Emily Stanton

0218
Narrative is the voice of a story. It can be sarcastic, sweet, naïve - as diverse as characters themselves. “The Dinner Party” by Joshua Ferris and “I am Twenty-one” by Mary Robison are short stories that exemplify a strong narrative.

Narrative is established though multiple literary devices: point of view, tone, and dialogue. Together, these components create the voice that tells the story. It is important to have a distinctive and strong narrative voice in fiction because narrative brings a story to life. Readers do not want to read a story that is narrated by a boring character just like they do not want to listen to a story read by a boring person. For a story to have a strong narrative all the components, tone, dialogue, and point of view, must be distinct in their own rights.

Point of view can be thought of as a “vantage point” in literature. Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction, states that point of view ultimately concerns the relationship among the writer, characters, and reader. With first person, a character from the story is the narrator. Stories written in the first person will use “I” and “me”. With second person, you, the reader, are assigned characteristics and reactions. Often, stories in the second person will address the reader directly with “you”. With third person, the author is the narrator. The authorial voice can vary in degree of knowledge about the story’s universe. Burroway states that there are three types of authorial narration – the omniscient author, who has total knowledge and tells us directly what we are supposed to think, the limited omniscient author, who has some, but not all, of the omniscient author’s freedom, and the objective author, who restricts knowledge to the external facts like the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

“I am Twenty-one” is told in the first person. “How could he be finished, even if he’d given just a cursory treatment to the three questions? He was a quitter, a skimmer, and I decided – a person who denied detail.” With first person narration, Robison really lets the reader into the mind of his character. The narrative is strong because the character is strong. The reader can better understand the character’s motives and thought process and thus better understand the narrative.

“The Dinner Party” is told in the third person. ‘“You could stick your tongue down her throat instead of the kiss goodbye,” she offered casually as she continued to dice.” Ferris uses an object authorial narrative. This way readers can judge and make conclusions about the characters and plot independently.

Dialogue is also an important part of narrative. Burroway states in Writing Fiction that “speech represents an effort, mainly voluntary, to externalize the internal and to manifest not only taste or preference but deliberate thought.” Dialogue is a way for character narratives to shine within a story that is told from the third person. It also fleshes out characters and reinforces plot.

Ferris uses dialogue in “The Dinner Party” to create a strong narrative and develop his characters. ‘“…We politely look away, like they’ve just decided to take a crap on the dinner table.”’ The dialogue between the husband and wife brings the story to life with sarcasm and banter.