Narrative voice Explore narrative voice and point of

Narrative voice • Explore narrative voice and point of view • Identify the different types of narrative perspective Comment on Heller’s narrative style in NOAS •

Do we ever really get the WHOLE story? https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=v. DGrfh. JH 1 P 4&s afe=active Yes or no? And does it matter?

Lesson Objectives In today’s lesson you will: Explore narrative voice and point of view Identify the different types of narrative perspective Comment on Heller’s narrative style in NOAS

What is narrative? The choice of the point(s) of view from which the story is told…fundamentally affects the way readers will respond, emotionally and morally, to the fictional character and their actions. David Lodge: The Art of Fiction

Narrative voice and point of view A narrative is always told by someone. The narrator is not necessarily the same as the author of the book which contains the narrative: the author is a real person; the narrator is simply the ‘voice’ to whom the words of the narrative are attributed; a single novel may contain several narrators…We might think of the narrator as a point of view embodied in a character, who can, if wished, represent the author; although sometimes the voice of a narrative or its point of view are not clearly expressed as a character. Montgomery, Durant, Fabb, Furniss, Mills: Ways of Reading – Narrative. Extra challenge: who is the narrator of NOAS? What is her point of view? Is she clearly expressed as a character?

Types of narrative voice You probably know about two of the main types of narrative voice of the author: 1 st person – narratives told by one of the characters using ‘I’ 3 rd person where the storyteller plays no part in the events and refers to the characters as ‘he’, ‘she’, they, or by name. But this simplifies the wide and subtle range of narrative voices you will come across in the texts you study. Extra challenge: can you name any others? Can you explain what they are?

Do Each table has an A 3 sheet with definitions of the different narrative perspectives. Try to match these with the correct definition explaining to yourselves the reason for your choice. What is narrative voice? Tip: If you find yourself stuck in the pit, use the narrative diagram to try and work out the answers for yourself.

Review As a class, share what you have learned about the different types of narrative voice and work together to clarify anything you don’t understand or find confusing.

Introducing the narrator The choice of narrative voice is one of the most important decisions a writer makes. The narrator is a creation of the author used to: organise, select and present information. The narrator may also: • • Comment and judge Directly address the reader Be a detached observer Be ‘transparent’, appearing to speak with the voice of the author.

Activity Read the short extracts from the Three Little Pigs story. Decide which narrative style is being used. Consider its effect on the reader.

Activity 10 mins Chose one of the narrative voices you have discussed and use it to write the opening to your own short story. You could base your story on the nursery rhyme suggested here, or use a fairy story or myth you remember from your childhood. Hey diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon. Share with a partner and ask them to identify the narrative voice you have used.

Check In pairs, read the opening of your story. See if you can guess which narrative perspective is being used.

Narrative voice in NOAS In pairs look at an extract from the text and talk about the narrative voice being used. Use the questions below to focus your exploration of the extract and annotate the passage. • How would you describe the narrative voice? Does it shift within the extract? • Whose point of view is being given? • Which character is the focaliser, is any? • What words or phrases or aspects helped you to decide? What is the effect of the narrative voice? • Ext: Can you think of a comparison with another text you have studied? Think of something interesting to say about the narrative voice in your extract, consider the effect of Heller’s choice. Share what you notice about the way the narrative voice is being used.

Check What narrative perspective is being used in NOAS How do you know this? Why has Heller made this choice? What is the effect?

The Unreliable Narrator 'I am presumptuous enough to believe that I am the person best qualified to write this small history, ' Barbara declares with false humility in the foreword, and so she is - not because she is the most neutral or perceptive observer, but because Sheba Hart's fall has not only been witnessed but precipitated by Barbara's intervention. This, we will not know until later in the story; later still, the narrative itself, Barbara's 'small history' that we are reading, will be found by Sheba and become a plot point in its own right.

Why? The unreliable accounts are part of the story, where the act of writing is an event and forms part of the volatile relationships between characters. Both Barbara's personality and her decision to write at all are crucial deciding factors in the course of events. Dark echoes of this outcome resound through her opening statements. Extend your learning: make a note of how each chapter begins. Do you notice any patterns? What is the reason for this?

Homework Activity Pick an extract and closely analyse the narrative. Consider Heller’s choice of narrative voice, its effect and any shifts in voice. You should consider the way Heller creates a particular impression of the ‘character’ through this voice. Is it for example low key or exuberant, detached or intimate, gossipy or intellectual. Annotate and analyse: Lexis (or word choice) Sentence structure (long and rambling or short and clipped for example) Key phrases The balance between narration and description. Extra challenge: try to integrate a critical extract – see handout

Narrative voice in NOAS Notes on a Scandal is a narrative told in retrospect. You find out where events have led in its very first sentence: "The other night at dinner, Sheba talked about the first time that she and the Connolly boy kissed. " We are told this by Barbara, the 60 -something history teacher with whom Sheba is living in the wake of a scandal. Sheba has been charged with "indecent assault on a minor"; her name, the narrator expects, "will probably be familiar to most of you by now". Barbara is going to tell us Sheba's story, lest we be deceived by the distortions peddled in the press. She is busy writing what we read.

Narrative Voice in NOAS So there is a present tense to this narrative. "It's getting on for six o'clock now, so it won't be much longer. . . Sheba will come down. " The novel goes back to recount the slow development and disastrous consequences of Sheba's affair in the past tense. But most of its chapters begin in the present, with Barbara finding secret time to scribble her story. "I'm writing this late on Saturday night. I should be in bed, but I haven't been able to get any writing done all week. "

Narrative Voice in NOAS Barbara strives to take possession of Sheba, and her composition of this narrative is her way of doing so. "The task of telling it has fallen into my hands, " she announces, with unconsciously comic solemnity. To ensure "maximum accuracy in this narrative", she constructs a "timeline" on graph paper of Sheba's time at the school and her affair. Teacher-like, she uses "stick-on gold stars" for "truly seminal events". She even has a "schedule" for her composition, to make sure that she gets every precious detail down in writing. This is a narrative being hatched, even as we read. Barbara is scribbling away as she listens for the sound of Sheba on the stairs. The rhythm with which the narrative returns to the present tense keeps reminding us of the narrator and her strange designs.

Narrative Voice in NOAS "This is not a story about me, " says our narrator, but of course it is. It is the story of how Barbara schemes to acquire Sheba as her "friend". The evidence for Barbara's peculiarity must be gleaned from her own account. In a temper, Sheba reveals that her husband, Richard, has called Barbara an "incubus", and there are hints that she has what one might call a "history". Initially disappointed that Sheba befriends not her, but a "terrifyingly dull" colleague, Barbara recalls the "very severe blow" a few years previously "when my friend Jennifer Dodd announced that she wanted no further contact with me". The "friend" made "some mysterious references to my being 'too intense'". There are veiled references to "certain personal difficulties that I experienced with staff members" at the first school she ever taught in, and to the "malicious gossip" that she has suffered in staffrooms "more than once in my career".

Narrative Voice in NOAS Barbara is determined to imagine herself into every recess of Sheba's life. So the novel describes many scenes where Sheba is present, but not Barbara. With an exact attention to words and gestures, we get the unfolding of Sheba and Steven's mutual seduction. Later we listen to them talking in bed together. More than this, we get Sheba's private fantasies. Barbara tells us how she responds when Steven, showing off to a yobbish school friend, treats her scornfully. "She registered a definite twinge of - what was it? Excitement? Titillation? For a split second, she found herself imagining what it would be like to lie beneath him; to have his hands on her. " Those questions are supposed to be Sheba's secret thoughts.

Narrative Voice in NOAS Partly this is explained by Barbara's role as Sheba's confessor. Sheba "tosses out intimate and unflattering truths about herself, all the time, without a second thought". She has the "insouciant frankness" that the narrator assumes is something to do with her "upper-class" background. There is no information too private to be told, and she and Sheba have spent "countless hours together over the last eighteen months, exchanging confidences". But it is more than this: Barbara "knows" what has gone on in Sheba's head, and we must depend upon her knowledge.

Narrative Voice in NOAS Barbara's account becomes physically present in the novel. Usually, after each writing session, she hides the manuscript under her mattress. Sheba "doesn't know about this project" - it would only "agitate" her, explains Barbara, with characteristic mock-concern. Secret writings, of course, are destined to be discovered, and the crisis of this novel will come when Sheba finds and reads the narrative of her own disgrace. For then she realises what the novel's narration has already dramatised for us: the real story is not of her affair with the teenage Steven, but of her involvement with the weird and manipulative Barbara, the person who writes the story.