What does the term point of view mean in literary analysis?

Question

Clarification for ELA.8.R.1.3 and affiliated standards.

Answer 1

Point of view determines who is telling the story. If the story is being told from the perspective of either the writer or one of the characters in the work, it will affect the way in which the reader learns information. For example, in the Twilight series, the books are all written from Bella Swan's point of view. The reader only has access to information that Bella Swan has access to. The reader learns information about other characters or elements of the story at the same time that the character in the story does.

If a work is written by an all-knowing entity that is not involved in the story as a character, the way that the reader learns information is different. The main character might know things that the reader does not about other characters. The reader might know information about other characters that the main character doesn't yet know as well.

Point of view has a huge effect on the reader because it controls the rate at which the reader gains vital information about how the story is going to unfold. Perspective is the authors greatest tool in controlling the emotions of the reader throughout the work.

Answer 2

the story is told from a particular point of view, from either the point of view of one of the characters, or from an omniscient entity that knows everything.

The reader sees what's going on as if the reader were one of the characters in the story or as if the reader is looking down from above seeing everything, knowing every character's thought and mind, sometimes knowing the past & future, but usually not the full future so as not to spoil the ending, and keep you in suspense.

Most Vietnam War movies usually are told from the perspective of American troops, not the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong.

The movie "Good Morning Vietnam" is told from the perspective or point of view of Robin Williams' character, an Air Force DJ, airman Adrian

History is usually written from the point of view of the victors, not the vanquished.

Nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel wrote his classic Night from the point of view of Jewish Holocaust survivors, not from the German Nazi death camp guards.

Sometimes a story is told to the reader as if the reader could see into the thoughts of all the characters, at least partly or briefly, as if the reader were a fly on the wall seeing everything or like a Deity knowing things no one could have known