Identifying Speaker | H-1 Reading Plustaylor Associates COMPREHENSION SKILLS PRACTICE

® Identifying Speaker | H-1 Reading PlusTaylor Associates COMPREHENSION SKILLS PRACTICE

All stories and novels are narratives. They are told by a narrator. There are, however, a number of options for narrative voice, also called point of view, or who that narrator is and how he or she is related to the story. A first-person narrator, or first-person narration, is when the narrator is somehow apartof the story, as an active participant. This can be easy to identify because the narrator refers to himself or herself as “I” within the story. A narrator can be a major character, like Huck Finn telling his own story in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” A narrator can also be a minor character telling someone else’s story, like Dr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave” (The Five Orange Pips). Second-person narration is very rarely used. It occurs when the story is being told as the reader’s story using the second-person pronoun, “you.” In recent years, this technique has been used in various interactive or role-playing stories. Third-person narratives are told by an outside observer. The narrator never appears in the text. The story is told using primarily third-person pronouns (he, she, and they). This type of narration can also be either an omniscient or limited narrator. Omniscient means “all knowing.” Omniscient narrators know everything about what all of the characters are doing. This can be seen in the following excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration: “Tom, you didn’t have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!” The trouble vanished out of Tom’s face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed. “Bother! Well, go ‘long with you. I’d made sure you’d played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you’re a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is—better’n you look. THIS time.” She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once. A limited narrator tells the story primarily from the perspective of one character. The reader will see the thoughts and inner feelings of one character but not of the others. This can be seen in James Joyce’s “The Dead” from Dubliners, where the reader sees what Gabriel sees, but not what goes on outside his sphere.

Student Name______For each of the following passages, select the letter that corresponds to the correct narrative voice.

1. After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which so disagreeably preoccupied his mind. “I suppose, Lanyon,” said he, “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?” “I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Dr. Lanyon. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now.” “Indeed?” said Utterson. “I thought you had a bond of common interest.” “We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake’s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “would have estranged Damon and Pythias.” This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr. Utterson. “They have only differed on some point of science,” he thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in the matter of conveyancing), he even added: “It is nothing worse than that!” (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) a. first person b. second person c. third-person limited d. third-person omniscient

2. Every night of the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of the George at Debenham – the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself. (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Body-Snatcher) a. first person b. second person c. third-person limited d. third-person omniscient

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Student Name______

3. “Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons; “and may you find all well when you come back.” “Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.” So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown) a. first person b. second person c. third-person limited d. third-person omniscient

4. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations) a. first person b. second person c. third-person limited d. third-person omniscient

5. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. (Herman Melville, Moby Dick) a. first person b. second person c. third-person limited d. third-person omniscient