Different Types of Narration

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Different Types of Narration

There are a variety of ways to narrate a story, but essentially they can be broken down into two main groups: first person narrative, and third person narrative.

In the use of the first person narrator, the story is told through the eyes of the 'I' narrator. The first person narrator can only relate incidents that he or she has witnessed, and only he or she can interpreted the situation, therefore in this respect the first person narrative is limited.

We must remember that a first person narrator in a novel is not the novelist but a character who sees things only in the light of his or her own point of view and coloured by his or her personality, therefore events are biased to the narrator's opinion.

This of course can be used to effect in books where the first person narrator is unreliable and therefore we are forced to see a false picture of events. For example in 'The Beach' by Alex Garland, events are told by Richard, a backpacker in Bangkok. In the extract I have chosen, Richard recounts an encounter with 'Mister Duck',