The Function of Narrator in 3 Short Fiction

The cashier in a short story provides for the readers the eyes and mind by which they cope with and understand everything that happens in the story. He affects the perspective by which they approach and synopsis the story. The narrator al counsellings creates a indwelling outdoor stage for the reader, however omniscient and objective the generator makes him out to be, because choosing a particular viewpoint in which to tell the story would omit some aspects of a story that could be fancyd further had the author chosen another character or viewpoint by which to narrate the plot. The choice of narrator, therefore, affects the over every last(predicate) reading.The narrator of the plot, however, is carefully chosen by the source in order to accomplish the said subjective viewpoint that the author would like the reader to overprotect from his reading. This paper would examine the functions of the narrators in three short stories, namely A& deoxyadenosine monophosphateP by John Updike, Everyday Use by Alice Walker, and The Jilting of naan Weatherall by Katherine Anne Porter. Updikes A&P is the story of Sammy, a juvenile sales clerk at an A&P grocery, whose dense day at work suddenly becomes signifi cleart when three young ladies come into the store in their swimsuits.Sammy fantasizes about the girls, especially on the wiz he names as Queenie, the prettiest and leader of the group. However, Lengel, the store manager, does not handle Sammys appreciation for the girls when he confronts the trio about the inappropriateness of their clothing. Sammy defends the girls from the prude manager and resigns right there and then, hoping at the identical time that his apparent movement would be appreciated by the girls. The story is narrated in the first soulfulness by the hero, Sammy.The theme of the story is about disappointment and disillusionment afterwards responding to what the individual believes is an impulsive call for heroism or a discover to rise from ones lowly and commonplace existence. By apply the booster as narrator, Updike is able to juxtapose the discrepancy between conjuring trick and reality. Sammy, we learn from his own narration, aspires for a bigger and better flavor than what all the small-town people he considers as like sheep pushing their carts (Updike) have. He is blase with his work, the unexciting town, and carriage in general.The girls, coming from a more plastered part of town, are a breed apart from him and the regulars of A&P, and one that he would like to be a part of someday. When he sees the opportunity to defend the girls from Lengel, he thinks the girls would thank him and probably, befriend him. The train of level offts and associations he must have imagined at the sight of those girls and the fact that he defended them consumes him, plenteous for him to make the sudden decision of resigning from his job. The final disappointment however, is just as strong in its impact when he r ealizes that the girls have gone without even acknowledging his heroic act.The reader feels the sting of reality check along with Sammy when the protagonist expresses I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter. (Updike) In Alice Walkers Everyday Use, the narrator is Mama or Mrs. Johnson, an African-American living in the South just after the age of emancipation. She is uneducated, lived, and prevaild a hard bearing. Mrs. Johnson still carries the old feelings when blacks were uncomfortable in the front end of whites yet at the same time, are very proud of their primeval African heritage.The conflict in the plot plays up the differences between Mrs. Johnsons generation and her daughters. Dee, intelligent and educated in the city, has her own way of regarding her indigenous identity. She looks at her African-American heritage as something one displays for others to admire. She visits her nonplus to get a butter churn top and dasher which she would bring bear out with her to the city where she would display them like museum pieces in her home. Mrs. Johnson, however, could not understand why one needs to display these everyday things when they could be put to their mean uses.The conflict climaxes at the point when Dee asks for the quilt Mama already promised to get around the other daughter, Maggie, on her matrimony. Mrs. Johnson refuses adamantly. You just dont understandyour heritage, (Walker) Dee accuses her take and sister. Walker could have chosen Dee as the narrator of the story and the same theme would still be adequately explored from the conflict between Dee and Mrs. Johnson. afterwards all, it is the dialogues of both characters, specifically their arguments, which move the story forward.Obviously, however, the writer would like the readers to experience with Mrs. Johnson thus allowing her character and her viewpoints to dominate in the text. Mamas soma is the first that the reader meets in the story thus establishing an imme diate comparison between reader and heroine, and the final image is again of her and Maggie just enjoying (Walker) their impartial life, creating the intuitive feeling that her philosophy, ultimately, is the better one. Ones cultural heritage would survive longer and shell valued when it is practiced in everyday life by the members.Mrs. Johnson is right and her daughter Dee, is not. The third story, Katherine Anne Porters The Jilting of naan Weatherall, is told in the third person, but it is the most intimate of the three in that as the narrator leads the reader into the mind of the 80-year old protagonist, Granny Weatherall. It looks into the life and personality of the old woman and allows the reader to realize things that may be vague, unrecognizable and sometimes incomprehensible to the failing mind of its main character.By choosing a third person narrator that delves into the consciousness of the character, the reader becomes acquainted with the Granny Weatheralls personal ity but more important to that, are the revelations that the images that take place through her mindher accomplishments, her sources of pride, the unfinished tasks, her jilted dreams, frustrations, fears, provide for the readers analysis of her character, and in turn, of the meaning of the literary piece. The events of Granny Weatheralls life are presented in snippets, the past overlapping with the present, the sequences of events occur through associations kinda than chronologically.For instance, the sound of rustling leaves outside the window brings back memories of her daughter, Cornelia, when she was a boor that in turn, triggers more memories from her hard life, and all that she has survived and outlived. The most poignant memory, however, is that of her wedding day 60 years ago where she was jilted by her lover at the altar. At the end of the reading, one does not only get a whole picture from the fragments of memories but also realize that the writer has attempted to recr eate the experience of dying in prose form and succeeds in it.By choosing to narrate the story through the consciousness of the old woman, the reader gets the impression of Death hovering everywhere in the story from Grannys dissolution from everything thats happening, to the flashbacks, and her struggles to look through a whirl of dark dope (Porter) that blurs the images in her mind and disorients her. The final betrayal mentioned in the final paragraph, the acknowledgment that what she has long been expecting with the coming of death might not be what genuinely happens in the end after all, becomes more felt as the narrator ends the story with the slow darkening of light until it is fully extinguished.The narrator of a story has a lot to do with both the intention of the writer for writing the story and the lingering effect that the story has upon the reader as he thinks about what he read and attempts to analyze it. One can read two stories with the same plot yet employing di fferent narrators and he would realize the different effects produced by the readings. There is no best narrator as all stories can be told in conglomerate perspectives however, the fact is that the quality of the final narrative would depend greatly on how the narrator tells the story and what the reader gets from his viewpoint.