Narrative Techniques In Roland Barthes

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Storytelling is an essential part of human nature. Man is the only creature that tells stories. Man has been telling stories and listening to them since the time he learnt to speak. The storytelling began with oral traditions and in forms of myths, legends, fables, anecdotes, ballads etc. These were told and retold and were passed down from generation to generation and they show the knowledge and wisdom of early people.

Narrative techniques are the methods that authors use to give certain artistic and emotional effects to a story. Although the term gets used loosely in everyday speech to talk about narrative, a “story” is just a sequence of events in time. Not until a writer chooses how to present that story in language does it become a “narrative.” Many key narrative techniques fall into four categories: plot, character, point of view, and style. Perhaps the fullest statement regarding the universality of narrative among humans is the opening to Roland …show more content…

Vonnegut narrative line is also similar to ethics and view of life with his imaginary Tralfamadorian race:

Each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all at once not one after the other. There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments all at one time. (31)

This paragraph is a proof what Vonnegut attempted to do with Slaughterhouse-Five nevertheless he enables us to think about the novel in this

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