Narrators Who Address You
A narrator can speak to the reader
- Narrators may function as characters in the narrative who directly address readers.
- You will think me foolish for what follows is not description — it is an approach.
- The moment a narrator addresses you, you are inside the text as someone with a role.
Recalling or describing as they occur
- Such narrators either recall events or describe them as they occur.
- A narrator recalling knows the ending, and every sentence is coloured by it.
- A narrator describing as events occur does not, and can be surprised in front of you.
Select all the ways such narrators handle events, per the CED.
The CED names exactly those two.
Telling the two apart
- Look for hindsight: I did not know then, it would be three years before.
- Look for its absence: a narrator who reports a knock at the door with no comment does not yet know who is there.
- One sentence is usually enough to settle it, and it changes every reading afterwards.
Recall, in-the-moment, or direct address?
Sort each sentence by what it shows about the narration.
"I did not know then" shows the narration is...
The narrator knows the outcome and is writing from after it.
A recalling narrator knows the ending, and it colours every sentence. Reading their early judgements as innocent observation misses that they were written by someone who already knows how it turned out — which is often the whole irony of the story.
A direct address usually asks the reader for sympathy, judgement, ____, or permission.
A narrator who keeps asking for sympathy expects to need it.
Why direct address is used
- Addressing the reader asks for something: sympathy, judgement, complicity, or permission to continue.
- Ask what this narrator is asking you for.
- A narrator who keeps asking for sympathy is usually a narrator who expects to need it.
A recalling narrator's early judgements can be read as innocent observation.
They were written by someone who already knows how it turned out.
Match each sentence to what it reveals.
One sentence often settles the whole reading that follows.
A narrator-as-character pass
- Does the narrator address the reader? Quote the moment.
- Is the narration recall or in-the-moment? Quote the sentence that settles it.
- What is the narrator asking the reader for at that point?
"You would have done the same, and I ask you to remember that." The narrator addresses the reader, asks for complicity rather than sympathy, and — with would have — reveals that the events are being recalled from a position where their outcome is already known.
Narrators may function as characters who directly address readers, and they either recall events or describe them as they occur. Hindsight markers settle which. Ask what the direct address is asking the reader for — sympathy, judgement, complicity, or permission.