ACT Preparation / Unit 17 ACT 1621 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
What the Narrator Knows
The idea
A point-of-view question is answered in three steps. First, identify the narrator: a character speaking as I, or an outside voice speaking of he, she and they. Second, determine what that narrator can know: a first-person narrator knows only their own mind and what they observe, while an all-seeing third-person narrator can report anyone's thoughts. Third, test each choice: reject claims the narrator could not know, and read the narrator's judgments as one person's view.
In practice
Worked example: an invented first-person passage reads, "My sister smiled at the news, and I knew she was secretly furious." Can the passage establish that the sister was furious? No: the narrator claims to know, but a first-person narrator cannot see inside another mind. The passage supports only that the narrator believed she was furious.
Where people slip
A narrator's certainty is not the passage's evidence. "I knew" reports a belief; the sister's smile is the only fact on the page.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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