מה שנקודת מבט יכולה ולא יכולה לעשות

Every point of view has a limit

• Point of view contributes to what narrators can and cannot provide, based on their level of involvement and intimacy with the details, events and characters.
• So the useful question is not "which type is it?" but "what is unavailable here?"
• What a narration cannot reach is where its meaning usually is.

An all-knowing narrator may know every character’s thoughts; a first-person narrator can know surprisingly little about their own.

First-person narrators are inside

• First-person narrators are involved in the narrative.
• Their relationship to the events and the other characters shapes their perspective.
• Narrators may also be characters, and that role influences everything they report.

Perspective is how they see; point of view is where they stand. The CED separates them, and so should you

Third-person narrators are outside observers

• Third-person narrators are outside observers.
• Their knowledge ranges from observational to all-knowing, and that range shapes their perspective.
• Their outside perspective may not be affected by the events — a detachment worth noticing when the events are terrible.

Range is a spectrum, not two boxes

• Observational third-person reports only what could be seen or heard.
• All-knowing third-person enters any mind at will.
• Most narration sits between, and where it sits — whose mind it enters, whose it does not — is the analysable choice.

A point-of-view pass

• Name the person. Name whose thoughts are accessible and whose are not.
• Ask whether the narrator is affected by what they report.
• Then say what the reader is therefore denied — that denial is the function.