Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Narration in Fiction

 

1. Notion of narration.

2. Narrator, author and writer.

3. Point of view.

 

Narrative text is often a story. Narration is assimilating information and retelling it. In linguistics and text studies it is the way of rendering text information. It comprises different types of text information the manner of presentation being peculiar in every text. We sometimes do not pay much attention to it concentrating on the plot. Thus mainly factual information gets into the focus of our attention. In order to grasp every detail of the text and perceive it as a complex whole Charlotte Mason gives some advice.

Charlotte Mason uses an illustration of a doctor visiting a sick person in the hospital. The patient is in extreme pain and the doctor has written the remedy on a three-by-five card. He tells her (the patient) this will alleviate the pain, however, he’s only going to let her look at the card for a few minutes. Then the card will be destroyed permanently, and he won’t be writing it for her again. Can you imagine the attention you would give to the card? This is the kind of attention I want you to pay to your reading when you are doing some research with the text. It is not a mere act of memory because you let your minds act on the material in your own original way. You will classify and connect information.

Narration is a very powerful learning tool. Perfect attention and absolute recollection is an asset to employer, teacher, and the researcher.

The narrator is the character who is telling the story, or is assumed to be speaking in a poem or novel. It is the voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author’s voice. The narrator is to be distinguished from the author of the work – even if it is assumed to be autobiographical. Thus it is possible for the author to create an ironical distance from the narrator, who may be naïve or fallible.

An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article, or the like, whether short or long, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, technical or literary. Within copyright law the term “author” is often used for the creator of any work, be it written, painted, sculptured, music, a photograph or a film.

In fiction, the first-person narrator is usually distinct from the author. Understanding the differences, subtle or pronounced, between an author and the narrator he or she creates is essential to understanding a work of fiction.

The term “writer” can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more easily designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. Skilled writers demonstrate skills in using language to portray ideas and images, whether producing fiction or non-fiction.

A writer may compose in many different forms, including (but not limited to) poetry, prose, or music. Accordingly, a writer in specialist mode may rank as a poet, novelist, composer, lyricist, mythographer, journalist, film scriptwriter, etc.



Writer’s output frequently contributes to the cultural content of a society, and that society may value its writerly corpus – or literature – as an art much like the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography), music, craft and performance art (drama, theatre, opera, musical).

In literature and storytelling, a point of view is the related experience of the narrator – not that of the author. Authors rarely, in fiction, insert or inject their own voice, as this challenges the suspension of disbelief. Texts encourage the reader to identify with the narrator, not with the author.

Literary narration can occur from the first-person, or third-person, rarely – second-person point of view. In a novel, the first person is commonly used: “I saw, We did,” etc. In an encyclopedia or textbook narrators often work in the third person: “that happened, the king died”, etc. For additional vagueness, imprecision, and detachment, some writers employ the passive voice: “it is said that the president was compelled to be heard…”

Most novels are narrated either in the first person, in “third person omniscient”, or in “third person limited”. A third person omniscient narrator can shift focus from character to character with knowledge of everyone’s thoughts and of events of which no single character would be aware. The third person limited point of view picks one character and follows him or her around for the duration of the book. The narrator may be more observant than the character, but is limited to what that one character may theoretically observe. In a minor variant of third person limited, the narrator may “travel” with a single character, but the point-of-view conventions may be extended to allow the narrator access to other characters’ thoughts and motivations. Another common variant is for a novel to have different third person limited point of views in different sections. Thus, Chapter One might follow Jane, while Chapter Two follows Dick, and Chapter Three follows their dog.

Third Person, limited

This style of narrator is similar to the first person narrator, except for the notable use of the third person pronouns (he, she, it). The plot centers on a protagonist and covers only that with which the character is involved. But this character is not the narrator. The narrator is disembodied. It does nothing, casts no judgements, expresses no opinions and has no physical form in or out of the story. This narrator is privy to the thoughts, feelings, and memories of the protagonist, but of no other characters.

A way to think of the third person narrator is as a camera peering over the shoulder of the protagonist, recording what transpires for the reader. This point of view is very similar to the first person point of view, but it allows information in a way not possible in the first person. This narrator can present details encountered, but not noticed by the protagonist. It can make observations that the protagonist would never make about himself, like the colour of his eyes, or his personal failings. Any of such details made by the narrator about himself would be highly dubious, but when given by the third person narrator, should be trusted. The narrator doesn’t make blatant judgements; some subjective observations can seep in, but if the reader ever doubts or disagrees with the judgements of the narrator, she will dismiss the work as a whole. The third person narrator is inherently trustworthy.

Third person, omniscient

The third-person omniscient is a narrative mode in which both the reader and author observe the situation either through the senses and thoughts of more than one character, or through an overarching godlike perspective that sees and knows everything that happens and everything the characters are thinking. Third-person omniscient is virtually always the narrative mode chosen for sprawling, epic stories such as J.R.R.Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, George Eliot's Middlemarch, or the great Russian novels of the nineteenth century.

Third-person omniscient simply means that the narrator can tell the reader things that the main character does not know, or things that none of the characters know, or things that no human being could ever know. While third-person omniscient is associated with sweeping, epic stories, not all third-person omniscient narratives stray beyond the characters' knowledge and experiences. For example, Jane Austen's novels are third-person omniscient in that the narrator describes the thoughts and feelings of more than one character, but Austen's novels typically focus closely on a very small number of characters and their milieu.

Third-person omniscient point of view can change the viewpoint for characters instantly, by contrast with the third-person limited point of view, which limits narration to what can be known, seen, thought, or judged from a single character's perspective.

An omniscient narrator, as in more limited third-person forms, is also disembodied; it takes no actions and has no physical form in or out of the story. But, being omniscient, it witnesses all events, even some that no characters witness. The omniscient narrator is privy to all things past, present and future – as well as the thoughts of all characters. As such, an omniscient narrator offers the reader a birds-eye view about the story. The story can focus on any character at any time and on events where there is no character. The third-person omniscient narrator is usually the most reliable narrator; however, the omniscient narrator may offer judgements and express opinions on the behaviour of the characters. This was common in the 19th century, as seen in the works of Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy or George Eliot. In some unusual cases, the reliability and impartiality of the narrator may be in question.

Third person, objective

The author doesn’t enter a single mind, but instead records what can be seen and heard. This type of narrator is like a camera or a fly on the wall.

The third-person objective employs a narrator who tells a story without describing any character's thoughts, opinions, or feelings; instead it gives an objective, unbiased point of view. This type of narrative mode, outside of fiction, is often employed by newspaper articles, biographical documents, and scientific journals. It can be described as a "fly on the wall" or "camera lens" approach that can only record the observable actions, but does not interpret these actions or relay what thoughts are going through the minds of the characters. Works of fiction that use this style put a great deal of emphasis on characters acting out their feelings in an observable way. Internal thoughts, if expressed, are given voice through an aside or soliloquy. While this approach does not allow the author to reveal the unexpressed thoughts and feelings of the characters, it does allow the author to reveal information that not all or any of the characters may be aware of.

The third-person objective is preferred in most pieces that are deliberately trying to take a neutral or unbiased view, like in many newspaper articles. It is also called the third-person dramatic, because the narrator (like the audience of a drama) is neutral and ineffective toward the progression of the plot — merely an uninvolved onlooker. It was also used around the mid-twentieth century by French novelists writing in the nouveau roman tradition.


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 943


<== previous page | next page ==>
Forms of imagery | First person
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)