1. Exploring narrative voice

2. The narrator is a creation the author uses to:
• Organise
• Select
• Present information
The narrator may also:
• Comment and judge
• Directly address the reader
• Be a participant in their own narrative
• Be a detached observer
• Be ‘transparent’, appearing to speak for the author

3. Consider these aspects:
• A. Pronoun p-o-v: First (I, We)/Second (You)/Third
Person (He, She, It, They)
• B. Narrator’s degree of Omniscience; Full,
Limited, None
• C. Narrator’s degree of Objectivity; Complete,
None, Some, Ironic
• D. Narrator’s Un/Reliability

4. A narrator can:
Either:
Or
• Belong to the same reality as • Stand outside the story
the characters
• Tell the story without any
• Participate in the story
involvement
• Be perceptive
• Misread events
• Play a role in the story (the
• Be ‘invisible’ (the reader is
reader is aware of the narrator
unaware of any narrator)
as a character)
• Be unreliable (deliberately
• Be reliable (the reader believes misleading) or inadequate
what the narrator relates)
(unperceptive)

5. Introducing Lockwood as the ‘frame narrator’
Lockwood is not the only narrator in
Wuthering Heights. However, his
narrative contains all the other stories.
This type of narrator is called a
‘frame narrator’. This provides an
alternating point of view. One of the
ways to frame the narrative is by
adding epistolary elements.

6. Compare Lockwood’s and Nelly’s narratives

7. Lockwook
• On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and
extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the
copestone on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on
stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive;
but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant
masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the
miscreants to let me out—on their peril to keep me one minute longer—with several
incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of
King Lear
Ellen
• As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if
about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that
some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward,
and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house
was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was
inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity. With
straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not
hit the right room directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I
could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his
arms.

8. • What can you say about the narrative voice of
these extracts?

9. Extract One
.
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my
infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit
than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone
and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never
saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them
(for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies
regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their
tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair.

10. Extract Two
As he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, whereon Minerva said, "Sir, all that
you have said is well; now, however, order the tongues of the victims to be cut, and
mix wine that we may make drink-offerings to Neptune, and the other immortals,
and then go to bed, for it is bed time. People should go away early and not keep
late hours at a religious festival."
Thus spoke the daughter of Jove, and they obeyed her saying. Men servants
poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixing-bowls
with wine and water, and handed it round after giving every man his drink-offering;
then they threw the tongues of the victims into the fire, and stood up to make
their drink-offerings. When they had made their offerings and had drunk each as
much as he was minded, Minerva and Telemachus were forgoing on board their
ship, but Nestor caught them up at once and stayed them.

11. Extract Three
There was music from my neighbor's house through the
summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and
went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne
and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his
guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on
the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the
waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of
foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus,
bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the
morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon
scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on
Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all
day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and
garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.

12. Extract Four
• Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the
deficiency of nature had been but little assisted
by education or society; the greatest part of his
life having been spent under the guidance of an
illiterate and miserly father; and though he
belonged to one of the universities, he had
merely kept the necessary terms, without
forming at it any useful acquaintance. The
subjection in which his father had brought him up
had given him originally great humility of
manner; but it was now a good deal counteracted
by the self-conceit of a weak head.

13. Extract Five
• Mr. Jeavons said that I liked maths because it
was safe. He said I liked maths because it
meant solving problems, and these problems
were difficult and interesting but there was
always a straightforward answer at the end.
And what he meant was that maths wasn’t
like life because in life there are no
straightforward answers at the end.