narratore

In literature, the narratore (narrator) is the voice or persona that tells the story to the reader. The term is used in Italian literary theory to describe the entity that transmits the narrative, whether inside the story as a character or outside it as an observer. The narrator’s perspective and reliability shape what is known and how events feel to the audience.

Narratori can be classified by point of view and proximity to the action. A first‑person narrator uses I and tends to offer a subjective, limited view. A third‑person narrator uses he or she and may be limited to one character’s thoughts or be all‑knowing. A second‑person narrator addresses the reader as you. Reliability varies; narrators may be trustworthy or deliberately biased or deceptive.

The narrator controls information, tone, and interpretation. Through focalization, the narrator reveals or withholds inner states and biases, shaping readers’ understanding. Narrative distance—whether the voice feels intimate or distant—affects mood and irony. The choice of narrator interacts with genre, structure, and theme, and can be altered within a work through devices such as frame tales or multiple narrators.

Historically, omniscient narrators were common in classical fiction, while modern and postmodern works experiment with fragmented or multiple narrators and with metafiction. In cinema and other media, narration appears as voiceover or character narration, or is minimized to produce immediacy.

Examples include Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, the external narrator of Don Quixote, and Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. These illustrate how a narrator can shape memory, perception, and moral viewpoint.