Is there a name for when the narrator (in a literary text) talks to the reader directly?
Is there a name for when the narrator (in a literary text) talks to the reader directly?
I'm talking about mainly third person narrators in fiction, like for example, "if you have felt/heard/seen X then...". What is it called?
I've always known that as an aside.
26This seems the best answer
3It seems like the best fit, but I'm not actually sure if that would apply either. The definition listed there is when a character talks directly to the audience, like in a Deadpool movie when he makes a joke as an aside, it seems to more apply to characters inside the story, not outside. I guess you can argue that the Narrator is considered a character in a story, but in my mind they've always seemed sort of nebulous and outside "the story" (with some exceptions to this). The Narrator is sort of always talking to the reader in a way (unless it's a character specifically narrating the events to another character).
3Ha ha Terry Pratchett especially, but also Stephen King sometimes disagree 🙂
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I believe that's called narration.
25I think that might be too broad for what OP is asking, though I don't know the answer. Their example has the narrator directly addressing the audience in a manner that acknowledges the existence of a reader for them to be addressing. Specifically they refer to a "you" which would be the reader. It's a bit like the term "4th wall breaking" in cinema although not quite the same as that either. Just "narration" means an entity, be it a character, or the author, or voice of God is telling the story and as it says in your link, is something present in all written literary works, but they won't necessarily acknowledge their audience, which is the unique characteristic they're trying to identify.
11It most likely is. I know we colloquially would refer to this as breaking the 4th wall but I don't know the real terminology for this in written literature. I do like all of the various answers everyone has provided. It's made for some interesting reading.
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second-person narrative mode
15It sounds like it's breaking the fourth wall. Narrators can do it.
12While that's also what I'd call it, it's a bit of a misnomer. The fourth wall is an acting term that refers to actors not interacting beyond the invisible wall that separates them from the audience. There isn't really any such rule that says an author can't address their readers directly in that way.
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It's a "second person" point of view, where the narrator addresses you, the reader, directly.
Unlike in TV/movies, and sometimes in writing "breaking the fourth wall", instead of a character turning to the audience, this shattering the fiction of a "fourth wall", in 2nd person, it's the narrator.
It can sometimes be a character narrating, but that usually takes on a sort of storytelling motif, where a character is telling you a story about what happened to them.
The Deadpool movies flow back and forth between all these things frequently, as an example.
11So I guess "The Monster At The End of This Book" would be 2nd person?
2YOU CAN DO IT ATREU
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Authorial intrusion.
9I think comments are messed up, so if someone answered (or if someone gave this answer and it was wrong…) apologies!
Isn’t it “breaking the fourth wall”?
8I would think “aside” would be a better term.
Another commenter mentioned it.
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Do you mean breaking the 4th wall?
7'Omniscient Narrator.'
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