Narrative voices

Analysing voices in narrative
Gill Connell…read more

AS Lang/Lit Unit 1
In your unseen exam you may have an extract
from:
· A novel or short story
· Non-fiction eg autobiography or travel writing…read more

Types of narrative voice
First person voice: autobiographical fiction
Third person voice:
· Omniscient
· `Over-the-shoulder'
Third person voice: free indirect style
Dual or multiple narrative voices…read more

First person voice
May be described as `autobiographical fiction'
Is the voice of the main character in novel/story
telling own story
You should consider:
· Your first impression of the narrator
· Writer's use of lexis and grammar to create the persona
· The kind of relationship writer sets up between narrator
and reader…read more

Some language features
Direct address to reader? Or not?
Any colloquial language? Tenor?
Any discourse markers or idiomatic, conversational
phrases?
Other spoken language features
Idiolect/sociolect/dialect
Lexis:
· level of difficulty?
· Metaphors, similes etc?
· Repetition and listing
Grammar :
· sentence construction/length
· grammatical parallelism or other patterning for effect…read more

Third person voice
Third person narrators are not characters in the story
They stand above the action
Sometimes `omniscient' ­ Godlike presence who
knows everything including thoughts and feelings of
all characters
More often, the `over-the-shoulder' narrator
describes events from the point of view of one (or
more) character. The point of view can change.…read more