THE IMPORTANCE OF NARRATION?

JUSTIN CORDIER

SARAH COOK

CHARLES DORRIS

WHO IS NARRATING?• Third Person Narration: External to the

story. Uses pronouns he, she, or they.

• Omniscient: Access to thoughts, experiences, and perceptions of multiple characters.

• Limited: Through the eyes and experiences of a single character.

• Central Consciousness: Main character

• Objective: Uses characters speech and actions to report thoughts and feelings of character.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CHARACTER?

• First Person Narration: Internal narrator. Part of story. Uses pronoun “I.”

• Susceptible to unreliable narrators.

• First Person Plural: Uses the pronoun “we.”

• Second person narration:

• Very rare

• Consistently speak to the reader.

• Turns the reader into a character in the story.

POINT OF VIEW:• Voice:

• The verbal quality of narration

• Helps readers visualize

• Focus:

• Visual angle of narration

• Chooses direction of our gaze

• Style and tone:

• Gives clues about narrator’s perspective

• Irony:

• Discrepancy between vision and voice.

• Think Alanis Morissette’s song Ironic

Great saying from the movie Con Air

LETS LOOK AT EDGAR ALLEN POE’S “THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO”

Who should I trust?

Narrator

Killed by narrator!

(Jeopardy music playing in the background)Nope, can’t think of any.

Reasons to trust Montresor:

Reasons not to trust Montresor:

1.He kills Fortunado (that should be enough)2.He remembers every little thing Fortunado does

wrong (like my wife)3.Never really gives the reason for this atrocity

(should I keep going)4.He lies about being a mason

MONTRESOR

• From Montresor’s point of view what he is doing is not only right, but the only action he can take. He shows this with a lack of concern about what others think of his decisions. As the narrator if he really thought what he was doing was wrong he would not have been so direct with gruesome details.

• He is portrayed in this story, by his own doing as narrator, as self centered, sadistic, manipulative, and dishonest. He can also be considered two faced while calling Fortunado a friend throughout the story yet killing him for what could be imagined slights.

FORTUNADO

• No-one will ever know the true story behind this character. The narrator is unreliable and can not be trusted.

• According to Montresor there were a “thousand injuries” that came from Fortunado. However he never specifies anything and even speaks of him fondly at times.

• Fortunado’s jealousy of Luchresi, if it can be believed, shows his flaw and ends up getting him killed.

• This story would undoubtedly be much different if told by Fortunado’s point of view.

THE THING IN THE FOREST

CHARACTERIZATION

• Characterization is a very important aspect in the story. Penny and Primrose have different personalities when they meet and end up as very different people when they grow up. This is mostly due to the horrific experience they had seeing the thing.

CHARACTERIZATION CONTINUED

• Each girl has her own way of interpreting and dealing with what she saw in the forest; each girl is effected differently and that effect is carried out into her adulthood.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

• This story takes place during the blitz in WWII. During this time, many children were shipped out to the countryside for their safety. This is what both girls went through in the story.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT CONTINUED

• The fact that the war is going on is important as well. It could be said that the worm represents war: something that scars people when encountering it and continues scarring them as years go by.

NARRATION

• The point of view in this story is third person. It is read as seen from the outside; both perspectives from the girls and the rest of their lives are known to the reader.

• It is not said who the narrator is, but it could be thought that it is Primrose. The last line of the story is Primrose talking to the children saying, “There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in the forest….” This is the same sentence that began the story.

WORKS CITED

• Missyjack. “Monster Movie Intermission.” Picture. 8 June 2009. Supernatural Wiki. Web. 18 March 2014.

• “First, Second and Third person Overview.” Picture. n.d. National Education Access License for Schools. Web. 16 March 2014.

• Adams, Tyson. Novelist Warning. Picture. 30 October 2012. Tysonadams.com. Web. 16 March 2014.

• “The Cask of Amontillado.” Picture. n.d.. poeinterest.wordpress.com. Web. 16 March 2014.

• “Irony.” Picture. n.d. Deviant Art. Web. 16 March 2014.

• Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Cask of Amontillado." The Norton Introduction to Literature. . Shorter ed. Spencer Richardson-Jones. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. 302-317. Print.

• Eckenrode, Elizabeth. The Thing in the Forest by A.S. Byatt. 2013. Prezi. Prezi.IncWeb. 18 Mar 2014.

• "The Thing in the Forest-Review." Loose Leaf Bound. Wordpress.com, 27 Jan 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

• Byatt, A.S.. “The Thing in the Forest." The Norton Introduction to Literature. . Shorter ed. Spencer Richardson-Jones. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. 302-317. Print.

• Darthmaul431. “Jabba the Hut.” Picture. 9 October 2006. Star Wars Wikia. Web. 18 March 2014.

• Children Evacuated during WWII. Picture. n.d. Searlecanada.org. Web. 18 March 2014.