Question

Identify the point of view in the following passage.

He was a timid, obedient boy in most things. However, if you told him to give up what was his nature, it merely made him a disobedient boy–turned a good boy into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey openly, but he used to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields and woods, and at each new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite thrill of mingled pleasure and pain–the pain because he had no name for it or means of learning its nature.

The narrator of the passage is not the boy himself, but someone who seems to understand this particular boy's feelings nonetheless. What is the point of view of the passage?

third person limited

third person objective

third person subjective

third person unlimited

Answer 1

Third person limited.

The narrator refers to the boy as "he" and clearly reports the boy's inner feelings and sensations, but the narrator is not the boy and doesn't display an all-knowing view of other characters — so the perspective is limited to that one character.