The elements of the narrative are essential in a narration which, in turn, is an account of the events and actions of its characters.
We can cite as examples of narrative texts a novel, a novel, a fable, a short story, etc.
The narrative structure is divided into: presentation, development, climax and outcome.
Plot
O plot it is the theme or subject of the story that can be told linearly or non-linearly.
There's also the psychological plot focused on the characters' thoughts. The story can be narrated chronologically, following the occurrence of actions.
Storyteller
The narrator, also called narrative focus, represents the "voice of the text". Depending on how they act in narration, they are classified into three types:
Narrator character
O narrator character participates in the story as a character in the plot. He can be the main character, or even a secondary character.
Therefore, if the text has this type of narrator, the story will be narrated in 1st person singular (I) or plural (we).
Observer Storyteller
The name itself indicates that this type of narrator knows the story in a way that he observes and reports the facts.
However, unlike the character narrator, the observer narrator does not participate in the story. This type of narration is done in the 3rd person singular (he, she) or plural (they, they).
omniscient narrator
O omniscient narrator is the one who knows the whole story. Unlike the observant narrator, who tells the facts through his own eyes, this one knows everything about the other characters, including their thoughts and ideas.
In this case, the story can appear narrated in 1st person or 3rd person.
Note: It is important to emphasize that the “voice of the text” does not represent the “voice of the author of the text”.
Characters
The characters in a narrative are the people who are present in the story. If they are very important, they are called main characters or protagonists.
Those that appear in the story but do not have great prominence are the secondary characters, also called supporting characters.
Time
Every narration has a time that determines the period in which the story takes place.
It can be chronological, when it follows an order of events, or psychological, which does not follow a linearity of facts, being an interior time that occurs in the characters' minds.
In the latter case, he mixes past, present and future, thus following the flow of thoughts of those involved in the plot.
Note that the time expressions used indicate this marking, for example: today, the next day, last week, that year, etc.
Space
The space of the narrative is where it develops. It can be physical or even psychological.
In the first case, the place where the story takes place is indicated, be it a farm, a city, a beach, etc. They are classified into closed spaces (house, room, hospital, etc.) or open spaces (streets, towns, cities, etc.).
The psychological space, on the other hand, is a character's interior environment, that is, there is no physical space that is revealed. So, in this case, the story is told in a stream of thoughts, feelings.
Narrative Example
To better understand the various elements that make up the narrative, below is an excerpt from Clarice Lispector's novel "Star Hour".
“From the suffocating summers of the sultry street in Acre, she could only feel sweat, a sweat that smelled bad. This sweat seems to me to be of bad origin. I don't know if she had tuberculosis, I don't think so. In the dark of night a man whistling and heavy steps, the howl of the abandoned mutt. Meanwhile – the silent constellations and the space that is time that has nothing to do with her and with us. For that was how the days passed. The cockcrow in the bloody dawn gave fresh meaning to her withered life. At dawn there was a noisy bird in Rua do Acre: life sprang up on the ground, joyful among stones.
Rua do Acre to live in, Rua do Lavradio to work, docks at the port to go spying on Sunday, the occasional long whistle of a cargo ship that one doesn't know why it made her heart ache, one or another delicious although a little painful to sing of rooster. The cock never came. She came from infinity to her bed, giving her gratitude. Shallow sleep because she had had a cold for nearly a year. She had a bout of dry cough at dawn: she smothered it with the thin pillow. But the roommates – Maria da Penha, Maria Aparecida, Maria José and Maria only – didn't mind. They were too tired from work that was not less arduous because it was anonymous. One sold Coty powder, but what an idea. They turned the other way and fell back asleep. The other's cough until it lulled them into deeper sleep. Is the sky down or up? She thought the northeastern. Lying down, she didn't know. Sometimes before going to sleep she felt hungry and got a little crazy thinking about a cow's thigh. The remedy then was to chew paper well chewed and swallow.”
In this small excerpt of the work, we can identify part of the plot, space, time of the plot and some main and secondary characters.
Entrance Exam Exercises with Feedback
1. (Enem 2009 - adapted)
[...] it was already the time when I saw coexistence as viable, only demanding from this common good, piously, my share, it was already the time when I consented to a contract, leaving many things from outside without giving in, however in what was vital to me, it was the time when I recognized the scandalous existence of immaculate values, the backbone of every 'order'; but I didn't even have the necessary breath, and with no breath, suffocation was imposed on me; it is this awareness that frees me, it is today that pushes me, my concerns are different now, my universe of problems is different today; in a weird world - definitely out of focus sooner or later everything ends up being reduced to a point of view, and you who live pampering the human sciences, he doesn't even suspect that he's pampering a joke: it's impossible to order the world of values, nobody cleans the house of the devil; I therefore refuse to think about what I no longer believe in, be it love, friendship, family, iqreja, humanity; I screw up with all this! The existence still terrifies me, but I'm not afraid of being alone, it was consciously that I chose exile, and today the cynicism of the great indifferent people is enough [...].
Nassar, r. a glass of cholera. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992
In the soap opera A Glass of Cholera, the author makes use of stylistic and expressive resources typical of the literature produced in the 70s of the last century in Brazil, which, in the words of critic Antonio Candido, combine “aesthetic vanguard and bitterness politics".
Regarding the topic addressed and the narrative design of the novel:
a) is written in third person, with an omniscient narrator, presenting the dispute between a man and a woman in sober language, consistent with the seriousness of the political-social theme of the dictatorship period military.
b) articulates the interlocutors' discourse around a verbal struggle, conveyed through simple and objective language, which seeks to translate the narrator's situation of social exclusion.
c) represents the literature of the 70s of the 20th century and addresses, through a clear and objective expression and from a distant point of view, the problems of urbanization in large Brazilian metropolises.
d) evidences a criticism of the society in which the characters live, through a continuous verbal flow with an aggressive tone.
e) translates, in subjective and intimate language, from the internal point of view, the psychological dramas of modern women, dealing with the issue of prioritizing work at the expense of family life and loving.
Alternative d: evidences a criticism of the society in which the characters live, through a continuous verbal flow with an aggressive tone.
2. (Enem 2013)
"Everything in the world started with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. There always has been. I don't know what, but I know the universe never started.
[...]
As long as I have questions and there is no answer, I will continue to write. How to start at the beginning if things happen before they happen? If before pre-prehistory there were already apocalyptic monsters? If this story doesn't exist, it will exist. Thinking is an act. Feeling is a fact. The two together – I'm the one writing what I'm writing. [...] Happiness? I've never seen a crazier word, invented by northeastern women who walk around in droves.
As I will say now, this story will be the result of a gradual vision – for two and a half years I have been slowly discovering the whys. It is vision of the imminence of. From what? Who knows if I'll know later. As if I'm writing at the same time I'm being read. I just don't start with the end that would justify the beginning – as death seems to say about life – because I need to record the antecedent facts."
LISPECTOR, C. Star hour. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1998 (fragment).
The elaboration of a peculiar narrative voice follows Clarice Lispector's literary trajectory, culminating in the work star hour, 1977, the year of the writer's death. In this fragment, this peculiarity is noted because the narrator
a) observes the events she narrates from a distant perspective, being indifferent to facts and characters.
b) tells the story without having been concerned to investigate the reasons that led to the events that compose it.
c) reveals himself as a subject who reflects on existential issues and on the construction of discourse.
d) admits the difficulty of writing a story due to the complexity of choosing the exact words.
e) proposes to discuss issues of a philosophical and metaphysical nature, uncommon in fictional narrative.
Alternative c: reveals a subject who reflects on existential issues and on the construction of discourse.
3. (FUVEST) “(…) Escobar was coming from the grave, from the seminary and from Flamengo to sit with me at the table, receiving me on the stairs, kissing me in the study in the morning, or asking me for the blessing of the custom. All these actions were repulsive; I tolerated them and practiced them, so as not to discover myself and the world. But whatever I could hide from the world, I couldn't do it to me, who lived closer to me than anyone else. When neither mother nor child was with me my despair was great, and I swore to kill them both, now by blow, now by slowly, to divide by the time of death every minute of life blurred and agonized. When, however, I returned home and saw at the top of the stairs the little creature who wanted and was waiting for me, I was unarmed and deferred the punishment from one day to the next.
What passed between Capitu and me in those dark days will not be noticed here, because it is so small and repeated, and already so late that it cannot be said without failure or fatigue. But the main one will. And the main thing is that our storms were now continuous and terrible. Before discovering that bad land of truth, we had others that were short-lived; soon the sky turned blue, the sun clear and the sea flat, through which we opened again the sails that took us to the most beautiful islands and coasts of the universe, until another gust of wind destroyed everything, and we, put on the cover, awaited another calm, which was neither late nor dubious, but total, close and firm (...)”.
(Fragment of the book Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis)
The narration of the events that the reader is faced with in the novel Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis, is done in the first person, therefore, from the point of view of the character Bentinho. It would therefore be correct to say that she presents herself:
a) faithful to the facts and perfectly suited to reality;
b) addicted to the one-sided perspective assumed by the narrator;
c) disturbed by Capitu's interference that ends up guiding the narrator;
d) exempt from any form of interference, as it aims at the truth;
e) indecisive between reporting the facts and the impossibility of ordering them.
Alternative b: addicted to the one-sided perspective taken by the narrator;
Learn more about the topic at: Narrative text and Narration.