REE - Week 4 - Narration

Extract 1: Jane Austen, Emma, Volume 1, Chapter 1 (1816)

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and
happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence;
and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or
vex her.
5 She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent
father, and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his
house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to
have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses, and her place had
been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short
10 of a mother in affection.
Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as a
governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma.
Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before Miss Taylor had
ceased to hold the nominal1 office of governess, the mildness of her temper had
15 hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being
now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very
mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss
Taylor's judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.
The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too
20 much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these
were the disadvantages which threatened alloy 2 to her many enjoyments. The
danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any
means rank as misfortunes with her.
Sorrow came—a gentle sorrow—but not at all in the shape of any disagreeable
25 consciousness—Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor's loss which first
brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first
sat in mournful thought of any continuance. The wedding over and the bride-
people gone, her father and herself were left to dine together, with no prospect
of a third to cheer a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after
30 dinner, as usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost.
The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a
man of unexceptionable3 character, easy fortune, suitable age and pleasant
manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-
denying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match;
35 but it was a black morning's work for her. The want4 of Miss Taylor would be felt
every hour of every day. She recalled her past kindness—the kindness, the
affection of sixteen years—how she had taught and how she had played with
her from five years old—how she had devoted all her powers to attach and

1 Existing in name only; merely named (without reference to fact or reality); not real or actual.(OED)
2 Something which is mixed with another thing of different character or quality; especially an undesirable
element which impairs or debases something good. (OED)
3 Perfectly satisfactory or adequate (OED)
4 The fact that a person or a thing is not present, lacking

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amuse her in health—and how nursed her through the various illnesses of
40 childhood. A large debt of gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the
last seven years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve 5 which had soon
followed Isabella's marriage on their being left to each other, was yet a dearer,
tenderer recollection. It had been a friend and companion such as few
possessed, intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the
45 family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every
pleasure, every scheme of her's;—one to whom she could speak every thought
as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault.
How was she to bear the change?—It was true that her friend was going only
half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the difference
50 between a Mrs. Weston only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the
house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, she was now in great
danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he
was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation, rational or
playful.

Extract 2: The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, Chapter 1 (1951)

J.D. Salinger’s immensely popular teenage anti-hero, Holden Caulfield, an icon for
teenage rebellion and angst, tells his story from a hospital in California. A student at
Pencey Prep, a boarding school in Pennsylvania, he has been expelled for failing every
class except English.
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to
know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my
parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield6 kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know
5 the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my
parents would have two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal
about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father.
They’re nice and all—I’m not saying that—but they’re also touchy as hell.
Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or
10 anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me last
Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out and take it
easy. I mean that’s all I told D.B. about, and he’s my brother and all. He’s in
Hollywood. That isn’t too far from this crumby place, and he comes over and
visits me practically every week end. He’s going to drive me home when I go
15 home next month maybe. He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs
that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four
thousand bucks. He’s got a lot of dough, now. He didn’t use to. He used to be
just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of short
stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it
20 was ‘The Secret Goldfish.’ It was about this little kid that wouldn’t let anybody
look at his goldfish because he’d bought it with his own money. It killed me.

5 Candour
6 Not the famour magician, but the hero of Dickens’s eponymous Bildungsroman

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Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there’s one thing I hate,
it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.
Where I want to start is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is the
25 school that’s in Agertown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You’ve
probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines,
always showing some hot-shot7 guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if
all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a
horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horse’s picture,
30 it always says: ‘Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-
thinking young men’. Strictly for the birds8. They don’t do any damn more
molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn’t know anybody
there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that
many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.

Extract 3: Ulysses, James Joyce (1922)

Ulysses offers a vivid picture of Dublin on a single day in June 1904, mirroring the
structure of Homer’s Odyssey and following Leopold Bloom, and Irish Jew wandering
through Catholic Dublin tormented by the unfaithfulness of his wife, Molly. At the end of the
day, and of the novel, Molly Bloom is in bed, half-asleep, much unlike the faithful Penelope
waiting for her lover in Homer’s Odyssey. We are given her thoughts in a fifty-page stream
of consciousness monologue which is devoid of punctuation. Molly plunges into her
memories, remembering places, people, sensations and mainly lovers, so that an image of
her femininity and sensuousness gradually builds up. This is the very end of her
monologue.
[...] and those handsome Moors9 all in white and turbans like kings asking you
to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda 10 with the old windows of the
posadas11 glancing eyes a lattice12 hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the
wineshops half open at night and the castanets 13 and the night we missed the
5 boat at Algeciras14 the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that
awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and
the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens 15 yes and all the
queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens
and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I
10 was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the
Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the
Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him
with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my

7 A person who his talented and successful

8 To be for the birds: to be worthless, ridiculous
9 Maures
10 A town in Andalusia
11 Inns, hotels
12 Treillage
13 Castagnettes
14 Another town in Andalusia
15 A botanical garden in Gibraltar

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mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to
15 me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes...

Questions
As you read the text, underline the words you don’t know or don’t understand in this
context and look them up in a monolingual dictionary (Oxford English Dictionary or
Merriam-Webster for example)
1. What different types of narrators and narrations can you think of? Which ones are
represented in the texts?
2. What information do the different narrators provide? How does the type of narration
affect the type of information that is given the reader and the way it is given?
3. How reliable or unreliable are the narrators in the extracts? Why? What makes a
narrator reliable or trustworthy?
4. What is the tone and atmosphere of each extract? How does the tone contribute to
the characterisation of the characters and/or of the narrator?