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Through the eyes of the storyteller

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Sometimes the narrator offers us a very limited view, other times the narrator offers us a blow by blow account of the story that they have to tell.

Through the eyes of the narrator we can either see the whole, bigger picture, or just get a partial view, a mere glimpse into the life of the characters that we’re sharing a journey with whilst reading.

The eyes of the narrator largely impact how we feel about the characters we encounter. Our narrator will have certain prejudices or biases that will come into play, and often it is difficult to see things any differently to how our narrator perceives and experiences people and events and then relates it to us – just think about how you felt about Professor Snape in Harry Potter.

Let’s look at The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. Narrated by the boys in the neighbourhood the Lisbon girls stayed in. For years it has been a mystery that I have been unable to solve. Why did those girls feel that committing suicide was their only way out?

It has driven me crazy that I can find no answer to that question, until it dawned on my during my last reread that there is no way that I could ever solve the mystery of the Lisbon girls.

I could offer theories, I could make guesses, I could infer meaning to their actions during their last weeks – but I could never find an answer.

There never would be an answer because that is what Eugenides meant for the book to be. If 25 years after the tragic way that the Lisbon girls ended their lives, those who were most intrigued by them could not figure out why they did it, how could I?

The boys, now men are still enchanted by those girls that they could not figure out – they still cannot figure them out. They still cannot get them out of their minds. How would I, who could never look at the before and after of the Lisbon girls since Cecilia’s death be able to figure it out?

I can only see things as the narrators do, and they only had an outside view, not being able to intervene and save the girls. Even the information that they gather through the interviews that they conducted could never help them to piece the puzzle together – the information, was also from the outside - so it was a perspective or an opinion – not the actual truth.

Our narrators didn’t see what it is that pushed those girls, or who suggested the mass suicide. We can never know, because the ones that do know are not alive to tell us.

On the other hand, we have 13 Reasons Why, and I assure you I’ll not only be looking at books with suicide, this is just to make a point. In 13 Reasons Why we know exactly why Hannah Baker decided to end her life.

On the tapes that Clay receives, we hear the whole story as to why she did it, the catalysing factor that started this whole process is revealed to us. Whilst reading this book you feel like you are there listening to the tapes, on the one hand you feel like you are there with Clay as you go through the devastating truths of why she did it.

You experience the way that Clay hears it and is impacted by it all; how Clay is the only one that didn’t really hurt her. On the other hand, you feel like you are there with Hannah, in her shoes – experiencing it all, listening and understanding why she did it.

What Hannah wants you to see is that a lie, or insult, no matter how harmless it may seem at first can alter someone’s life forever, so you need to be careful – you don’t know what your words can do.

A similar thing happens in 10 Things We Did (and probably shouldn’t have). We get the full story, all 10 hilarious misadventures – from a hot tub to chlamydia, to the fear of being found out by the parents who believe that none of these things are happening, but that everything is above board.

You feel like you’ve had the same crazy adventure that you could, maybe, tell your kids about one day and can relive with your friends for years to come, because that is how the narrator has seen and experienced it.

It is quite a different thing when we have an all knowing narrator, who knows how it’s going to end before it begins so can tell the story from many angles. Here I am thinking of Callie from Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex.

All knowing, Callie takes us through 3 generations of the Stefanides family so that we can see how it is that Callie came to be. There is also J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye – where we have Holden Caulfield who starts and finishes with the end of his story.

Then you get books like The Color Purple by Alice Walker where we have Celie – whose story we see through her journal entries. Her innermost private thoughts – that she puts down writing to God – perhaps the most open and honest narrator of all?

There are also instances of confusion, where your narrator is as lost as you are because of their distorted view of reality - being unable to distinguish what is real to what is actually fantasy.

Here I am referring to Shutter Island, where we have the story of Teddy as he believes it to be, only finding out at the end that his reality is distorted, so you feel quite mislead and hoodwinked when you see what it is that really happened.

These are but a few narrators that have stood out for me over the years, I am certain that there are many others whose narrative style or story I have not touched on here.

Who are your favourite narrators? Which narrative style do you enjoy or abhor?


This post was submitted by Women24 reader and book blogger, Terri Rens. Read more on her book blog.

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