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Role of narrator
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The novel, As For Me and My House, by Sinclair Ross is narrated using a first person narrator. The narrator of the novel is Mrs. Bentley, and she narrates the novel through series of journal entries. Writing in first person narration has its advantages and disadvantages. This paper will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a first person narrator specifically for the novel As For Me and My House.
Because the novel is written in the first person, it gives a more personal feeling and gives it a sense of directness that is missing in other narrative styles. Also, first person narrators are often able to give detailed descriptions and make the reader feel more involved. Because Mrs. Bentley is telling the story through her journal entries, the reader gets an inside look of Mrs. Bentley's feelings that the characters in the novel are not able to experience. Her journal entries also allow the reader to experience Mrs. Bentley's reflections and thoughts on various subjects such as Judith's baby and whether or not her husband, Philip, is having an affair with Judith.
There are several problems with having a first person narrator. The narrator must know everything that is happening throughout the story. If As For Me and My House were to be told in the third person, or from the points of view of a number of different characters, it would be a completely different novel.
Some other drawbacks to having a first person narrator are that often times the narrator brings his or her biases into the story and will often leave out certain details. Stories written in first person narration are often too limited unless the author is clever. First person narration also limits the author to specific places and times that the character is present. In order to have an omniscient narrator, the novel needs to be written in third person narration.
Having Mrs. Bentley as a narrator for As For Me and My House is not that good of a choice. This novel would have been better off being written using a third person narrator because Mrs. Bentley is too biased as a narrator. She does not tell the reader enough information for the reader to figure anything out other than what she wants the reader to know.
Another disadvantage to using a first person narrator is the author's ability to use a first person narrator correctly and effectively.
In Pat Conroy’s, The Lords of Disciple, first person narration is used to develop the story. Seth Reilly, a writer and fiction author, talks about what first person narration is. Reilly states in his article for aspiring novelists, “First-person perspective is writing from the point of view of your narrator, putting across the world as they see it” (Reilly). While first person narration puts the reader in the narrator’s head, this point of view has multiple advantages and disadvantages. When talking about the advantages of first person narration Reilly states, “first person can effectively communicate how each moment feels; delivering sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, all through the prism of your narrator” (Reilly). This is one of the
This style of point of view adds a new feeling while reading the novel. The reader will be looking through the eyes of someone shadowing Jennifer Government and seeing it in one style, but then on the next page, the reader will see what's happening through the eyes of someone shadowing Billy NRA. Even though the narrator may change, the story will progress. You can compare the technique to a basketball game. One moment, the person is in the audience watching the game. The next moment the person is a player on the bench. Then the person becomes a player on the court taking shots. After that, the person changes into a referee calling the game. At the end, the person becomes the coach and calls the shots of the game.
Characters getting the "first-person" treatment are not just means to an end either, as they are fully developed and intrigue the reader to care about them, adding yet another layer to the larger story.
This allows the reader to assume the narrator is in the lower part of the upper class. She must be instructed on how to do things correctly, such as setting the table for different meals and for different guests, in order to remain in their social standing. One wrong move and they could be out. When Kincaid does this in second person, the reader can identify with this girl. Since the story is one long continuous sentence, the reader feels as the girl and she is receiving non stop orders from her mother. The girl’s interruption shows that she is somewhat intimidated by all these orders and is afraid of becoming what her mother warned her against becoming.
The book Game of Thrones has many different narrators. Each one telling the story from different points of view, giving the reader an i Telling the story from so many different points of view gives the reader an in depth look into all the characters but it can also confuse the reader or prevent them from getting close to the characters. Do you think the novel benefits from having several narrators or would it have been better to only have one narrator? Why do you think the author choose the characters he did for the narration?
First Person is when the author chooses one character to tell the story. You will often see the words, “I,” and “me,” through out. The narrator will most likely be in the middle of the action, or telling the story from a past perspective.
“The Faithful Wife”, written by Barbara L. Greenberg, uses first-person narration to depict the style, language, and theme of the poem. By using first-person narration, Barbara Greenberg was able to portray events and ideas very persuasively to the reader. In addition, this first-person narrator creates dramatic irony concerning the title in reference to the body of the poem.
The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.
Having this written in the first person allows the audience to have a more understanding. It also makes the reader feel like they are in the book. Although if this book were to be written in the third person the text would carry on forever and you also would not understand to its full potential.
Through the omniscient narrator, readers are able to see the full story behind what the characters tell each
When a child is born, he or she does not see the same things an adult sees. The baby does not understand language and cannot make the distinction between races or gender or good and evil. While it is impossible to go back in time, novels allow readers to take on a new set of eyes for a few hours or days. They give a new perspective to the world, and sometimes provide a filter to the things seen in the world. Unreliable narrators give authors the flexibility to lie to and withhold information from readers, providing new perspectives into the narrator as well as the other characters of the novel. Authors use unreliable narrators not to give more information to the reader, but to withhold information in order to further character development.
In the story "So Much Water So Close To Home" a young girl is raped, killed and found in a river where four men are fishing. What makes this story interesting is that after discovering the body they did not report it until after they left, three days later. When one of the men who discovered her, the husband of the narrator, Stuart returns home he doesn't tell his wife about the incident until the following morning. Because of this, Claire believes that all men are responsible for the murder of the girl. Due to these facts she acts irrationally, suspiciously, and with distrust not only towards her husband, but also to all men in general.
Advantages of the story are that in the story there was more detail and it was written in first person. First person is an advantage because it makes people feel like they're in the story and experiencing what Martin is experiencing. A disadvantage is the story is written and can't see a written story. Another disadvantage is the length of the story and how long it takes to read the whole thing.
Mrs. Woolf begins her memoir in an easygoing, conversational manner by deliberately reaching out to her audience. She states in her first paragraph that she knows many different ways to write a memoir but for lack of time cannot begin to sift through them all and so she simply begins by relating her first memory. Stating that she is not deciding upon a set method and formalizing that she will be informal demonstrates a frame of mind directed outward; it is her attempt to involve the reader in her work. The sympathetic reader feels as if he and Woolf are chatting about her life over a cup of tea. After narrating her first memory she returns to the structure of her memoir, explaining that she could never really succeed in conveying the feelings represented by her first memory without first describing herself. She notes: "Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties – one of the reason...
By using the third person omniscient point of view, the narrator is able to render the characters with information related both from direct description and from the other character's revelations. This way, the description remains unbiased, but at the same time coherent with how the various characters see it. For example, after the narrator tells us that "He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion.", we are able to understand why the boy is so emotionally attached to his mother and, at the beginning, unwilling to ask her for permission to go to his beach and, later in the story, unwilling to let her know about his adventure through the tunnel. This also explains why the mother let him go without questions, even if she was very worried about him.