Guide to Literary Terms

Guide to Literary Terms | First-Person Narrative

First-person narrative - personal point of view of the first person, usually the author participant if the writer assumes the point of view of a character. The narrator is the “I” telling his/her part in the story such as in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).

First is from the Middle English, from the Old English fryst which derived from faran, meaning “to go.” Person has the same etymology as persona and is discussed there, while the etymology of narrative is discussed under that word.

see: narrative, point of view

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