Narrative 1 st and 3 rd person

Narrator The narrator is the person who tells the story. The narrator is NOT the writer (unless you are reading an autobiography!) When we read a story, the voice we are listening to is the voice of the narrator (unless a character is speaking!)

Read the following passages and think about the following: -Who is telling the story? -How are they telling it? -Are they one of the characters? -What kind of words do they use?

Text Extract 1 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry suppressed a snort with difficulty. The Dursleys really were astonishingly stupid about their son, Dudely. They had swallowed all his dim-witted lies about having tea with a different member of his gang every night of the summer holidays. Harry knew perfectly well that Dudley had not been to tea anywhere; he and his gang spent every evening vandalising the play par, smoking on street corners and throwing stones at passing cars and children.

Text Extract 2 – The Tulip Touch They started to comfort me! How could they have known so little? How could they have got it so wrong? It had been my one dream all those long, long weeks. To stay! ‘Natalie?’ I stared at them. ‘Natalie, sweet. You don’t mind, do you? You won’t pine for old friends? You will be alright?’ I nodded at them, dumb with joy.

Text Extract 3 – Madame Doubtfire All the way up the stairs, the children fought not to carry the envelope. Towards the top, Lydia took advantage of her height to force it down Christopher’s jumper. Christopher pulled it out and tried to thrust it into Natalie’s hand.

1 st person A character in the story has taken on the role of the narrator and is telling the story from their point of view.

3 rd person The narrator is not a character and is not part of the story. They are looking in from an outside point of view.

Do these statements describe 1 st or 3 rd person narration? The narrator can see everything that is happening in the story, even people’s thoughts. The narrator uses words like ‘I’ and ‘me’. The narrator uses words like ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’. The narrator may be biased or unreliable because they are telling the story from their point of view only. The narrator can add in their own thoughts and opinions to the story they are telling. The reader gets a special insight into the true feelings and emotions of the character.

Change this passage from the 3 rd person, into the 1 st person. He walked down the stairs taking in the smell of his Mum’s famous Sunday breakfast. He couldn’t wait until he was scoffing it down; bacon, eggs, sausages, the lot! All of his friends were jealous because his Mum made the best breakfast ever. In fact, his best friend Stuart asked if he could come to his house every Sunday, just to have breakfast!

Change this passage from the 1 st person, into the 3 rd person. I was so excited to see the look on his face. I had never been to America before so I was excited too, but George was going to love me forever once I told him the news. Two whole weeks filled with going to theme parks, buying myself cool stuff, stuffing my face with real American food. I couldn’t wait until the Summer holidays. My Dad had booked the best holiday ever!