Which statement describes the perspective of a third-person narrator?

• A. The perspective from which a narrative is told
• B. The narrator is outside looking in and telling the story as it unfolds. They are not a character in the story.
• C. The narrator addresses the reader directly using the pronoun "you"
• D. The narrator is a character in the story who tells the story from their viewpoint

Answer: (B)

Understanding narrative perspective means recognizing who is telling the story and where they stand relative to the events. A third-person narrator sits outside the action, telling what happens to others, and is not a character in the story. This external viewpoint can be omniscient or limited to one character’s experiences, but the key is that the teller is not a participant in the events.

The other descriptions point to other perspectives: using “you” addresses the reader directly, which is second person; a narrator who is a character in the story telling from their own viewpoint is first person; and a general statement about the perspective from which a narrative is told is just a broad definition, not identifying the external narrator stance.