Introduction to narrative Learning Objective to consider ways

Introduction to narrative Learning Objective: to consider ways in which an author can tell a story.

What is a narrative? What is a story? • A story is what happens and who it happens to –plot and character • A narrative is the story plus the telling of it – the ways that the writer creates the story and the reader responds to it.

Think! • Write down 4 -5 stories you have read, heard, watched over the past week. • Annotate each with notes about how it was told and in what context. • Compare with a partner- discuss the range of stories and ways they are told.

Which of the following are essential ingredients in a narrative and which are not? a) A teller g) Description of places b) More than one event h) Told in past tense c) Cause and effect i) Events seen through one person’s eyes j) A beginning , middle and end. d) A moral e) People f) Time passing

Narrative voice • What advantages and disadvantages are there to writing in the first person? • What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in the third person?

Some suggestions –first person • • • Creates illusion that novel is real Makes reader more involved Makes reader empathise more with narrator Limits our perspective –restricted view Cannot know events narrator does not witness or is not told about by another character

The unreliable narrator • Do we trust the narrator? • Do we know the whole story? • Adds interest and suspense

Stream of consciousness • https: //ebooks. adelaide. edu. au/w/woolf/virgi nia/w 91 md/

Epistolary

Examples –first person • Page 12 –prose booklet - Moll Flanders • Pages 13 -14 Pamela – epistolary • Pages 20 -21 Frankenstein - Mary Shelley • What is the effect of using first person in each text? • What impression does the writer create of the narrator? • How reliable do you find each narrator?

Third person • Can be omniscient -all knowing. -Different characters thoughts and feelings • Can create dramatic irony and suspense Or can be limited to one /two characters point of view. Can be -Intrusive and self-conscious -we are aware of narrator making comments – OR Unintrusive and unselfconscious- reader is not aware of a narrator

Free indirect style – see Austen • In third person narrative, the voice sometimes shifts into the thoughts and feelings of a particular character, expressed directly. • What are the differences between the following? • A) ‘”Why didn’t she accept the flowers? ” thought James, feeling rebuffed by her rejection. ’ • B) ‘Why didn’t she accept the flowers? This was clearly a rebuff. ’ • It is especially clear when the reader knows that what is being said definitely is not what the third person narrator believes.

Examples of third person • Page 16 - 17 Tom Jones • Pages 23 -24 Jane Austen • What effect is achieved by using third person? • How would you describe the narrative voice used?

Second person narrative • One example of a second person narrative is Complicity by Iain Banks. • Why is this unusual? • Why has the author chosen this form? • What effect does the narrative voice have on the reader? • What type of text is second person more commonly used?

Iain Banks – Complicity • “The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others”

Exploring narrative voice • Choose one of the extracts and rewrite it in a different narrative voice. • Discuss the differences and effects created. • What is lost and what is gained? • Which aspects were particularly difficult to alter?

Point of view Whose eyes are the events seen through? How could a writer introduce other points of view in a first person narrative? See Frankenstein for examples. Try writing the extract from Pride and Prejudice from Darcy’s point of view. Or rewrite the extract from Frankenstein from the perspective of the elderly father.

Writing about narrative voice. • Open your prose text at random. • Explore the narrative voice on that page. Present your findings to the group –either verbally or as a written presentation to display. • Consider: broad kind of narrative voice- (first, third, omniscient, ) • Describe voice in more detail- internal thoughts? Intimate? Detached? • How has the writer created this voice? – sentence length and type, word choices, formality , structure of passage. • Effect on reader? Is there a gap between the narrator’s view of themselves and the readers view of them? • See example from The Sea.