20 Examples of Narrative Speech

The narrative speech It is the story or the communicative reflection that focuses on the facts of a story that is to be transmitted. It emphasizes a series of events and circumstances with a chronological order, a specific structure and the development of characters or of scenes that can be graphed in the viewer's mind. For example: a novel, a story, a myth.

East type of speech is the one used in fiction and non-fiction literature, since texts such as novels, stories, epic in verse and others have a structure in which the reader is offered a path to follow until reaching the end of the narrative that will complete the story in its entirety.

These Narrative texts develop a story and establish a series of events that make up the basic elements of a narrative: beginning, end and end. For example: the story of Cinderella is the narration of the life, the events, misfortunes and moments of struggle of a young woman abused at her stepmother's house, and that she manages to find love by meeting a prince with whom she ends up contracting nuptials.

Narrative discourses are frequently used in areas such as:

• Interviews
• journalistic chronicles
• biographies
• autobiographies
• Testimonials
• anecdotes
• fictional literature

• See also: aesthetic discourse

Characteristics of narrative discourse

Some characteristics of narrative discourse are:

• It maintains a chronological and spatial order. He resorts to a space-time arrangement in which he navigates through the different moments and places in history to complete the intention of the discourse and the presentation of the events. You can start in any order as intended by the author.
• Use the first or third person. has a storyteller, either the protagonist of history, a witness or a omniscient narrator.
• Manage suspense and anticipation. Use a way of narrating that attracts the reader. For the narration to be successful, it must keep the audience wanting to know the ending, because only by having the complete data will its purpose be understood and the meaning closed.

Types of narrative speeches according to their format

The narratives are developed mainly orally or in writing.

• narratives of oral sources. They are those that spread by word of mouth. A person narrates the events and these are spread among the population. Oral narratives were the main way knowledge was transmitted in ancient times. There were figures such as the troubadours, who were poets and musicians who, in the Middle Ages, traveled from city to city telling stories of great warriors and their exploits. Today you can see how oral narration has been modernized with formats such as podcasts or audiobooks.
• narratives from written sources. They are those that are consigned in their material support, such as paper or rock. Since the invention of the modern printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, it has been easier to reproduce in series of texts in paper format so that the stories were massive and more people were able to access they. The passage of time and the development of technology has allowed that at present it is possible to access infinity of texts written through technological devices such as computers, smartphones or books digital.

narrative speech examples

Story

1. Fragment of the story "Hansel and Gretel", by the Grimm brothers.

Hansel and Gretel listened to the conversation and trembled with fear. They knew that sooner or later her stepmother would convince her father. So a few days later, when their stepmother woke them up saying they were all going camping in the woods together, they already knew what was coming.

That morning they received a crust of bread from the woman and her father, with a heavy heart, led them towards the forest. Hansel, however, had filled his pockets with some white pebbles that were in abundance near the house, and every so often he dropped one to mark the way back.

• See the full text at: Hansel and Gretel story

1. Fragment of the story "Goldilocks", from the British oral tradition.

The first thing Goldilocks did was to see if anyone was in the house, but found it completely empty. She walked between the beds straight into the kitchen, and there she found breakfast served in three different sized containers: one large, one medium, and one small. Guided by her stomach, she climbed onto the large chair in front of the largest plate and dipped her spoon into her food.

• See the full text at: Tale of Goldilocks

1. Fragment of the story "Snow White", by the Brothers Grimm

Time passed, and one day the evil queen consulted her magic mirror again, because she had stopped doing so because of how confident she was in her victory. She asked the mirror the same question as always, and the mirror answered: "In a little house in the forest lives Princess Snow White, who is still the most beautiful of women in the kingdom." Horrified, the queen understood that the hunter had lied to her and that Snow White was still alive, so she would have to resort to magical arts to get rid of her rival.

• See the full text at: Snow White's Tale

Novel

1. Fragment of the novel The evil onesby Camila Sosa Villada

They arrive at the house of La Tía Encarna. A two-storey house painted pink that seems abandoned and welcomes you with open arms. They enter through an undecorated corridor and go directly to the patio, surrounded by glass doors through which the faces of transvestites appear with a lot of curiosity in their eyes. From the rooms above comes a falsetto voice singing a sad song that is extinguished by the uproar. One of the girls prepares a fountain, another runs to the pharmacy on duty for diapers and powdered milk for newborns, another looks for clean sheets and towels, another lights a joint. Aunt Encarna speaks to the child in a very low voice, begins the litany, sings softly to him, bewitches him so that he stops crying.

1. Fragment of the novel The lover, by the French writer Marguerite Duras

He is wearing a natural silk dress, used, almost transparent. Previously it was a dress of my mother, one day she stopped wearing it because she considered it too light, she gave it to me. It is a sleeveless dress, very low cut. It has that luster that natural silk acquires with use. I remember that dress. I think it suits me. I put a leather belt around his waist, maybe a belt from my brothers. I don't remember what shoes I was wearing at the time, just some dresses. Most of the time I go barefoot in canvas sandals. I mean the time before the school in Saigon. From then on I always wear shoes, of course. That day I must wear the famous pair of gold lamé high heels. I can't think of what else I could wear that day, so I wear them. Discount sales that my mother bought. I wear those gold lamés to school. I go to school with evening shoes decorated with glitter decorations. Because of a whim. I can only stand myself with that pair of shoes and even now I like myself that way, those high heels are the first of my life, they are beautiful, they have eclipsed all the shoes that have come before them, the running and playing shoes, flats, canvas white.

1. Fragment of the novel lovers of pragueby Alyson Richman

He took pains to dress for the occasion; the ironed suit and polished shoes. As he shaved, he angled each cheek carefully toward the mirror to make sure he didn't miss any point on his face. Earlier, in the afternoon, he had bought a lemon-scented gel to adjust the few curls he had left.

1. Fragment of the novel The noise and the furyby William Faulkner

The door swung inward. He stood in the doorway for a moment, obscuring the room, then stepped aside. "Come in," he said, his voice thick and dazed. They entered. It didn't look like a girl's room. It didn't seem to be anyone's room, its anonymity enhanced by a faint smell of cheap cosmetics and a few odds and ends. feminine and useless efforts to feminize it, giving it that inert and stereotyped transience of the rooms of the houses of quotes. The bed had not been occupied. On the floor lay a worn piece of silk underwear that was a little too pink; a single stocking hung from a half-open drawer. The window was open. There was a pear tree, very close to the house. It was in bloom and the branches scratched and rubbed against the house and the transparent air, blown against the window, introduced the forgotten smell of flowers into the room.

1. book excerpt The year of magical thinkingby Joan Didion

I finished preparing dinner and put it on the table in the living room, from which, when we were alone, we could eat while watching the fire. I grew up in California. John and I lived there together for twenty-four years, and in California we used to heat our houses with the fire in the fireplace. We lit the fire even on summer nights because the fog was coming in. The fire meant that we were home, that we had drawn the circle, that we would be safe for the night. I lit the candles. John ordered me another whiskey before sitting down at the table. I took it to him. We sit. I removed the salad.

Biography

1. Fragment of the biography of the Mexican politician Porfirio Díaz

Díaz fought on the side of the liberals, in which he reached the ranks of major, colonel and lieutenant general. After the Liberal triumph in 1861, he held the position of federal deputy for Oaxaca in the Congress of the Union, a position from which he left to resume combat when the forces conservatives executed the liberals Melchor Ocampo, Leandro Valle and Santos Degollado, just before the Second French Intervention in Mexico (1862-1867).

The suspension of the payments of the debt acquired with Europe by the conservatives during the Civil War, by the President Benito Juárez, was the trigger for the foreign invasion, and French, English and Spanish troops occupied the port from Veracruz.

• See the full text at: Biography of Porfirio Diaz

1. Fragment of the biography of the Mexican politician Benito Juárez.

Juárez was elected interim president in 1858, after Ignacio Comonfort's self-coup (1812-1863), who resigned and joined the conservatives of the Tacubaya Plan. The constitution said that, in the absence of the president, she was in charge of the Executive Power at the head of the country's highest court. But the conservatives, allied with the sectors harmed by the Juarez Law, disregarded the 1857 Constitution (the result of Congress Constituent Assembly of 1856) and proclaimed Félix María Zuloaga (1813-1898) as president, starting the War of Reform or War of the Three years.

• See the full text at: Biography of Benito Juarez

1. Fragment of the biography of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, in her parents' house in Coyoacán, Mexico City. She was baptized Magdalena Carmen Frida Krahlo Calderón, the third daughter (of four) of Guillermo Kahlo, a German immigrant, and Mexican Matilde Calderón. Her childhood was marked by the effects of poliomyelitis, a disease that kept her in bed for nine months and left one leg thinner than the other, for which she later needed rehabilitation.

• See the full text at: Frida Kahlo's biography

Autobiography

1. excerpt from autobiography Before Night Falls, by Reinaldo Arenas

Most of our youth was lost cutting cane, using useless guards, assisting infinite speeches, where the same chant was always repeated, in trying to circumvent the laws repressive; in the incessant struggle to get a pitusa pants or a pair of shoes, in the desire to be able to rent a house on the beach to read poetry or have our erotic adventures, in a struggle to escape the eternal persecution of the police and their arrests.

Chronicle

1. Fragment of journalistic chronicle on the conquest of America

Three boats made up that first European voyage to what they called the "West Indies", believing that they had indeed gone around the world and ended up in Asia. Instead, they found a tropical paradise populated by foreign peoples whom they baptized "Indians" and with whom they quickly established an unequal relationship of exchange: the natural wonders of that mysterious place did not seem to be well guarded by the friendly Taínos, and in the greedy mentality of the first conquerors, that gave them the right to take it all.

• See the full text at: Journalistic chronicle on the conquest of America

1. Fragment of journalistic chronicle on the Second World War

On September 3, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, while the United States tried to remain neutral. With the Soviet Union breaking through on the other side of Polish territory, Warsaw surrendered on the 27th of the same month, so half of its territory was added to what was already called the drittesDeutsches Reich, that is, the third German Empire. Almost a month later, the first German Jews were deported to Polish territory, their property confiscated, and they themselves were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothing.

• See the full text at: Newspaper chronicle of the Second World War

Reportage

1. Fragment of the report to the actress Alicia Vikander about her beginnings in acting

I started working on a soap opera. It was very intense, a true film school. Irma Vep it was shot more like a feature film. Scenes were shot out of order, for example. It's wonderful to stick with a character for a long time, although I like stories to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I am aware that doing television is becoming the norm, but it is not a parameter that I take particularly into account when choosing my roles. What interested me above all was working with Olivier Assayas.

1. Fragment of the report to Taylor Swift about some difficult moments in her career 

When I was 18, they said, "She doesn't write those songs." So I wrote my third album by myself as a reaction to that. Then they decided I had serial boyfriends—a boy-obsessed maneater—when I was 22. So I didn't date anyone for like two years. And then, in 2016, they decided that absolutely everything I did was wrong. If he did something right, it was for the wrong reasons. If he did something brave, he didn't do it well. If she defended me, she was capricious. So I found myself in this endless echo chamber of taunts.

Testimony

1. Fragment of the testimony of the singer Britney Spears, in a court case

When I came out for that I was supposed to do a new show in Vegas. I started rehearsing early, but it was hard because I had been doing Vegas for four years and needed a break in between. But no, they told me this was the schedule and this is how it's going to go. I rehearsed four to four and a half days a week. Half the time in the studio and the other half in a Westlake studio. I was basically running most of the show at my location, where I preferred to rehearse and I actually did most of the choreography, I mean, I showed my dancers my new choreography myself. same. I take everything I do very seriously, there are tons of videos with me in rehearsals, I was not good. It was fantastic.

Myth

1. Narrative fragment of the myth of Pandora

As soon as Pandora removed the lid of the vessel, the sufferings of humanity flew away and They spread throughout the world, giving rise to all the pain and hardship suffered by the race. human. Terrified at the discovery, the woman managed to close the jar at the last minute but she trapped inside from her to the spirit of hope, Elpis, the only good that the gods had locked up in the vessel. That is why hope, as the saying goes, is always the last thing to be lost in this life of work and sorrow.

• See the full text at: pandora myth

1. Narrative fragment of the myth of Medusa

Medusa was the third and only mortal of the gorgons (from the Greek γοργών, "terrible"), three ruthless female beings born from the marine deities Phorcis and Ceto (or in other versions of the sea monsters Typhoon and Echidna). His sisters were Esteno (“the powerful one”) and Euríale (“the one that emerges far away”). All three are described in numerous classical sources, from Homer to the theogony of Hesiod (7th century BC). C.), with more or less monstrous features and they are attributed a home in the sea, close to what we know today as Libya.

• See the full text at: Medusa Myth

Follow with:

• business speech
• argumentative speech
• direct and indirect speech