Understanding Narrative Texts: Elements, Types and Structures

Understanding Narrative Texts and Their Core Elements

Narrative texts serve as a medium through which someone passes on a story set in a specific place, involving characters, and determined by differentiating moments. A narrative text tells a story where events are transmitted through a communicative act, conveying a specific message.

To have a proper narrative, we need someone to tell the story, characters to whom things happen, and a specific place and moment in which the events take place.

Types of Narrators

The narrator tells the story and can be of different types, depending on whether they participate in the story (internal narrator) or not (external narrator), expressed through grammatical persons:

• Internal Narrator / Main Character: This narrator tells us the story of what they are experiencing, which we call an autobiographical story. This type of narrative uses the 1st person singular.
• Witness Narrator: This narrator is a secondary character and uses the 3rd person singular.
• Omniscient Narrator: This narrator participates absolutely in the story and can tell us all the details, entering the thoughts and motivations of the characters, knowing the past and the future.
• External Narrator: This narrator transmits the story as if we were right there, observing from the outside.

Characters in Narratives

The characters to whom the story's events happen can be classified as:

• Protagonist: Acts in a direct manner in the events and receives the consequences, whether beneficial or provocative.
• Secondary Characters: Support the protagonist and enrich the plot.

Narrative Time and Structure

The time of a narrative is the succession of events, which can usually be deduced from the context. However, sometimes time is flexible and can advance or retrocede through specific techniques:

• Prolepsis (Flashforward): Advancing what will occur after a certain point in the story's development.
• Analepsis (Flashback): Going back to some past space or event within the story's timeline.

Forms of Narrative and Short Genres

Optimized narratives take various forms depending on their structure and objective:

The Brief Narrative

A narrative form interested in a concrete event that often surprises the reader in a way they might not expect, focusing on the consequences of what happens.

Folktales and Fables

These are among the oldest narrative texts, transmitted orally from generation to generation. When a story is dedicated to giving a lesson, it is called a fable, and these often have no known author.

Legends

Similar to a tale or fable, but this genre does not pretend to teach a moral lesson; it is normally anonymous.

Fables vs. Stories

Fables have the specific objective of teaching us attitudes or behaviors. The main difference between a fable and a standard story is that fables are usually starred by different animals acting as models for human behavior.