omniscient narrator
Sees every thought
An omniscient narrator is a storytelling voice that knows everything—the thoughts, feelings, and histories of all characters, plus events happening simultaneously in different places.
This godlike perspective can move freely between minds and locations: The omniscient narrator revealed what each character was thinking during the argument.
Distinguished from limited narration, which restricts knowledge to one character's viewpoint.
- point of viewOne's particular outlook
- focalizationNarrative point of view
- third-personGrammatical category for others
- expositionSystematic explanatory presentation
- DickensSurname of Victorian novelist
limited third person · Victorian novel · dramatic irony · godlike · fly on the wall · all-knowing · authorial intrusion · epistemology · hovering · Tolstoy · War and Peace · first-person · subjectivity · reveal · metafiction · voice · intrusive · authorial
- storytellingstorytelling, story, tale, storyteller, story time
- literary elementsplot, character, setting, theme, conflict
- fiction writingfiction, novels, plot, chapters, character
- literary analysisliterary analysis, character analysis, book review, plot, critical analysis
- literary devicesmetaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, alliteration
- narrative techniquesflashback, nonlinear plot, flash-forward, point of view, first person
omniscient narratorunreliable narrator
Storyteller whose credibility wavers
stream of consciousness · interior monologue · dramatic monologue
science, narrative, narrator, narrate, narration, omniscient, narrators, omniscience, narratives