What is the typical tense and point of view for an Autobiography?

• A. Third person and present tense
• B. Second person and future tense
• C. First person and past tense
• D. First person and present tense

Answer: (C)

Autobiography is a personal life story told from the author’s own perspective, so the narrator uses I, my, and me. Because the events being described happened in the past, past tense is the natural choice to recount them in a reflective way. This combination—first person voice with past tense—lets the writer present a retrospective account of their experiences. While some memoirs may experiment with tense for emphasis, the standard form for an autobiography stays in the first person and past tense. Using second person would address the reader as you, which isn’t typical for a personal life narrative, and third person would distance the narrator from those experiences; present tense would create a sense of immediacy that doesn’t align with a retrospective life story.