Narratives

Narrative is a text focusing specific participants. Its social function is to amuse,  entertain and to deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point

of some kind, which in turn finds a resolution.

The basic purpose of narrative is to entertain, to gain and hold a readers’ interest. However narratives can also be written to teach or inform, to change attitudes/social opinions. Narratives sequence people/characters in time and place but differ from recounts in that through the sequencing, the stories set up one or more problems, which must eventually find a way to be resolved.

General structure of narrative:

• Orientation, introducing the participants and informing the time and the place.
• Evaluation, a stepping back to evaluate the plight (it is optional).
• Complication (problem), describing the rising crises which the participants have to do with.
• Resolution, showing the way of participant to solve the crises, for better or for worse.
• Re-orientation, it is optional.
• Coda, it is optional.

Features of narrative:

• Using processes verbs and adjectives.
• Using linking verbs and linking words of time.
• Using temporal conjunction and temporal circumstances.
• Using material processes, behavioural and verbal processes.
• Using relational processes and mental processes.
• Using mental verbs and action verbs.
• Focus on specific and usually individualized participants.
• Some dialogue may include, using present or future.
• Connectives, linking words to do with time.
• Specific nouns, strong nouns have more specific meanings, e.g. ‘oak’ as opposed to Direct speeches may be used.
• Use of the senses, where appropriate, the senses can be used to describe and develop the experiences, setting and character.
• Using simple past tense.

Imagery of narrative:

• Simile, a direct comparison, using likes or as or as though, e.g. the sea looked as rumpled as a blue quilted dressing gown.
• Metaphor, an indirect or hidden comparison, e.g. she has a heart of stone. Onomatopoeia, a suggestion of sound through words, e.g. crackle, splat, ooze, squish, boom, e.g. the tires whir on the road.
• Personification, giving non-living things (inanimate) living characteristics, e.g. the steel beam clenched its muscles.
• Rhetorical questions, often the author asks the audience questions, knowing of course there will be no direct answer. This is a way of involving the reader in the story at the outset, e.g. have you ever built a tree hut?
• There are many types of narrative. They can be imaginary, factual or a combination of both.
• They may include fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, romances, horror stories, adventure stories, fables, myths and legends, historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, and personal experience.

To help students plan for writing of narratives model, focusing on:

• Plot, e.g. what is going to happen.
• Setting, e.g. where and when will the story take place.
• Characterization, e.g. who are the main characters and what do they look like.
• Structure, e.g. how will the story begin, what will be the problem, how is the problem going to be resolved. Theme, e.g. what is the theme/message the writer is attempting to communicate.

Example of narrative:

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Ali Baba was such a poor man that he had only one shoe for his two feet. Even the mice in his house were hungry. One day, his wife said, “We have no food in the house. No rice. No potatoes. Go and collect leaves in the forest so that I can make a soup.”

Ali was a lazy man. He looked for leaves for about ten minutes and then he climbed a tree to sleep. He was afraid of wolves. When he woke up, he was surprised to see forty thieves on forty horses. They stopped in front of a big rock.

“Open Sesame!” shouted the leader. A door on the rock opened. The thieves carried sacks full of gold into the cave. When they had finished, the leader shouted. “Close Sesame!” and the door closed. As soon as the thieves had disappeared Ali Baba jumped down from the tree, said, “Open Sesame” and went into the cave.

There were shelves all around the walls. The shelves were full of sacks. And the sacks were full of gold. Ali took a sack home with him. Unfortunately, one of the thieves saw Ali’s footprints on the sand. He followed them to Ali’s home. He took out his knife and made a cross on the door.

“Now I shall know which house it is,” he said. He rode off to get the other thieves. But Ali had seen the thief. He and his wife took brooms and swept away the footprints. Then he made crosses on every door at the street. When the forty thieves arrived they had their knives between their teeth. But they couldn’t find either Ali or the gold. And Ali and his wife lived happily ever after.