Narration: Types of Narration

Narration is the way authors relate events to readers. Novelists use different way of telling their stories: they use different characters to tell the stories (narrators) and present the events from different ‘angles’ (different points of view).

First – person narrator (the story is told by an ‘I’), who may be the main character in the novel or a minor character in the novel, an observer of events that happen to others.

Third – person narrator

In the novels written in the 3rd person, two main points of view are normally used: the omniscient point of view and
the limited point of view.

The omniscient point of view means that the narrator knows everything about the events and the characters and knows all their thoughts and motives. an intrusive narrator – explicitly tells the reader things, commenting ob the characters. an objective narrator – simply shows things, without commenting or explaining: he is more like the camera.

The limited point of view means that, although the narrator tells the story in the 3rd, he confines himself to the impressions and feelings of one character in the novel: he presents only one point of view of events. The effect of this can be similar to that created by the 1st person narrator.

Multiple narrators and multiple points of view

Very often authors (especially modern ones) experiment with the various effects produced by different narrators and point of view. This reflects typically the twentieth century concerns : the complex nature of reality

the decline of belief an obstacle truth
fascinating with psychological analysis
a belief in the importance of individual experience and opinion.

Narrator involvement in what is narrated. Either the narrator has experienced that which he is narrating, in this case he is homodiegetic, or he has not in the case he is heterodiegetic. If his experience is personal, the degree of his involvement may vary. Perhaps, he has only seen things from afar, or perhaps he played the central involvement, one can place the traditional distinction between witness and main character. If the homodiegetic narrator is the protagonist of the story he tells – he (narrator) is called autodiegetic (e.g. Pip in The Great Expectations by Dickens). The prototype here is autobiographical narrator. The narrator who deals with things he has witnessed is called allodiegetic

Narrator visibility

a covert narrator quotes a lot, does not present himself in the 1st person, and tries to avoid evaluate descriptions as much as possible. a overt narrator resorts to paraphrase instead of quotation; he will definitely talk about himself and therefore use the 1st person; and he will often showcase his own opinions. Characters. Method of characterization.

Character – an agent in a work of art, including literature, drama, cinema, opera, etc.

Types of characters

Round characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader.

The protagonist is the main character in the story, novel, drama or other literary work, the character that the reader or audience empathizes with. The antagonist is the adversary of the hero, he opposes the protagonist.

The well-written protagonists are round characters. They should be the most interesting, complex characters in the novel. Minor characters are flat characters. They are two-dimensional in that they are relatively simple and
do not change throughout the course of work.

|Major or central characters are vital to the development and |Minor characters serve to complement the major characters and help | |resolution of the conflict. In other words, the plot and resolution of|move the plot events forward. | |conflict revolves around these characters. | | |Dynamic – a dynamic character is a person who changes over time, |Static – a static character is someone who does not change over time; | |usually as a result of resolving a central conflict or facing a major |his or her personality does not transform or evolve. | |crisis. Most dynamic characters tend to be central rather than | | |peripheral characters, because resolving the conflict is the major | | |role of central characters.

| | |Round – a rounded character is anyone who has a complex personality; |Flat – a flat character is the opposite of a round character. This | |he or she is often portrayed as a conflicted and contradictory person.|literary personality is notable for one kind of personality trait or | | |characteristic

| |Direct presentation (or characterization) – This refers to what the |Indirect presentation (or characterization) – This refers to what | |speaker or narrator directly says or thinks about a character. The |the character says or does. The reader is the one who is obliged to | |reader is told what the character is like. |figure out what the character is like. And sometimes the reader will | |When Dickens describes Scrooge like this: “I present him to you: |get it wrong. | |Ebenezer Scrooge….the most tightfisted hand at the grindstone, | | |Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, | | |covetous, old sinner!” – this is very direct characterization! | |

1 Tone and Mood

Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, guilty, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.

Tone and mood are not the same, although variations of the two words may on occasions be interchangeable terms. The tone of a piece of literature is the speaker’s or narrator’s attitude towards the subject, rather than what the reader feels, as in mood. Mood is the general feeling or atmosphere that a piece of writing creates within the reader. Mood is produced most effectively through the use of setting, theme, voice and tone. Basically, tone is the narrator’s feelings toward the story, and mood is the reader’s.