TYPES OF

NARRATION
Narratology
- the study of narrative in literature
Early examples in the 20th century:
Vladimir Propp (Russian Formalist)
Morphology of the Folktale (1928)
Claude Lévi-Strauss (Structuralist)
Anthropologie Structurale (1958)
(myths)
Gérard Genette, Narrative discourse (1972)
Genette’s system
narrative: the result of the interaction of
its component levels
3 basic kinds of narrator:
- narrator is absent from his own narrative
((‘heterodiegetic narrator’))
- narrator is inside his narrative (1st
person) ((‘homodiegetic narrator’))
- narrator is inside his narrative and also
main character ((‘autodiegetic narrator’))
Roland Barthes (1915-1980)
France: from structuralism to poststructuralism
attempt to describe narrative as a formal
system based on the model of a grammar
‘The death of the Author’ (essay from 1967)
(against the concept of the author as a
way of forcing a meaning on to a text)
S/Z (1970) a critical reading of Balzac’s
Sarrasine
- text open to interpretation
Narrative Texts
 Narrative texts tell a story or part of a
story.

 Narrative texts include plot

structure, conflict, characterization,
setting, theme, point of view,
sequencing, and transitions.
Examples of Narrative
Texts
 Novels

 Short Stories
 Biographies/Autobiographies

 Historical Accounts

 Poems

 Plays
Viewpoint in narration
 Identifying the viewpoint presented in
a text can range from being relatively
straightforward, e.g. 1st-person
character-narrator, to being more
complex, e.g. frequent shifts in
perspective, or ambiguities i.e. whose
point of view is being presented.
Martin Fowler’s Taxonomy of
Narration
1. spatio-temporal
2. psychological
3. ideological point of view.
Psychological point of view
 “the choices an author makes with
regard to the various ways in which a
story might be narrated” (2006, p. 41).
 It is concerned with whose perspective
events are presented from, whether
character(s) or narrator(s) and the
linguistic indicators that can be used to
identify this point of view.
 2 categories of narration:
i. Internal narration
ii. External narration
Internal and External Narration
 B. Uspensky (1973):

i. Internal Narration – ‘subjective viewpoint’

of a particular character(s)

ii. External Narration – omniscient narration,

‘objective’, includes narratorial comment on
the characters and actions described
Internal Narration
 Of course, businesses took some time to get
established –Mma Ramotswe understood this –
but how long could one go on at a loss? She
had a certain amount of money left over from her
father’s estate but she could not live on that
forever. She should have listened to her father;
he had wanted her to buy a butchery, and that
would have been so much safer. What was the
expression they used? A blue-chip investment,
that was it. But where was the excitement in
that?
(Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’
Detective Agency)
External Narration
 [. . .]Morris Zapp has just discovered what
it is that’s bugging him about his flight. The
realization is a delayed consequence of
walking the length of the aircraft to the
toilet, and strikes him, like a slow-burn gag
in a movie-comedy, just as he is
concluding his business there.
(David Lodge, Changing Places, p. 29)
 Internal - the reader is likely to
feel that the point of view is more
restricted
 External - the point of view
expressed seems to belong more
to the narrator than to the
character (e.g. the simile)
 Internal Narration
 The narration of events from within a
particular character’s consciousness,
either with that character taking on the role
of narrator, or by a narrator assuming an
omniscient viewpoint, able to access the
internal states of the character
 Type A
 Type B
 Internal Narration – Type A
 narration from a point of view within a
character’s consciousness, manifesting his or
her feelings about, and evaluations of, the
events and characters of the story
 written either in the first person or in the third
person with clear indicators of the character’s
“world-view” or presentation of their thoughts
being evident.
 the most subjective form of narration  1st
person narrator
Internal Narration – Type A
 “I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing
happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes
when nothing happened it was really
getting ready to happen”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

 “Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I

took to cover when she disturbed me
writing to Martha?” (107). (Leonard Bloom,
Ulysses)
 Internal Narration – Type B
 The point of view of someone who is not a
participating character but who has
knowledge of the feelings of the
characters - a narrator, or the so-called
‘omniscient author’
 takes the form of third-person omniscient
narration
 to a greater or lesser degree, the author
gives an account of the mental processes,
feelings and perceptions of the characters
 Internal Narration – Type B
 Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in
which none of his patients had died or got any
worse. He had attended a surprisingly easy
calving, lanced one abscess, extracted a molar,
dosed one lady of easy virtue with Salvarsan,
performed an unpleasant but spectacularly
fruitful enema, and produced a miracle by a feat
of medical prestidigitation.
(Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin)

 Underlined parts do not necessarily reflect Dr

Iannis’s feelings about his day but seem instead
to be the narrator’s evaluations of events.
External Narration
 The events of a story are presented from a
position outside any particular character’s
consciousness, therefore excluding any
thoughts or feelings that character may
experience.
 Type C
 Type D
External Narration – Type C
 The “objective” presentation of events as they
happened, without comment or evaluation
from the narrator.
 Not offering to report what an ordinary
unprivileged observer could not see.
 It is impersonal in relation to the author or
narrator, declining to offer judgements on the
characters’ actions;
 This claimed authorial objectivity is
indicated by avoidance of evaluative
modalities (adjectives, adverbs)
 ‘the most neutral, impersonal, type of
third person narration’ (Fowler 1996:
177).
 There is no insight into the internal states
of the characters but simply a description
of their actions.
 It is this type of narration that is perhaps
most commonly associated with stage
directions in drama.
 Two other people had been in the lunchroom.
Once George had gone out to the kitchen and
made a ham-and-egg sandwich “to go” that a
man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen
he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a
stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a
sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick
and the cook were back to back in the corner, a
towel tied in each of their mouths. George had
cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled
paper, put it in a bag, brought it in, and the man
had paid for it and gone out.
“Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can
cook and everything.
You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright boy.”
(E. Hemingway, The Killer)
 External Narration – Type D
 Takes into account the opinion and the
impressions of the narrator.
 The author pretends to have no access to the
internal states of characters and establishes this
pretence by the use of, characterised through
the use of non-factive expressions (words of
estrangement)
o I {believe, guess, think, agree, doubt, fear,
imagine} that it is raining
o It {appears, seems, is likely, is certain, is
probable} that it is raining
 more generally be seen as indicators of a limited
viewpoint, whether of character or narrator.
 The Narrator
 A writer’s choice of a narrator determines the
point of view of the story—the vantage point
from which the story is told.
 The three main points of view are:
- omniscient
- first person
- third person limited
 Omniscient point of view
 This is a common form of third-person narration
in which the teller of the tale, who often appears
to speak with the voice of the author himself,
assumes an omniscient (all-knowing)
perspective on the story being told: diving into
private thoughts, narrating secret or hidden
events, jumping between spaces and times. Of
course, the omniscient narrator does not
therefore tell the reader or viewer everything, at
least not until the moment of greatest effect.
 Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a
suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that
no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it
understand it least, but it has been observed that no two
Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes
without coming to a total disagreement as to all the
premises. Innumerable children have been born into the
cause; innumerable young people have married into it;
innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of
persons have deliriously found themselves made parties
in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why;
whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the
suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a
new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should
be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real
horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of
court have faded into mothers and grandmothers…
(Charles Dickens, Bleak House)
 First person (unreliable)
point of view
 is a narrative mode where a story
is narrated by one character at a time,
speaking for and about themselves. First-
person narrative may be singular, plural or
multiple as well as being an authoritative,
reliable or deceptive "voice" and
represents point of view in the writing.
 The narrators explicitly refer to themselves
using words and phrases involving "I"
(referred to as the first-person singular)
and/or "we" (the first-person plural), which
allows the reader or audience to see the
point of view (including opinions, thoughts,
and feelings) only of the narrator, and no
other characters.
 In some stories, first-person narratorsmay
refer to information they have heard from
the other characters, in order to try to deliver
a larger point of view.
 Other stories may switch from one narrator
to another, allowing the reader or audience
to experience the thoughts and feelings of
more than one character.
 “It was times like these when I thought my
father, who hated guns and had never been
to any wars, was the bravest man who ever
lived.” - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 “I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your

Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of
little odious Vermin that Nature ever
suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the
Earth.” - Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

 “I could not unlove him now, merely

because I found that he had ceased to
notice me.” - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
 Third person point of view
 The third-person narrative voices are
narrative-voice techniques employed
solely under the category of the third-
person view.
 The third-person subjective
 is when the narrator conveys the thoughts, feelings,
opinions, etc. of one or more characters. If there is
just one character, it can be termed third-person
limited, in which the reader is "limited" to the
thoughts of some particular character (often
the protagonist) as in the first-person mode, except
still giving personal descriptions using "he", "she",
"it", and "they", but not "I". This is almost always the
main character.

 The focal character, protagonist, antagonist, or

some other character's thoughts are revealed
through the narrator. The reader learns the events
of the narrative through the perceptions of the
chosen character.
 Third-person, omniscient
 Historically, the third-person omniscient perspective has
been the most commonly used; it is seen in countless
classic novels, including works by Jane Austen, Leo
Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot.
 A story in this narrative mode is presented by a narrator
with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing
everything that happens within the world of the story,
including what each of the characters is thinking and
feeling. It sometimes even takes a subjective approach.
 The third-person omniscient narrator is the least
capable of being unreliable—although the omniscient
narrator can have its own personality, offering
judgments and opinions on the behavior of the
characters.
 Jane Austen's novel, Pride and
Prejudice, like many classic novels, is told
from the third person point of view:
 When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the
former, who had been cautious in her praise
of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister
how very much she admired him."He is just
what a young man ought to be," said she,
"sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never
saw such happy manners! -- so much ease,
with such perfect good breeding!"
 Third-person, objective
 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. Often the narrator is self-
dehumanized in order to make the narrative more
neutral. This type of narrative mode, outside of fiction, is
often employed by newspaper articles, biographical
documents, and scientific journals.

 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.