him, the sullen Indian face and singularly remote, behind the cigarette. I remember (I think) his sharp braider hands. I remember near those hands a mate, with the weapons of the Banda Oriental; I remember in the window of the house a yellow mat, with a vague lake landscape. I clearly remember his voice; the slow, resentful, nasal voice of the old shoreman, without the Italian whistles of today.

The crumb, Juan José Arreola (main narrator)

The day Beatriz and I walked into that filthy barrack at the street fair, I realized that the repulsive vermin was the most atrocious thing fate could have in store for me.

Examples of second person narrator

Subsoil memories, Fiodos Dostoevsky

Well, try it yourself; ask for more independence. Take anyone, untie their hands, broaden their field of activities, loosen discipline, and… well, believe me, they will soon want the same discipline to be imposed on them again. I know what I say will annoy you, that it will make you kick the ground.

Dear John, Nicholas sparks

In our time together, you held a special place in my heart that I will carry with me forever and that no one can replace.

If one winter night a traveler, Ítalo Calvino

Not that you expect anything particular from this particular book. You are someone who no longer expects anything from anything in principle. There are many, younger than you or less young, who come expecting extraordinary experiences; in books, people, trips, events, in what tomorrow holds for you. You do not. You know that the best to hope for is to avoid the worst. This is the conclusion you have reached, both in personal life and in general matters and even in world affairs.

Aura, Carlos Fuentes

You walk, this time in disgust, towards that chest around which rats swarm, their bright eyes appear between the rotten boards of the floor, they run towards the open holes in the jagged wall. You open the chest and remove the second collection of papers. You return to the foot of the bed; Mrs. Consuelo caresses her white rabbit.

Letter to a young lady in Paris, Julio Cortazar

You know why I came to your house, to your quiet room requested at noon. Everything seems so natural, as always when the truth is not known. You have gone to Paris, I stayed with the department on Suipacha Street, we elaborated a simple and satisfactory plan for mutual coexistence until September brings you back to Buenos Aires.

Examples of third person narrator

Night backs, Julio Cortázar (equiscient narrator)

Halfway down the long hallway of the hotel, he thought it must be late and hurried out into the street and retrieved the motorcycle from the corner where the doorman next door allowed him to store it. At the jewelry store on the corner he saw that it was ten minutes to nine; he would get to where he was going in plenty of time. The sun filtered through the tall buildings in the center, and he - because to himself, to go thinking, he had no name - mounted on the machine savoring the ride. The bike purred between his legs, and a cool wind whipped his pants.

You don't hear the dogs barking, Juan Rulfo

The old man backed away until he met the wall and leaned there, without letting go of the load on his shoulders. Although her legs were bending, she did not want to sit down, because afterwards she would not have been able to lift the body of her son, who had been helped to place it on her back hours earlier. And so it had been since then.

Better than burning, Clarice Lispector

She had entered the convent by imposition of the family: they wanted to see her protected in the bosom of God. He obeyed.

The feather pillow, Horacio Quiroga.

Their honeymoon was a long chill. Blond, angelic and shy, her husband's tough character froze her dreamy girlfriendship. She loved him very much, however, sometimes with a slight shudder when, coming back down the street together at night, she took a furtive glance at Jordan's tall stature, mute for an hour.

Peronelle's song, Juan José Arreola

From her clear apple orchard, Peronelle de Armentières directed her first amorous rondel to Maestro Guillermo. He put the verses in a basket of fragrant fruits, and the message fell like a spring sun on the poet's darkened life.