Narrative Criticism Exercise
NAME: Mark Group
Text: Mark
Answer the following questions. NOTE: Questions 1-6 should be quite brief answers. #7 should be one
sentence. #8 should be one-three sentences long.
1. What is the implied author’s point of view? (i.e., first or third person?) Third person
2. How much does the author know? Is the author omniscient within the narrative? Does the
author know what people are thinking? What Jesus is thinking?
Seems to know everything including what Jesus is thinkings and
wishes.
3. What ‘symbols’ are used in the narrative?
Archetypal symbols? Crumbs, Children, being first,
Cultural symbols? Dog, Region, woman, gentile, Children
Symbols created by author? Immediacy, Secrecy, being an intimate
interaction, faith=healing, unclean spirits = evil or wrong
4. Are there any ironical elements? The power of powerlessness,
Syrophonician woman asking a Jewish man for help.
5. Are there any narrative patterns employed? (E.g., repetition, contrast, comparison, causation,
climax, interrogation, inclusio, interchange, chiasm, intercalation) Look for such patterns both
within your pericope and with the larger narrative of which your pericope is a part. Two
step repetition on saying things twice, and where the story is
located w/ the other happenings in Mark.
6. With which characters in your text does the author encourage to be sympathetic? Jesus,
then the woman.
Which characters do you regard with suspicion or hostility? The woman, and then
Jesus.
How did the author create such dispositions to the characters? Author creates it through
intimacy.
7. By the end of your pericope, what does the author seem to want the reader to have learned or
experienced? Healing through faith, faith is above all cultural, and personal
boundaries.
8. How did the author accomplish what you just described in #7 in terms of how the narrative was
presented? By presenting Jesus as tired and cranky whose space is invaded by a
gentile woman who is not one who he came to earth to teach. But it turns out that
this woman has a faith that causes Jesus to question his own thoughts regarding
his mission here.