 The position, or perspective, from which a narrator sees, understands, and tells a story about what is happening.  Narrator: the one who tells the story. Type of narrator = point of view.  Can be: First Person, Second Person, Third Person (Limited or Omniscient)

 Narrator is a character in the story, uses words like “I” and “Me”.  Everything we know is from the narrator’s perspective, so it’s not always reliable.  This point of view makes us feel closest to the character.

 Not as common  Tells a story using the word “you”  Places the reader immediately and personally into the story  Sounds like you’re speaking to another person.

 Narrator tells a story from outside the story looking in.  He/she is not a character in the story  More objective (not opinionated) description than 1 st person.  Uses words like “he”, “she”, and “they”

 Limited: narrator focuses on one character’s thoughts.  We don’t know everyone’s thoughts.  We’re limited by what the narrator sees, thinks, hears, or feels through this one character.

 Omniscient: the narrator is “all knowing”, “all seeing”, and “all hearing”.  The narrator seems to know everything about all characters’ thoughts and all the story’s events. Think of someone being in a “magic helicopter”.

 The main idea of a written work  A general statement about life or human nature  The events of a story’s plot help to develop theme (i.e. Ponyboy picking up the glass at the end of the novel develops one last time the theme that he is an individual, separate from group labels and identities).

 Stated Theme: the message is directly written in the story (i.e. Aesop’s fables)  Implied Theme: not stated, but revealed gradually as the piece unfolds (i.e. The Outsiders)