Glossary
Author
The actual person who wrote the literary work, distinct from the narrator, who is a constructed voice within the text.
Example:
While J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series, the stories are primarily told through a third-person limited narrator focusing on Harry.
Challenge the reader's understanding
A narrative effect where the author deliberately complicates the reader's interpretation of events or characters, often by presenting conflicting information or ambiguous situations.
Example:
The unreliable narrator's contradictory statements served to challenge the reader's understanding of what truly happened, forcing them to actively interpret the text.
Complexity
The intricate and multifaceted nature of a story, characters, or themes, often enhanced by the interplay of different viewpoints or conflicting information.
Example:
The use of several characters' diaries added significant complexity to the murder mystery, as each entry offered a different piece of the puzzle.
Depth
The richness and complexity added to characters, plot, or themes, often achieved by revealing multiple layers of meaning or conflicting viewpoints.
Example:
The author used a character's shifting memories to add depth to their backstory, revealing hidden motivations and past traumas.
Empathy
The ability of the reader to understand and share the feelings of a character, often fostered by insights into their thoughts, motivations, or struggles.
Example:
By presenting the villain's tragic backstory through a different perspective, the author cultivated empathy in the reader, making them see the character in a new light.
First-person narrator
A narrator who is a character in the story and tells it from their own perspective, using 'I' or 'we.'
Example:
In 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Holden Caulfield acts as the first-person narrator, sharing his unfiltered thoughts and experiences.
Focus
The way a third-person narrator can shift their attention, zooming in on specific characters' thoughts or moving between different characters' experiences.
Example:
The third-person narrator initially maintains a broad view of the town, but then focus narrows to follow the secret life of one particular resident.
Interactions
How a first-person narrator's perspective can shift due to their engagement and relationships with other characters.
Example:
After a heated argument with his rival, the protagonist's interactions cause his narration to become less self-assured and more reflective of his doubts.
Multiple Narrators
A literary technique where a text features more than one voice telling parts of the story, often creating complexity and diverse viewpoints.
Example:
In 'As I Lay Dying,' Faulkner employs multiple narrators, each Addie Bundren's family members, to recount their journey to bury her.
Multiple Perspectives
The technique of presenting a story or event from several different viewpoints, enriching the narrative by showing various interpretations and experiences.
Example:
Akira Kurosawa's film 'Rashomon' famously uses multiple perspectives to recount a single event, highlighting the subjectivity of truth.
Mystery
An element of the unknown or unexplained within a narrative, often created by withholding information or presenting conflicting accounts.
Example:
The fragmented narratives from different characters deepened the mystery surrounding the protagonist's disappearance, leaving the reader to piece together the truth.
Narrative Inconsistencies
Deliberate contradictions or shifts in a narrator's account, often used by authors to create tension, add depth, or reflect flawed perceptions.
Example:
The detective's initial testimony about the crime scene contains subtle narrative inconsistencies when compared to later evidence, hinting at his unreliability.
Narrative Shifts
Any change in the storytelling approach, such as a change in narrator, point of view, or the narrator's tone or reliability.
Example:
The novel's sudden narrative shifts from past to present tense disoriented the reader, mirroring the protagonist's fragmented memories.
Narrator
The voice telling the story, which can be the author, a character, or an omniscient observer.
Example:
In 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Scout Finch serves as the narrator, recounting her childhood experiences in Maycomb.
Narrator Bias
The inclination or prejudice of the narrator that influences how events and characters are presented, often leading to a skewed or subjective account.
Example:
The protagonist's strong dislike for the antagonist was evident in his narrator bias, always describing the antagonist's actions in the worst possible light.
Narrator Changes
The evolution or shift in a narrator's perspective, focus, or even identity throughout a text.
Example:
A novel might begin with a child's innocent viewpoint, but as the character matures, the narrator changes to reflect a more cynical understanding of the world.
Point of View
The angle or perspective from which a story is told, determining what the reader knows and how they perceive the events and characters.
Example:
The shift in point of view from a child to an adult narrator allowed the author to explore themes of innocence lost.
Realism
The literary quality of portraying life as it is, often achieved through flawed characters, subjective perceptions, and events that mimic real-world experiences.
Example:
The narrator's occasional memory lapses lent a sense of realism to the story, mirroring how human recollection is imperfect.
Subjectivity
The quality of being based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions, rather than objective facts.
Example:
The novel emphasized the subjectivity of memory by having different characters recall the same event with wildly varying details.
Tension
A feeling of suspense, unease, or conflict created in the reader, often resulting from conflicting information or unreliable narration.
Example:
The conflicting accounts from two witnesses created palpable tension in the courtroom drama, making the reader question who was telling the truth.
Textual Evidence
Specific details, quotations, or paraphrases from the literary work used to support an argument or analysis.
Example:
When analyzing the narrator's bias, it's crucial to provide textual evidence like specific phrases or descriptions that reveal their prejudice.
Themes
The central ideas or underlying messages explored in a literary work, which can be enhanced or complicated by narrative choices.
Example:
The novel's exploration of the themes of truth and deception was greatly amplified by the use of an unreliable narrator.
Third-person narrator
A narrator who is outside the story and refers to characters by name or with pronouns like 'he,' 'she,' or 'they.' This can be limited (knowing one character's thoughts) or omniscient (knowing all).
Example:
In 'Pride and Prejudice,' the third-person narrator provides an overarching view of the characters' lives and societal norms.
Uncertainty
A state of doubt or ambiguity created for the reader, often when presented with unreliable information or multiple, conflicting accounts of events.
Example:
The shifting perspectives left the reader in a state of uncertainty about the true motives of the antagonist, making their actions unpredictable.
Unreliable Narrator
A narrator whose credibility has been compromised, often due to bias, mental instability, immaturity, or a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader.
Example:
The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is a classic unreliable narrator, whose increasingly frantic tone reveals his madness.