![]() ![]() ![]() So when the novel states, “I told Atticus I didn’t feel very well and didn’t think I’d go to school any more if it was all right with him,” we know that’s Scout speaking. Part of her performance is to tell the story using the voice and perspective of one of the characters, a little girl named Scout. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” for example, Harper Lee is the author. Your friend is just the person putting on the act. And so when he says, “I tied up that whipper-snapper and threw him in the trunk of my jalopy”-or whatever he says-we know it’s the grandfather telling the story. When that happens, it’s like we’re actually listening to the grandfather. ![]() We try to stop seeing our friend on the stage and focus on the performance. In fiction, we like to let ourselves be tricked. It’s the point of view the story is coming from. The narrator is the fictional construct the author has created to tell the story through. You know the author wrote the story, but is the author the one narrating it? In fiction, the answer is almost always no. This is exactly the confusion many students run into when they read a story on the page. In other words, what if she tells her grandfather’s story while pretending to be her grandfather. Or to take it a step further, what if she wrote it all down. Who’s the narrator? Easy! The grandfather.īut what if the situations aren’t so straightforward? What if your friend tells your grandfather’s story? What if she makes her voice deep and husky, like her grandfather’s, and starts using words like “whipper-snapper” and “jalopy.” What if she even starts saying the things that happened to him, happened to “me.” What if she did it on stage for a talent show, and it was all so perfect that it didn’t even seem like a joke. Afterward, maybe your friend’s grandfather sits you both down and tells a story from his childhood to teach you some valuable life lesson. Maybe your friend tells you a story to explain why she got grounded. So, in real life, we run into stories all the time, and it’s usually pretty easy to tell who the narrator is. Bushnell, Novelist and Oregon State University Senior Instructor of Literature Click HERE for Spanish Transcript)īy J.T. What is a Narrator? Transcript (Spanish and English Subtitles Available. Conference for Antiracist Teaching, Language and Assessment.Fall 2023 Undergraduate Course Descriptions.Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS).Scientific, Technical, and Professional Communication Certificate. ![]()
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