Question

Zoombah the goldfish swam around and around in his fish bowl all day. He admired the bright colors of the curtains on the windows and the paintings on the wall. He wondered where people were going as they passed by his bowl. The most exciting time of all was when Sparky the cat would stare at him through the glass. He shivered with fear and was thankful that cats hated water.
What is the point of view?

I think it might be 3rd person objective, but I'm not sure. Can someone please help?

Answer 1

I believe this excerpt to be an example of a third-person limited, instead of third-person objective.

Third-person objective does not reveal what the character is thinking or feeling. We may get to conclusions about that through the character's behavior or through dialogs. But the author does not give us this sort of information directly.

Third-person limited, on the other hand, does offer us an insight of the character's process of thinking and feelings. That's what we can notice with the sentences "He wondered where people were going as they passed by his bowl." and " He shivered with fear and was thankful that cats hated water. " We know the goldfish is asking himself about the people passing by. We also know he is afraid of the cat. Those pieces of information were given to us, the readers, directly by the narrator, not via dialog or by the observation of the goldfish's behavior.