Perspective and Narrative Voice Flashcards
All 13 cards in this deck
What is the effect of first-person narration ('I')?
The reader shares the narrator's thoughts and feelings directly, which creates closeness and sympathy. It also limits us to what the narrator knows, so threats and surprises can stay hidden.
What is second-person narration, and what is its effect?
Narration that uses 'you', e.g. 'You notice the door first.' It places the reader inside the story, which can feel intense, unsettling or disorientating.
What is third-person limited narration, and what is its effect?
The narrator uses 'he' or 'she' but follows one character's thoughts. The reader is close to that character but, like them, can be kept in the dark about what others think or plan.
What is an omniscient narrator, and what effect can it have?
A third-person narrator who knows everything and can move between several characters' thoughts. It lets the reader know more than any one character, which can create dramatic irony and tension.
What is an unreliable narrator, and what is the effect?
A narrator whose account the reader can't fully trust, because they are lying, mistaken or hiding their feelings. The reader reads between the lines and sees what the narrator won't admit, which can create tension, humour or sympathy.
What is the effect when a text switches from one character's perspective to another's?
The reader suddenly sees the situation differently. They often learn something the first character doesn't know, which can raise tension or change who we sympathise with.
What is dramatic irony, and how does narrative perspective create it?
When the reader knows something a character doesn't. Showing the reader another character's thoughts, or a danger the viewpoint character can't see, means we watch them walk towards trouble, which creates suspense.
What is a retrospective narrator, and what effect can it have?
A narrator looking back on events from later in life, e.g. 'I was too young then to understand.' Their hindsight can hint at what is coming, which creates a sense of foreboding or regret.
What is the effect of a detached, distant narrative voice that reports events without emotion?
Holding back feeling can make shocking events seem colder or more unsettling. The reader has to supply the emotion themselves, which can make a moment hit harder.
In 'You feel it before you hear it: a shiver in the floorboards, as though the house has remembered something.', which perspective is used and what is its effect?
Second person ('you'). The reader is placed directly in the moment and feels the strange sensation as if it were happening to them, which makes the opening more unsettling.
In 'Looking back, I should have known the moment she smiled.', what perspective is used and how does it affect the reader?
A retrospective first-person narrator. The hindsight hints that the smile meant trouble, so the reader reads on with a sense of foreboding and looks for the warning signs.
In 'Tom thought the meeting had gone rather well. Upstairs, his manager was already writing the email.', what perspective is used and what is its effect?
An omniscient narrator moves from Tom's thoughts to his manager. The reader now knows something Tom doesn't (dramatic irony), so his confidence feels misplaced and tension builds.
Why does narrative perspective count as structure?
Perspective controls what the reader is allowed to know, and when, so it shapes the order in which we learn things. Write about whose eyes we see through, what that hides or reveals, and how it creates the effect in the question. In Paper 1 Question 3 it's a useful way to cover structure alongside language.