jegpersonen

Jegpersonen is a label used in Norwegian literary criticism to describe a narrative stance in which the narrator presents events from a first-person perspective and speaks with the pronoun jeg (I). The term highlights the narrator's subjectivity and their direct access to thoughts, feelings, and sensory impressions.

Etymology and usage: The compound jeg + personen (the person) reflects the idea of a speaking self within the text. It is not a universal category in all traditions, but it appears in analyses of contemporary Norwegian fiction and narrative theory to distinguish first-person storytelling from other vantage points, such as a God’s-eye or all-knowing narrator.

Characteristics: The jegpersonen often reveals inner life, personal biases, and unreliable memory; the narration is shaped by the speaker's sensibilities. The technique can create immediacy and intimacy but may also constrain events to what the jegpersonen perceives or accepts as true.

Relation to other terms: It is related to the concepts of internal focalization and free indirect discourse, but remains a label used in discussions of perspective in Norwegian texts. In practice, many memoirs and novels that center a single voice use the jegpersonen approach, and the line between narrator and character can blur.

See also: First-person narration, Internal focalization, Narrative perspective.