Question-  What is the meaning of Narrative Techniques? Explain types of narrative technique with examples.

Ans-

Narratives are works that provide an account of connected events. To put it simply, a narrative is a story. There are many types of literature that are considered narratives, including novels, dramas, fables, folk tales, short stories, and poetry. In addition to literature, narratives are found in cinema, music, and theatre.

Narrative techniques provide deeper meaning for the reader and help the reader use imagination to visualize situations. Narrative literary techniques are also known as literary devices. Before we look too closely at narrative techniques, it's important to understand that literary elements in narratives include such things as the setting, plot, theme, style or structure, characters, and perspective, or voice of the story, since literary techniques are best understood in the context of one of these elements.

Types of Narrative Techniques with Examples

1. Setting: This technique is particularly popular in Gothic fiction, here a house or landscape are used almost as an additional character in the story, setting the mood and having a significant influence on the protagonist.

Example of Setting: The buildings of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte are often described as cold and miserable places, reflecting the characters that live inside.

2. Foreshadowing: As the name suggests, writers will use foreshadowing to suggest events or outcomes that will happen later in the writing, using either characters or objects within the story.

Example of Foreshadowing: My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love." Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

3. Cliffhanger: A cliffhanger is when a story is left open-ended and unresolved. This is a commonly used narrative technique in television and film, as creators want the viewers to come back for the next episode or sequel to see if the answers are revealed.

Example of Cliffhanger: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens has plenty of examples of cliffhangers throughout the story. It was originally released in weekly newspapers and chapter endings were left deliberately open ended to encourage readers to purchase the next week's issue.

4. Flashback or Flash Forward: Taking the reader out of an otherwise chronological story, a flashback or flash forward will show events that happened in the past or future that impact the characters in the present day of the story timeline.

Example of Flash Forward: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of the most notable examples of flash forward in classic literature.

5. Red Herring : Red herrings are popular in crime and mystery writing in particular, where writers divert the attention of the reader onto another character or element of the story in order to distract them from the truth.

Example of Red Herring : A staple of the mystery genre. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sees Sherlock Holmes navigating numerous red herrings while solving a murder.

6. Epiphany: A sudden realization by a character can have a dramatic impact on a story. This is usually in relation to a problem that a character has been facing and a solution or different perspective emerges.

Example of Epiphany : In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the title character realizes that he must take revenge for his father's murder while sailing to England.

7. First-Person Narrator: When using this narrative perspective, a writer tells the story from the point of view of one character. In most cases this is the protagonist, but not always.

Example of First-Person Narrator: The narrative of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is told through the eyes of Jane ten years after the events of the novel.

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