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Is an Omniscient Narrator’s voice identical to the author’s voice? In a preface to his novel, The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy steps from behind the curtain and writes in his persona as the author. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Dickens paints the backdrop, but the backdrop isn’t visual. This passage sets the stage for the action to come. Here’s the beginning of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. When the narrative voice wants to, it can give us access to a character’s thoughts and feelings. Often a writer’s voice, often called the “narrator’s voice,” intrudes into the story and comments directly on what’s happening. Most 18 th and 19 th century writers–Fielding, Trollope, Dickens, Eliot, and others–used an omniscient narrator.
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It’s more intimate than Direct Observer and more wide-ranging than Limited Third. An omniscient narrator allows authors to dip inside characters’ heads and swoop through time and space. Omniscient narrators may sound a little old-fashioned, but there’s a reason why this form of narration is making a comeback.