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Literature vocabulary · Narration and Point of View

First-person narrator

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounCore term

In literature, first-person narrator means: A narrator who is a character in the story and tells it using 'I', so readers see events only through that character's eyes.

In Turkish: ben anlatıcı, birinci tekil kişili anlatıcı, kahraman anlatıcı

How it is used

Common in analysis and in writing workshops. A first-person narrator gives intimacy but limited knowledge: the reader learns only what the narrator sees, knows or chooses to tell. Critics ask whether this voice is honest, naive or self-deceiving.

Example sentences

  1. Because the novel has a first-person narrator, we never learn what the wife really thinks.

  2. Writing with a first-person narrator helped me find the character's voice.

Common collocations

  • first-person narration
  • a first-person narrator
  • told in the first person
  • first-person account
  • narratorThe voice that tells the story to the reader. It may be a character in the story or an outside voice, and it is not the same as the author.
  • point of viewThe position from which a story is told, which decides whose eyes we see events through and how much we learn, for example first-person or third-person.
  • unreliable narratorA narrator whose account cannot be fully trusted because he or she lies, misunderstands events, is mentally unstable or is too young or biased to see clearly.
  • omniscient narratorA third-person narrator who knows everything about the story, including the thoughts and feelings of all the characters and events in different places and times.

More terms: Narration and Point of View

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