Point of View - Narration Styles

Point of View - Narration Styles It is extremely important to understand the narrator in all the stories you read. The narrator gives you all the information, and the more you know about him or her, the more interesting the story becomes. There are many types of narration styles, but we will only look at a few today. Read the following excerpts from some stories…

1) Anyway, that's what I wrote Stradlater's composition about. Old Allie's baseball mitt. I happened to have it with me, in my suitcase, so I got it out and copied down the pomes that were written on it. All I had to do was change Allie's name so that nobody would know it was my brother and not Stradlater's. I wasn't too crazy about doing it, but I couldn't think of anything else descriptive. Besides, I sort of liked writing about it.

What do you notice about this style? SUBJECIVE NARRATION - FIRST PERSON

2) At this moment there was a tremendous uproar. While Major was speaking four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquarters, listening to him. The dogs had suddenly caught sight of them, and it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their lives. Major raised his trotter for silence. "Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits - are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting. Are rats comrades?"

What do you notice about this style? ANONYMOUS NARRATION - THIRD PERSON

3) The word is that Earl is married and has a wife somewhere. Edna says she saw her once when Earl brought her to the apartment. Mama says she is a skinny thing, blond and pale like salamanders that have never seen the sun. But I saw her once too and she's not that way at all. And the boys across the street say she is a tall red-headed lady who wears tight pink pants and green glasses. We never agree on what she looks like, but we do know this. Whenever she arrives, he holds her tight by the crook of the arm. They walk fast into the apartment, lock the door behind them and never stay long.

What do you notice about this style? OBSERVER NARRATION - FIRST PERSON Now, take a look at this one…

In my younger and more formidable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought- frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon… Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.

Which type of narration style is this?

Your job now is to write a very small story in three different narration styles of when you got in trouble with your parents. 1) Subjective narration - first person You are telling the story as it happens to you.

2) Anonymous narration - third person You are not in the story; you are the narrator watching someone's parents get mad at him or her.

3) Observer narration - first person You are a friend of the person getting in trouble by his or her parents.