Literary Narrative Passages · Lesson 2

The narrator and shifts in time

Start every literary passage by asking who is telling the story. A first-person narrator says I and my and is a character in the story. A third-person narrator says she, he, or they and stands outside the action. Questions about point of view often turn on this one fact.

Many first-person passages are told by an adult looking back. Watch for phrases such as I was eleven the summer, at the time, I have since, and now. They mean there are two narrators in one: the child who lived the events and the adult who understands them differently. A question about what the narrator felt then needs the child's view; a question about what the narrator realizes or remembers often needs the adult's.

Also watch for flashbacks, scenes from earlier than the main action. Signals include the night before, years earlier, and verbs with had (I had watched her pack). When the passage returns to the main action, the had usually drops away.

Six Stops

1I was eleven the summer my sister Noor and I rode the overnight bus to our aunt's farm, and I have since taken longer trips, on faster vehicles, to places much farther away. None of them has seemed as long. At the time, I measured the distance in snacks: Noor had packed exactly one bag of pretzels for each of the six stops, and she would not open a bag until the bus had fully stopped.

2Noor was seventeen and had been put in charge. I understood this mainly as a list of things I could no longer do. I could not switch seats. I could not talk to the man across the aisle who was knitting a scarf the color of a traffic cone. I could not, she said, "narrate everything out the window," which was the only activity I had planned.

3The night before we left, I had watched her pack. She had laid our clothes on her bed in two columns, mine and hers, and checked each item against a list our mother had written. Then she had added things that were not on the list: a flashlight, a deck of cards, a paperback with the cover torn off, and a small bag of the lemon candies I liked, which she tucked into the bottom of my backpack without telling me. I did not find them until the fourth stop.

4By then it was past midnight, and the bus was quiet except for the engine and the knitting needles. I held up the candies, and Noor shrugged as if they had arrived on their own. We played cards on the armrest with the flashlight balanced in her lap, and somewhere between the fourth stop and the fifth, she started narrating the dark fields herself, in a low voice, inventing what we would have seen if it had been day.

5I have asked her since whether she remembers that night. She says she remembers being tired and worried that she had forgotten something. I remember that she had not forgotten anything, and that by the fifth stop I had stopped counting the pretzel bags.

Worked example Easy

Show the whole passage

Six Stops

1I was eleven the summer my sister Noor and I rode the overnight bus to our aunt's farm, and I have since taken longer trips, on faster vehicles, to places much farther away. None of them has seemed as long. At the time, I measured the distance in snacks: Noor had packed exactly one bag of pretzels for each of the six stops, and she would not open a bag until the bus had fully stopped.

2Noor was seventeen and had been put in charge. I understood this mainly as a list of things I could no longer do. I could not switch seats. I could not talk to the man across the aisle who was knitting a scarf the color of a traffic cone. I could not, she said, "narrate everything out the window," which was the only activity I had planned.

3The night before we left, I had watched her pack. She had laid our clothes on her bed in two columns, mine and hers, and checked each item against a list our mother had written. Then she had added things that were not on the list: a flashlight, a deck of cards, a paperback with the cover torn off, and a small bag of the lemon candies I liked, which she tucked into the bottom of my backpack without telling me. I did not find them until the fourth stop.

4By then it was past midnight, and the bus was quiet except for the engine and the knitting needles. I held up the candies, and Noor shrugged as if they had arrived on their own. We played cards on the armrest with the flashlight balanced in her lap, and somewhere between the fourth stop and the fifth, she started narrating the dark fields herself, in a low voice, inventing what we would have seen if it had been day.

5I have asked her since whether she remembers that night. She says she remembers being tired and worried that she had forgotten something. I remember that she had not forgotten anything, and that by the fifth stop I had stopped counting the pretzel bags.

The passage is told from the point of view of:

  1. an adult recalling a trip taken as a childAnswer
  2. an eleven-year-old describing a trip as it happens
  3. Noor, remembering the trip years later
  4. an outside observer watching both sisters

How to solve it

  1. Check the pronouns: I and my, so a first-person narrator who is in the story.
  2. Check the time words: "I have since taken longer trips" means the telling happens years later.
  3. Choose the adult-looking-back choice.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Correct. The narrator says "I was eleven the summer" and "I have since taken longer trips," so an adult is looking back at childhood.
  • B. Incorrect. An eleven-year-old describing a trip as it happens misses the frame: the narrator writes from later on ("I have since taken longer trips"; "I have asked her since").
  • C. Incorrect. Noor is the sister the narrator describes ("my sister Noor and I"); she does not tell the story.
  • D. Incorrect. The narrator says I and rides the bus, so the narrator is a character, not an outside observer.

Worked example Medium

Show the whole passage

Six Stops

1I was eleven the summer my sister Noor and I rode the overnight bus to our aunt's farm, and I have since taken longer trips, on faster vehicles, to places much farther away. None of them has seemed as long. At the time, I measured the distance in snacks: Noor had packed exactly one bag of pretzels for each of the six stops, and she would not open a bag until the bus had fully stopped.

2Noor was seventeen and had been put in charge. I understood this mainly as a list of things I could no longer do. I could not switch seats. I could not talk to the man across the aisle who was knitting a scarf the color of a traffic cone. I could not, she said, "narrate everything out the window," which was the only activity I had planned.

3The night before we left, I had watched her pack. She had laid our clothes on her bed in two columns, mine and hers, and checked each item against a list our mother had written. Then she had added things that were not on the list: a flashlight, a deck of cards, a paperback with the cover torn off, and a small bag of the lemon candies I liked, which she tucked into the bottom of my backpack without telling me. I did not find them until the fourth stop.

4By then it was past midnight, and the bus was quiet except for the engine and the knitting needles. I held up the candies, and Noor shrugged as if they had arrived on their own. We played cards on the armrest with the flashlight balanced in her lap, and somewhere between the fourth stop and the fifth, she started narrating the dark fields herself, in a low voice, inventing what we would have seen if it had been day.

5I have asked her since whether she remembers that night. She says she remembers being tired and worried that she had forgotten something. I remember that she had not forgotten anything, and that by the fifth stop I had stopped counting the pretzel bags.

Compared with paragraph 2, paragraph 3 shifts the narrative by:

  1. moving ahead to the sisters' arrival at the farm
  2. retelling the trip from Noor's point of view
  3. going back to the night before the trip beganAnswer
  4. jumping forward to the narrator's present-day view

How to solve it

  1. Look at the first words of paragraph 3: "The night before we left."
  2. Notice the verb form: "I had watched," "She had laid," "she had added."
  3. Both signals point to a flashback before the trip.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. The farm is never reached in the passage; paragraph 3 moves backward, not ahead.
  • B. Incorrect. The narrator still tells paragraph 3 ("I had watched her pack"); the point of view does not change.
  • C. Correct. "The night before we left, I had watched her pack" signals a flashback with both a time phrase and the had verb form.
  • D. Incorrect. The present-day view comes in paragraph 5 ("I have asked her since"), not in paragraph 3. This is the right idea in the wrong paragraph.

Trap Mixing up the narrator then and now

When an adult tells a childhood story, the child and the adult can see the same event differently. In "Six Stops," the eleven-year-old sees Noor's rules as "a list of things I could no longer do," while the adult remembers that "she had not forgotten anything."

Before you answer, ask which narrator the stem means: the child at the time, or the adult telling the story. A choice that gives the child the adult's understanding, or the reverse, is a trap.