English narrative voice terms

Question 1

First person narrator

Answer 1

A narrator who speaks as “I”, often a character who plats a role in the story, although it may not be his or her own story that is being told.

Question 2

Interior monologue

Answer 2

First person, as though the narrator is verbizing their thoughts.

Question 3

Stream of consciousness

Answer 3

A narrative style that imitates the qualities of thoughts and feelings as if they’re inside someone’s head. The grammar and structure suggest a random and fragmentary nature of thought. In the first person it’s an extreme version of of interior monologue.

Question 4

Unreliable

Answer 4

A (first person) narrator who is perhaps self-deceiving or who cannot be trusted a version of events that is to be believed.

Question 5

Inadequate (or naïve)

Answer 5

A (first person) narrator who doesn’t seem to understand as much about what’s happening as the reader.

Question 6

Third person omniscient

Answer 6

A narrator who is assumed to everything connected to the narrated story. Refers to characters as “he”, “they” or “she” (third person pronouns). Often assumed to be the author. In a third person narrative, the action may be seen predominantly from the perspective of a particular character. This character can be described as a focaliser (dorian and Lh in some chapters).

Question 7

Free indirect style

Answer 7

Third person narration in which a character’s thoughts and feelings seem to be directly expressed, freely taking on the view and often the language of the character. Narratives often slide between conventional third person narration and this style, moving from a more detached voice to one that is more intimately connected to one character or another.

Question 8

Intrusive narrator

Answer 8

A narrator who, telling the story in third person, intervenes in the narrative with a comment in the first person. Can feel as though the author is intervening in the narrative.

Question 9

Second person address

Answer 9

A narrative voice that directly addresses the reader as “you”. It is rare for a whole text to do this as it is very hard to maintain.

Question 10

Multiple voices

Answer 10

More than one narrative voice used in a single text. Can be first or third person or a mixture of the two.

Question 11

Self-conscious narrator

Answer 11

Reminds the reader that what they are reading is fiction, dispelling any illusion that the characters are real people ( ending of eve of ST Agnes).