Narrative Style: how to see it, how to use it
Reading a piece of literature without paying attention to the narrator’s style is like
walking through an art museum blindfolded, or eating all your meals through a
straw. By observing style closely, you will learn to see each detail’s significance, and
savor the particular flavors of everything you read. Here’s how to do it:
Consider the following topics and questions:
Diction: word choice—Is the language formal or informal? Are there words that carry particularly
negative or positive connotations? Are there series of words that fit into patterns? Do you notice
any parallels or juxtapositions in the words chosen to describe particular characters, settings or
situations?
Syntax: sentence structure—Is the syntax complex or simple, or some powerful combination of
the two? Can you observe shifts in sentence structure that create specific impacts? Does the author
break the traditional rules of syntax in interesting, potentially meaningful ways? Are there ways in
which the rhythms of the sentences in the passage evoke emotional responses in the reader or
reveal the feelings of the speaker in especially powerful or insightful ways?
Figurative language: the use of metaphor and symbol to communicate meaning—To what
degree does the speaker employ metaphors and similes, as opposed to concrete details or abstract
adjectives? To what degree does the speaker invite a symbolic reading of certain key images? What
specific words convey that symbolic overtone to the reader? What patterns of symbolic imagery or
extended metaphors do you note? How do these shape your understanding of the situation and/or
characters being described?
Subtext: what’s communicated without being said-- How much commentary does the narrator
engage in, and how much does the narrator allow action and dialogue to convey characters and
situations to the reader? What is left implied, and what is directly described? What information
does the narrator leave obscure, and what information is the reader’s attention drawn to?
Tone: the narrator’s attitude towards either reader, or subject, or both—Does the narrator
seem more powerful or less powerful than the characters? Does the narrator seem to have a
positive attitude or a negative attitude towards the situation and/or characters being described?
How seriously does the narrator seem to take the situation and/or characters being described?
What significant shifts in tone can you detect?
Reliability: the relationship between the narrator and the author—Does the speaker seem
reliable or unreliable? Confident in their own authority to describe the situation accurately, or
lacking in confidence? Do you feel that the author intends you to take the speaker at face value or
to view the speaker ironically? What clues within the text provoke that feeling?
Point-of-view: the relationship between the narrator and the story—Is the narration in first or
third person? How close to the action of the story does the narrator get? How intrusive is the
narrator? Which character(s) does the narrator focus the reader’s attention on? Whose mind are
we invited into, and whose are we excluded from?
Passage 1: “Tonight Is A Favor To Holly” 9-10
These men, it’s not like we don’t see them coming. Our intuition is good; the problem is we ignore it.
We keep wanting people to be different.
But who are the people you meet down here?
There are two kinds to choose from: those who are going under and those who aren’t moving ahead.
I think Suzy and Hard have more energy than us all. Last night I heard them in the alley. Suzy was
screaming. She yelled, “Hard! Look out! You wanna give someone an accident?”
I could see all this from the kitchen. I could see Hard pick up a hubcap and pitch it at Suzy. Suzy
squealed and limped away, even though it was her arm he had clipped her on. But then she whirled around
and rushed at him. She grabbed his throwing hand and brought it to her mouth. She opened wide to bite. But
the scream that followed was hers. The alley is lighted, so I could actually see the white teeth in his hand.
Hard stood with his feet apart, and turned sideways. Like a discus-thrower going for the record, he hurled
Suzy’s dentures onto the roof of Rancho Libido.
I’m hoping this story will break the ice tonight.
Oh, I’ll go out with this guy for Holly.
My hair is too short, but I’ve got teeth in my mouth. I’ll be Claudette or Mamie, and he’ll be a pretty
strange customer himself. He’ll be a pimp who’s gone through est.
He’ll be Hard’s brother.
He’ll be so dumb there aren’t any examples.
Passage 2: “The Use Of Force” 3-4
Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort, I told the mother. We're going through with this. The
child's mouth was already bleeding. Her tongue was cut and she was screaming in wild hysterical shrieks.
Perhaps I should have desisted and come back in an hour or more. No doubt it would have been better. But I
have seen at least two children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a
diagnosis now or never I went at it again. But the worst of it was that I too had got beyond reason. I could
have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning
with it.
The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one's self at such times.
Others must be protected against her. It is a social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a
feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end.
In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child's neck and jaws. I forced the heavy silver
spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was--both tonsils covered with
membrane. She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore
throat for three days at least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.
Now truly she was furious. She had been on the defensive before but now she attacked. Tried to get
off her father's lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes.
Passage 3: “Disneyland” 183
Every three days the girls had to empty the water jugs and refill them using the hose, so that the
supply would always be fresh. Their father started to have drills, but they were nothing like the ones at
school, where the important thing was to stay calm. He would blow a whistle, sometimes in the middle of the
night, and they all had to run like crazy to do their assigned tasks: Linda, shut and latch the windows and lock
the front door; Louise, unscrew all the fuses in the fuse box and turn off the valve to the water heater; Sandy,
shut off the furnace switch; their mother, just get herself to the cellar landing. Meanwhile he went on blowing
the whistle and shouting, “Move it!” Then they charged out the back door to the shelter, which they entered in
order of size, Sandy first, him last to pull the hatch shut. Down inside he shone the flashlight on his stopwatch
and announced how long it had taken. He shone the light in their faces and told them how they could shave
off those precious seconds. It was cold down there, and they shivered, especially at night in their pajamas and
bare feet, or if it had been raining. Their mother asked how many more drills they had to do, and he said they
had to keep at it until the bomb dropped—they had to be in top form.
“Well,” she said. “Let’s just hope it drops before winter. We’ll catch our deaths, running out here all
the time in the snow.”
He slept in the shelter. He put in an electric outlet so he could listen to his Judy Garland records
down there. The girls imagined him dancing with the shovel, smooching it: “How’s about a little kiss, baby.”
They loved him being out of the house in the evenings. They could change the channels, say whatever they
felt like, go to bed late. As long as their mother’s coffee mug was filled with Canadian Club whiskey, she didn’t
care what happened.
Passage 4: “Revolt of ‘Mother’” 320-1
Towards sunset on Saturday, when Adoniram was expected home, there was a knot of men in the
road near the new barn. The hired man had milked, but he still hung around the premises. Sarah Penn had
supper all ready. There were brown bread and baked beans and custard pie; it was the supper that Adoniram
loved on a Saturday night. She had on a clean calico, and she bore herself imperturbably. Nanny and Sammy
kept close at her heels. Their eyes were large, and Nanny was full of nervous tremors. Still there was to them
more pleasant excitement than anything else. An inborn confidence in their mother over their father asserted
itself.
Sammy looked out of the harness-room window. “There he is,” he announced, in an awed whisper.
He and Nanny peeped around the casing. Mrs. Penn kept on about her work. The children watched
Adoniram leave the new horse standing in the drive while he went to the house door. It was fastened. Then
he went around to the shed. That door was seldom locked, even when the family was away. The thought how
her father would be confronted by the cow flashed upon Nanny. There was a hysterical sob in her throat.
Adoniram emerged from the shed and stood looking about in a dazed fashion. His lips moved; he was saying
something, but they could not hear what it was. The hired man was peeping around a corner of the old barn,
but nobody saw him.
Adoniram took the new horse by the bridle and led him across the yard to the new barn. Nanny and
Sammy slunk close to their mother. The barn doors rolled back, and there stood Adoniram, with the long
mild face of the great Canadian farm horse looking over his shoulder.
Nanny kept behind her mother, but Sammy stepped suddenly forward, and stood in front of her.
Adoniram stared at the group. “What on airth you all down here for?” said he. “What’s the matter
over to the house?”
“We’ve come here to live, father,” said Sammy. His shrill voice quavered out bravely.
“What”—Adoniram sniffed—“what is it smells like cookin’?” said he. He stepped forward and looked
in the open door of the harness-room. Then he turned to his wife. His old bristling face was pale and
frightened. “What on airth does this mean, mother?” he gasped.
“You come in here, father,” said Sarah. She led the way into the harness-room and shut the door.
“Now, father,” said she, “you needn’t be scared. I ain’t crazy. There ain’t nothin’ to be upset over. But we’ve
come here to live, an’ we’re goin’ to live here. We’ve got jest as good a right here as new horses an’ cows. The
house wasn’t fit for us to live in any longer, an’ I made up my mind I wa’n’t goin’ to stay there. I’ve done my
duty by you forty year, an’ I’m goin’ to do it now; but I’m goin’ to live here. You’ve got to put in some windows
and partitions; an’ you’ll have to buy some furniture.”
Passage 5: “Rip Van Winkle” 7
With some difficulty he got down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion
had ascended the previous evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it,
leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble
up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes
tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and
spread a kind of network in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall over which the torrent came
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the
surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog;
he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that
overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor
man’s perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of
his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to
starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and with a heart full of trouble
and anxiety, turned his steps homeward.
Passage 6: “Tonight Is A Favor To Holly” 11
A couple of years ago, I did go away.
I went east.
A mistake. A few months later the movers packed me up.
There’s a thing that happens here, and I thought about it then. Highway One, the coast route, has
many scenic lookout points. What happens is that people fall over these cliffs, craning to see to the bottom of
them. Sometimes the floor is brush, and sometimes it is rock. It’s called going west on Highway One. There is
even a club for the people who fall, membership being awarded posthumously.
That’s what I thought of when the moving van crashed. It spilled my whole life down a mud ravine,
where for two weeks rain kept a crew from hauling it out. Mold embroidered the tablecloths, and newts
danced in my shoes.
The message was heavy-handed, but I changed lanes and continued west toward home.
I say an omen that big can be ignored.