English 10 / Unit 2: Narrative Structure and Point of View
2.4 Narrative Voice and Distance
Notes
Voice is the personality of the narration: its diction, rhythm and attitude. Narrative distance is how close the narration feels to a character's mind.
- A close third-person narrator slips into a character's thoughts and words.
- Free indirect discourse blends a character's thoughts into third-person narration without quotation marks: "She looked at the dress. Ugly. Completely, hopelessly ugly."
- A distant narrator reports events coolly, from far away.
- Voice can reveal age, class, region and values.
Practice
"He stared at the test. Fifty questions. Fifty! Who even had time for that?" The narration uses:
The character's thoughts blend into the third-person narration without quote marks.
A narrator says, "Ah reckon Pa won't be home till the corn's in." The dialect mainly helps establish:
Dialect and diction give the narrator a distinct, regional voice.
Which narration has the greatest narrative distance?
It reports events coolly from the outside, with no access to thoughts.
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