Assignment 1 Narrative Text

Definition of narrative text 

The telling of a story or an account of a sequence of events. One of the four traditional forms of composition (along with description, exposition, and persuasion). Narration differs from exposition, which can also relate a sequence of events, in that narration need not be factual and may be written from the perspective of a character in the text.

Generic Stucture inside the text :

·         Orientation : The introducion of what is inside the text.What text is talk in general.Who invoves in the text.When and where it happen.

·         Complication :  What happens with the partisipants.It explores the conflict among the participants.Complocation is main element of narative.Without complication,the text is not narrative.The conflict can be show as natural,social or psychological conflict.

·         Resolution  : This is the phase where the participants solve the problrm arounsed by the conflict.It is not matter whether the participants succeed or fail.The point is the conflict becomes ended.

Language features narrative text :

·         Action verbs : Action verbs provide interest to the writing. For example, instead of The old woman was in his way try The old woman barred his path. Instead of She laughed try She cackled.

·         Written in the first person (I, we) or the third person (he, she, they).

·         Usually past tense.

·         Connectives,linking words to do with time.

·         Specific nouns:  Strong nouns have more specific meanings, eg. oak as opposed to tree.

·         Active nouns : Make nouns actually do something, eg. It was raining could become Rain splashed down or There was a large cabinet in the lounge could become A large cabinet seemed to fill the lounge.

·         Careful use of adjectives and adverbs: Writing needs judicious use of adjectives and adverbs to bring it alive, qualify the action and provide description and information for the reader.

·         Use of the senses: Where appropriate, the senses can be used to describe and develop the experiences, setting and character:

              1.      What does it smell like?

              2.      What can be heard?

              3.      What can be seen – details?

              4.      What does it taste like?

              5.      What does it feel like?

·         Imagery

             1.      Simile: A direct comparison, using like or as or as though, eg. The sea looked as rumpled as a blue quilted dressing gown. Or The wind wrapped me up like a cloak.

            2.      Metaphor: An indirect or hidden comparison, eg. She has a heart of stone or He is a stubborn mule or The man barked out the instructions.

            3.      Onomatopoeia: A suggestion of sound through words, eg. crackle, splat, ooze, squish, boom,The tyres whir on the road. The pitter-patter of soft rain. The mud oozed and squished through my toes. eg.

            4.      Personification: Giving nonliving things (inanimate) living characteristics, eg.The steel beam clenched its muscles. Clouds limped across the sky. The pebbles on the path were grey with grief.

·         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, eg. Have you ever built a tree hut?

·         Variety in sentence beginnings. There are a several ways to do this eg by using:

              1.      Participles: “Jumping with joy I ran home to tell mum my good news.”

              2.      Adverbs: “Silently the cat crept toward the bird”

              3.      Adjectives: “Brilliant sunlight shone through the window”

              4.      Nouns: “Thunder claps filled the air”

               5.      Adverbial Phrases: “Along the street walked the girl as if she had not a care in the world.”

·         Conversations/Dialogue: these may be used as an opener. This may be done through a series of short or one-word sentences or as one long complex sentence.

·         Show, Don’t Tell:  Students have heard the rule “show, don’t tell” but this principle is often difficult for some writers to master.

·         Personal Voice:  It may be described as writing which is honest and convincing. The author is able to ‘put the reader there’. The writer invests something of him/her self in the writing. The writing makes an impact on the reader. It reaches out and touches the reader. A connection is made.

Example Of Narrative text

The Monkeys and The Cap Seller

Once, a cap seller was passing through a jungle. He was very tired and needed to rest. Then, he stopped and spread a cloth under a tree. He placed his bag full of caps near him and lay down with his cap on his head.
The cap seller had a sound sleep for one hour. When he got up, the first thing he did was to look into his bag. He was startled when he found all his caps were not there.
When he looked up the sky, he was very surprised to see monkeys sitting on the branches of a tree, each of the monkeys is wearing a cap of on its head. They had evidently done it to imitate him
He decided to get his caps back by making a humble request to the monkeys. In return, the monkeys only made faces of him. When he begun to make gesture, the monkeys also imitated him.
At last he found a clever idea. " Monkeys are a great imitator," he thought. So he took off his own cap and threw it down on the ground. And as he had expected, all the monkeys took off the caps and threw the caps down on the ground. Quickly, he stood up and collected the caps, put them back into his bag and went away.

The generic structure of above narrative story is:

Orientation: The cap seller as the participant (main character), once time as time setting, and in thejungle as place setting. We note from discussion that the elements of orientation is shortly answering who, when and where of the story.


Complication: The cap seller wants the monkeys to bring back his caps but the monkeys do not return them. Of course this makes the cap seller face a problem. Complication in a narrative text is not always in single problem. That is we know a major conflict and minor conflict.


Resolution: The cap seller gets the monkey to bring back the cap by acting of throwing his own cap. The monkeys imitate what he has done so the problem is is solved. This story has happy ending as the cap seller has his caps returned.