A novel is a work of fiction, telling a story, or rather conveying a plot. The 'point-of-view' refers to the mode in which the story is told, or the plot is conveyed. In any 'tale' there must be a 'teller'. The method adopted by the 'teller' is the narrative mode which is the novel's 'point-of-view'.
If the plot is conveyed by a narrator as 'I' (or 'we') who is also a character in the novel, it is called the 'First Person Point-of-view'. In an autobiographical novel, such as Dickens's 'David Copperfield', the first person narrator is the authorial identity in the plot.
If the narrator addresses another character in the novel as 'you', it would be the 'Second Person Point-of-view', as in Jay McInerney's novel, 'Bright Lights, Big City'.
The most frequently used mode in fiction is the 'Third Person Point-of-view' in which the narrator refers to all other personages as he/she/they. There are variations within the third person narrative frame, such as omniscient/limited omniscient/obtrusive/unobtrusive depending upon the specific nature of the narrator's involvement and/jurisdiction in conveying the novel's plot.
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