Third Person Definitions

Third Person Limited

Third person limited point of view is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally. Third person limited grants a writer more freedom than first person, but less than third person omniscient.

For example, For Whom the Bell Tolls sticks firmly with one character's consciousness, that of Robert Jordan:

"This Anselmo had been a good guide and he could travel wonderfully in the mountains.

Robert Jordan could walk well enough himself and he knew from following him since before daylight that the old man could walk him to death. Robert Jordan trusted the man, Anselmo, so far, in everything except judgment. He had not yet had an opportunity to test his judgment, and, anyway, the judgment was his own responsibility."

The reader will only know Anselmo's thoughts and responses insofar as he reveals them through his actions. But Robert Jordan's thoughts will be shared throughout the story. It's his reactions and his interpretations of events that the reader will understand and follow.

Because third person limited is defined mostly by what it doesn't do, it may help at this point to read an example of third person omniscient for comparison.


Third Person Omniscient

Third person omniscient is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story, as opposed to third person limited, which adheres closely to one character's perspective.

Through third person omniscient, a writer may bring to life an entire world of characters. For instance, Anna Karenina is told from multiple points of view.

Some sections are told from Anna's point of view:

"All the same, he's a good man, truthful, kind and remarkable in his sphere," Anna said to herself, going back to her room, as if defending him before someone who was accusing him and saying that it was impossible to love him. "But why do his ears stick out so oddly? Did he have to have his hair cut?"

Exactly at midnight, when Anna was still sitting at her desk finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the measured steps of slippered feet, and Alexei Alexandrovich, washed and combed, a book under his arm, came up to her. "It's time, it's time," he said with a special smile, and went into the bedroom.

"And what right did he have to look at him like that?" thought Anna, recalling how Vronsky had looked at Alexei Alexandrovich.

But many other points of view are given equal importance:

The house was big, old, and Levin, though he lived alone, heated and occupied all of it. He knew that it was even wrong and contrary to his new plans, but this house was a whole world for Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother had lived and died. They had lived a life which for Levin seemed the ideal of all perfection and which he dreamed of renewing with his wife, with his family.