Question

Describe the difference between a first- and third-person narrator’s effects on a reader. What advantages and disadvantages are there to each? Use examples from the text to support your analysis.

Answer 1

Well there's a few basic differences. The effects on a reader that a first person narration will have are different than a third person, because in first person, the narrator tells the story through his or her own eyes, with his or her voice. This immerses the reader into the narrator's mind and the reader views the story's world with the narrator's biases, thoughts, opinions, and often limited perceptive abilities. The advantage of first person narration is demonstrated by the classic The Great Gatsby, where Fitzgerald's Nick Carroway narrates the story. We see the direct effect that other people and other events have upon his maturing view of America, love, and life. The disadvantages are that the reader sees these events through a character that has his own set of prejudices and biases. Also, we are limited in that we can only observe what the narrator tells us, so we can only infer what other characters are thinking.

Third person narration gives the reader a broader view of the story's world by describing events from the perspective of someone who isn't in the story. While the third party doing the narrator is not necessarily unbiased, they are free from the limitation of narrating from the mind of one person. This means that they are free to outline and describe events in an omniscient sort of way. The disadvantage is that you usually will not get as thorough of an exploration of one person's psyche as you will with first person narration. As example of the power of third person narration is War and Peace, where Tolstoy portrays over 500 characters, and has the story take place over many years and different settings. Instead of rooting us in the mind of one protagonist, we observe and see several people, which gives us an encompassing view of Napoleonic Russia.

I hope this was helpful!