Narrative Text

Narrative text is a kind of text to retell the story that past tense. 

The purpose of the text is to entertain or to amuse the readers or listeners about the story.

Function:

• To entertain the readers.
• To teach or inform.
• To change social opinion.

The generic structure of Narrative text :

1. Orientation :

It set the scene and introduce the participants (it answers the question : who, when, what, and where).

2.      Complication :

Tells the problems of the story and how the main characters solve them. This part includes situations, activities, or events that lead problem/complication to the climax.it shows when the crisis arise.

3.      Resolution :

The crisis is revolved, for better or worse. It shows the end of the story, usually a happy ending.

Other generic structures of narrative text:

·         Evaluation        : (optional) The stepping back to evaluate the story or the moral message of the story

·         Coda                 : (optional) changes of the characters of lesson / value of the story.

·         Re-orientation   : (optional) The ending of the story.

The grammatical features of narrative texts are :

·         Use of adjectives to build noun groups to describe the people, animals or things in the story, such as… a nice, diligent and kind-hearted man, etc.

·         Use of time connectives and conjunctions to sequence events through time, such as however, although, later, then.

·         Use of adverbs and adverbial phrases to locate the particular events, such as once upon a time, long time ago.

·         Use of past tenses, such as Aji Saka went to the kingdom, measured the size of the turban, etc.

·         Use of action verbs to indicate the actions, such as stood, explained, provided, smashed.

·         Use of saying and thinking verbs to indicate what characters are feeling thinking or saying, such as told, realized, decided.

The kind of narrative texts are :

·         Legend: Lake Toba, Malin Kundang, etc.

·         Fable: Crocodile and Mouse Deer, etc.

·         A fairy tale: Snow White, Cinderella, Pinocchio etc.

·         Mystery: Mirror, The Ring, Ghost Ship, etc.

·         Science fiction: SpiderMan, Fantastic 4, etc.

Example of narrative text :