Narrative technique

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Who tells the story

1st person narration 3rd person narration

Who is the narrator?

A distant observer A close observer A character in the story

How is the narrator

Objective subjective Omniscient selectively omniscient Reliable unreliable Detached involved Godlike Fly on the wall

Ways of telling the story

The language

Level of formality Register Tone Dramatic - recollective

Point of view

Who speaks (voice) Who sees (perspective)

Indicators of point of view

Viewpoint can be controlled through choosing to describe only what could be seen from a particular position. This is called schema-oriented language. Example (1) Wilcox told her to get and release the bonnet hatch. He opened the bonnet and disappeared behind it. After a moment or two she heard him call (David Lodge, Nice Work)

Linguistic indicators of point of view

Value-laden

expressions Given/new information deixis speech and thought presentation

Value-laden expressions

Expressions which are evaluative and reveal attitudes

Example (2) She opened the door of her grimy, branch-line carriage, and began to get down her bags. The porter was nowhere, of course, but there was Harry There, on the sordid little station under the furnaces (D.H. Lawrence, Fanny and Annie)

Given vs. new information

Definite vs. indefinite reference Full noun phrases vs. pronominal reference Examples (3) It was the Bad Godesberg incident that gave the proof, though the German authorities had no earthly means of knowing this. (John Le Carre, The Little Drummer Girl)

Deixis

Place

adverbials (here/there) demonstrative pronouns (this/that) verbs (come/go)

Example (4) Mr Verlock heard the creaky plank in the floor and was content. He waited. Mrs Verlock was coming. (Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

Time
adverbials

(now/then) verbs (past/present)

Example (5) Theyre out there. (Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest)

Social deixis:

naming

ways of addressing,

Example (6) Miss Kate and miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banister and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come. (James Joyce, The Dead)

Speech and thought presentation

Short (1996) identifies the following choices to represent character speech and thought: direct = unmediated by the reporter (claims to represent accurately the actual content of a persons speech/thought) indirect = mediated (claims only to present the content, using instead the words of the person reporting the speech/thought) Free = a combination of the two above

Direct
Direct Speech Are you feeling better?, asked the child. Direct Thought Oliver must have seen me, she thought.

Indirect
Indirect Speech The child asked about his health. Indirect Thought She thought that Oliver must have seen her.

Free Indirect Speech The child said he hoped his mama was better. Free Indirect Thought Oliver must have seen her, she thought

Text 1
Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadnt robbed the pantry, in a false position, Not because I was squeezed in at an cute angle of the table-cloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didnt want to speak), nor because I was regaled with he scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No; I should have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldnt leave me alone. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)

Text 2
She could also smell guns. Under other circumstances that smell would have sent her running, but now it didnt matter. She would go where the old one sent her, she had no choice. The cougar sniffed the wall, then looked up the window. She could get inside. It would be easy. The window would push in before her, giving way as man things sometimes did. No, the voice of the unformed said. You cant. An image flickered briefly in her mind: shiny things. Man-drinkers, sometimes smashed to bright fragments on the rocks when the men were done with them. She understood (in the way that a lay person may vaguely understand a complicated geometry proof, if it is carefully explained) that she would knock a number of these man-drinkers onto the floor if she tried to jump through the window. Stephen King, Desperation)

Text 3
Thank you, Mister Movie Star, she said, reaching for his belt and expertly unbuckling. Can we get this train moving? Got no reason to stall, babe. How about a condom? How about I dont take a shower with my boots on? How about safe sex? How about I just took a test and got the all clear? How about I see the certificate? How about shutting up? She acquiesced. She believed him. Besides, she was too stoned and too horny to argue. (Jackie Collins, Hollywood Kids)