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 :