Narration

a 

Third person omniscient narrator 

1 

A narrator who, telling the story in the third person, intervenes in the narrative, with a comment in the first person.  (f) 

b 

Free indirect style 

2 

A narrator who is assumed to know everything connected with the story narrated.  Refers to the characters as ‘he’ or ‘she’.  Often popularly assumed to be the author. (a) 

c 

participant narrator 

3 

A narrator who speaks as ‘I’, often a character who plays a role in the story, although it may not be his or her own story. (h) 

d 

Unreliable narrator 

4 

A narrator who plays a role in the story and is part of the narrative. (c) 

e 

Self-conscious narrator 

5 

A narrative voice that directly addresses the reader as ‘you’. It’s rare for a whole text to do this, as it’s very hard to maintain. (j) 

f 

Intrusive narrator 

6 

A narrative style that imitates the qualities of thoughts and feelings, making the reader feel as it they’re inside someone’s head.  The grammar and structure suggest the random and fragmentary nature of thought.  In the third person it’s an extreme version of free indirect style.  In the first person it’s an extreme version of interior monologue. (i) 

g 

Multi-vocal / polyphonic narration 

7 

First person, as though the narrator is verbalising their thoughts as they occur. (k) 

h 

First person narrative 

8 

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

i 

Stream of consciousness 

9 

Reminds the reader that what they are reading is fiction, dispelling any illusion that the characters are real people etc. 

(e) 

j 

Second person address 

10 

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

k 

Interior monologue 

11 

Third person narration in which a character’s thoughts and feelings seem to be directly expressed, freely taking on the views and often the language of that 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. (b)