What strategies should I use to analyse the narrative voice?

Firstly, you should identify the point of view of the speaker - are they first person, second person or third person? Is the narrator a character within the story; does the narrator refer to themselves as 'you' as to alienate themselves from the story; or is the narrator an unnamed entity who is not a character involved in the story?.. Or are their alternating perspectives in the story, where different POVs allow different characters/narrators to reveal the(ir) story?The second aspect to identify is the narrative time - are the events of the plot portrayed as happening in the past, present or future tense? Has the event occurred before the present moment, are the dialogues being had in the present moment, or is the speaker reporting upcoming events that they have foreknowledge of? The third technique to identify is the type of narrative voice. At times this could be stream of consciousness, where the narrator replicates thought processes they have/had, which could be complete or incomplete, and are often privately divulged to the reader rather than to fellow characters. Is it a character voice, where a conscious and often relatable and reliable character tells the story from their subjective perspective? An unreliable narrator is employed to give the readers a sense of suspicion or disbelief, as their information is false or warped at times. Finally, is it a common omniscient narrator, where the narrator is an unspecified entity who oversees the whole plot and knows all the feelings and thoughts of each character. Once you have identified the 3 techniques used, analyse how they interact with each other and how this affects the presentation of the passage.

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Answered by Mady M. English tutor

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