William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

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A writer’s choice of the narrator plays a crucial role in the way a reader perceives a work of fiction. There is a distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, which Gerard Genette describes as homodiegetic and heterodiegetic narrative, respectively. A homodiegetic narrator is a character in the story and describes his own personal experiences. A heterodiegetic narrator on the other hand describes the experiences of other characters in the story. ++ Some stories may have an omniscient author who employs multiple points of view as well as comments on events as they occur. ++ Most narrators present their stories either from first-person narrative mode or third-person limited mode or omniscient narrative…show more content…
The first-person narrative emphasises the feelings and opinions of a particular character in a story and also the way the character perceives the world and other characters in the story. Sometimes a novel or a story might have multiple narrators who narrate the story from different points of view. ++ An example of the use of multiple narrators is William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying in which he uses the stream of consciousness technique to narrate the story from various perspectives. Narrative tradition has continued to influence the lives of people since ancient times. In ancient communities tales were often narrated by the elders and were passed down from generation to generation. Such stories are shaped by a relationship between the narrator and the audience. Oral narrative tradition precedes writing and may
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