Commentaryon the passage from Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone is taken from chapter four of the narrative.

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English

Kate Etienne

Commentary

The passage from Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone is taken from chapter four of the narrative. The passage suggests that this work is a fictitious novel due to the form of prose as well as its lack of factual reference. This section of prose is one which contains great amounts of description and is effective in pulling the reader into the narrative in a short period of time. The reader is introduced to two characters in this section and is allowed to learn much about both in a short period mostly through description and not through delving into inner thought. Much of this is achieved through the use of narrative voice.

The narrative voice used by the author of this passage is that of first person narrator. The narrator of this passage is Mr. Betteredge. Mr. Betteredge is speaking to us, the reader, which is an affective way of drawing the reader further into the narrative. He is an elderly gentleman; we know this by the reference he gives to the difficulty he has sitting down on the beach,

"When you come to my age, you will find sitting