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QLDEnglishQuick questions
Unit 2: Texts and culture
Quick questions on Characterisation and narrative perspective (QCE English Unit 2)
6short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is direct?Show answer
The narrator tells the reader about a character ("She was thoughtful and kind").
What is indirect?Show answer
The narrator shows the character through action, dialogue, thought, appearance, others' reactions. More common in modern fiction.
What is first person?Show answer
Narrator is a character. Access to that character's thoughts; limited or no access to others. Risk of unreliable narration (a narrator who cannot be trusted; revealing through what they fail to see).
What is limited third person?Show answer
External narrator who follows one character closely. Reader has god-view geographically but knowledge restricted to that character's awareness. Most modern fiction.
What is omniscient third person?Show answer
External narrator who can access any character's thoughts and any place or time. Reader has god-view of mind and event. Common in 19th-century fiction.
What is free indirect style?Show answer
The narrator's third-person voice blends with a character's diction and worldview. Sentences seem to come from the narrator but inhabit the character's perspective. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, contemporary literary fiction.
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