Is the narrator of “The Necklace” third person omniscient or third person limited?
The above poster is incorrect. The narration is absolutely Third Person Limited – because the narrator is only reporting on the story through the eyes of Mathilde. We do not learn that Madame Forestier’s necklace is paste until she does. If the narrator was omniscient, we would have known that information at the time she gave the necklace to Mathilde. That is the advantage of third person limited narration – the element of surprise. If it was omniscient, then de Maupissant would have had no story. It would have read like “Madame Forestier opened the drawer of imitation diamond necklaces and asked Mathilde to choose one.” The reader would have known they were fake, but Mathilde wouldn’t. Since neither the reader nor Mathilde knows that until the end, the narration is Third Person Limited.
