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The Use of the Narration in Storytelling
Every writer desires to capture the reader’s attention and thus successfully pass across their intended messages to the audience. As a result, many literary works employ various styles and unique characters to achieve their goals. One technique is the use of narration. This approach involves determining the point of view of the audience through storytelling. In this case, the narrator adopts various forms, such as being a protagonist or antagonist to make reflections from what he observes. As a result, he influences the reader’s thoughts in understanding the plot of the story. He also develops assumptions on the settings and characters in the play. Two authors who employ the narration technique in some of their works include Mark Twain and Charles Chesnutt, who help the reader better understand their content and specific themes.
In The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain, Simon Wheeler tells the narrator, Mark Twain, a tale on how Jim Smiley loves gambling and is thus willing to roll the dice in anything, especially animals (Twain 9). Wheeler, whom he meets at Angel’s Camp, shares details of how Smiley would bet on which bird would fly before the other and whether one would recover from their illness. Twain further alludes that Smiley owns a dog who assisted him in his gambling escapades. The bulldog would often bite the hinds of a fellow dog and thus emerge a winner, but one day failed when he encountered a dog without legs. Wheeler continues his narrative by highlighting Smiley’s jumping frog, Dan’l Webster, who outsmarted all other frogs in the Calaveras Country. Smiley then placed a bet of forty dollars with anyone who could come up with a superior frog. Unexpectedly, a stranger shows up without a frog but ready to win his way through the gamble. Smiley thus leaves Dan’l with him as he fetches another frog for the competitor. Cunningly, the stranger feeds him with buckshot, thus limiting his jumping capability due to increased weight. As a result, Smiley has to pay off the stranger but soon realizes the treachery and chases him to get a refund to avail. After this insight, Wheeler leaves to meet a visitor but urges the narrator to wait a bit. He intends to continue with more stories such as the tale of a one-eyed cow without a tail. Nonetheless, the bored narrator concludes that he is in pursuit of an inexistent Smiley. His mission relied on what his friend in the East had told him about Leonidas Smiley having moved to the West to some miners in Angel’s camp where Wheeler was sharing the tales (Twain 5). With an affirmation, he leaves poor Wheeler to run other errands.
By the use of the narrator and the frame technique, the author achieves the concentration of the reader. Such developments facilitate an in-depth analysis of the story. This relation often influences the reader to paint a picture of the narrative from the story teller’s point of view as they recognize an identification with the narrator. In Twain’s work, the narrator points out various issues that occur in society, such as problematic gambling, fraud, and deception ironically and humorously that reflects on the differences in the Western and Eastern America. The book came to the limelight when people viewed the latter as more civilized and developed as compared to the former. The fewer educators Westerners face ridicule as represented by Wheeler, who tells is stories in a monotonous way through poor grammar constructions and use of syntax (Twain 7). This behavior leaves Twain bored and eager to leave. The narration, however, changes the reader’s perception of these two groups. Firstly, despite being cultured, Twain is satirically duped by his friend and Wheeler as nothing substantial comes from his mission to Angel’s Camp. Further, the reader gains a positive attitude, Wheeler, since, despite being a Westerner, he creates original stories with characters and names that resemble the Country’s national figures. Secondly, through the exaggeration in narration, one creates an imagery of a human being or animals with above-standard capabilities. One views Smiley’s character as a talented individual in gambling while some of his pets a fly or even fight for long durations. Additionally, the reader perceives the animals as having human characteristics such as modesty, tempers, arrogance, and determination. As a result, the reader can translate the lessons from the story into the real world by encouraging realism, open-minded, and minimizing the ease of deception.
On the other hand, in The Goophered Grapevine by Charles Waddell Chesnutt, the narrator travels with his wife to inspect a fertile vineyard that he intends to purchase despite being neglected since the civil war (Chesnutt 1). However, one of the former captives, Julius McAdoo, advises them not to but the property as it is bewitched. He refers to the story of the original owner who grew tired of the slaves stealing his grapes, thus asked a conjuring lady to cast a spell on the grounds (Chesnutt 3). As such, any fruit thief would die within twelve months of eating the fruit. On one occasion, a new slave, Henry, feeds on the fruit out of ignorance. He is thus taken to the woman to reverse the spell. She asks him to rub the vine’s sap to restore his life. Consequently, he began transforming from an older man into a youth with grape-like hair every time the fruits grew (Chesnutt 5). Soon enough, the individual tricks the master that he would increase the grape production but ends up destroying the crops, thus killing Henry. Julius asserts that the master died in the civil war, and he is currently the only one left to feed on the grapes. The narrator, however, settles on purchasing the vineyard, which in turn thrives hence portraying Julius’s deception.
Similar to Twain’s book, Chesnutt makes use of the story within a story technique to tell the narrative of the couple and the former slave. Through the narrator’s tone, the reader develops a perspective on the book’s plot as well as the characters employed by the author. Correspondingly, matters that would previously go unnoticed are manageable. Firstly, all the reflections highlight the tension between the two narrators telling the varied stories. They speak in respectful terms but depict some level of arrogance as each one of them assumes to be smarter than the other. Julius plans to trick the buyer while the white man is keen to prove the disregard accorded to people like the former. Julius’ storytelling skills and the White man’s wisdom throughout their narration help to maintain the reader’s attention to the stories. As a result, there is an outline of community issues such as racism, deception, sorcery, and economic activities. The narrator’s description of Julius displays him as a racist while his mention of grape culture affirms him as a cultivator. The black author, who is a political activist, thus relies on the white narrator to influence people’s perspective on the discrimination faced by non-whites. Firstly, the realization of Julius’ deceptions supports White’s view that Africans do not like working hard and would instead steal or lie to others. They are also illiterate and cannot hence untrustworthy to provide credible information. Secondly, they focus on black magic that raises much fear among the White population. These perceptions help to fulfill the author’s themes.
In conclusion, Mark Twain and Charles Chesnutt make use of a narration technique to tell a story within a story. Through their narrators, they highlight the defects in society on issues such as racism, deception, gambling, and fraud. Moreover, they help to change the reader’s perspectives on the settings of the story and the qualities in question. In Twain’s book, the author changes the views of the public over Westerners. Through his creation, the narrator is civilized and cultured as an Easterner, but the poor and educated manages to dupe him with unrealistic stories. The use of exaggeration assists the reader in painting an image of the situation and gives the animals human characters that make the story more relatable. Alternatively, Chesnutt’s book reflects on the prejudice that Whites have on Blacks. Through the narrator planning to purchase the vineyard, the reader develops an outlook over racism. As justified by Julius, Whites believe that Africans are lazy and prefer to deceive people to make ends meet. Additionally, they add fear to others through their concepts of witches. As a result, the narration has been essential in the portrayal of the books.
Works Cited
Chesnutt, Charles Waddell. The Goophered Grapevine. University of Virginia Library, 1996.
Twain, Mark. The jumping frog: in English, then in French, then clawed back into a civilized language once more by patient, unremunerated toil. Courier Corporation, 1971.