The Narrator
Who’s Telling the Story?
I can…
• I can differentiate between the author and the
narrator.
• I can analyze the role of the narrator in a story
and how changing the narrator changes the
story.
• I can use evidence to prove that a character is
an unreliable or reliable narrator.
Standards
• 3003.8.7 Analyze the narration and point of
view (e.g., first person, third-person objective,
third-person limited, third-person omniscient)
in complex literary texts, in which the narrator
and point of view may shift with multiple
characters acting as narrators and/or with
some characters serving as unreliable
narrators.
Agenda
1st half
⁻Foreign words
⁻Finish Presentations
⁻Reliable and Unreliable Narrator
⁻Group Work: The Big Questions
2nd half
⁻Independent Practice: Read chapters 8-10. Choose one
scene from the novel and rewrite it as if it were in the
point of view of another character. ie: Jem, Dill, Atticus,
Calpurnia, etc.
Narrator
• The person who tells the story to the audience.
Types of Narrators
1st person
Innocent Eye
2nd person
Multiple Narrators
3rd person
Unreliable Narrator
omniscient
limited omniscient
Objective
REMEMBER
The NARRATOR can
be, but is seldom
the AUTHOR .
Innocent Eye
• The story is told through
the eyes of a child
(his/her judgment being
different from that of an
adult).
Unreliable Narrator
• An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether
in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility
has been seriously compromised.
• You can’t trust the unreliable narrator!!!
Reliable or Unreliable?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Look for direct and indirect characterization
Look for prejudices in speech and thoughts.
Examine religion, gender, race and age.
Is the narrator telling you everything he or she
knows?
Is the narrator mentally stable?
Does he or she know what he or she is talking about?
Does this person have the authority to relate the
events? Did he or she experience them from
someone else or did he or she experience them first
hand?
Why is the narrator telling the story? Confession?
Bragging? To reveal a moral? (This is not a reflection
of why the AUTHOR told the story, but why the
CHARACTER is telling the story.)
The Big Question
Is Scout an unreliable narrator?
Don’t forget to support your
answer with evidence from the
text.
Some more interesting questions…
• Why might Harper Lee tell the story from an
adult perspective, narrated many years after
the fact?
• In the first seven chapters, can you find
statements that remind us of an adult point of
view? Or does the adult narrator enter
completely into the world of her childhood?
• How would this story be narrated, in the third
person, from the point of view of Dill’s
fabulous imagination?
Independent Practice
• Read chapters 8-10.
• Choose one scene from the
novel and rewrite it as if it
were in the point of view of
another character. ie: Jem,
Dill, Atticus, Calpurnia, etc.
Closure
Journal: In your opinion, what
personal traits would make a
narrator unreliable?