Portuguese Year 5: Who tells, who lives, when and where: the structure of a narrative
Portuguese, Year 5 (Portugal): Find the narrator, the characters, the time, the place and the action in a tale, a legend or a book.
The parts of a narrative
A narrative has parts you can point to. The narrator is the voice that tells: it may take part in the story (“I”, first person) or tell it from outside (“he”, “she”). The characters are those who live the story, main and secondary. The time says when it happens (a period, a moment of the day, how long), and the space says where. The action is the set of events, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
They change what you understand
Knowing these parts changes your reading. If the narrator says “I”, you only know what he saw and felt; if the story is told from outside, you may learn about several characters. Time and space give the atmosphere and explain what people do: a secret in a village at night is not the same as one in a city at noon. And the action has a shape: the presentation, the event that sets things moving, what follows, and how it ends.
An early morning on the ria
«Numa madrugada de nevoeiro, eu ia com o meu avô no barco, pela ria. De repente, a rede ficou presa. Puxámos os dois e trouxemos um velho candeeiro coberto de algas.» (foggy dawn; I and my grandfather in a boat; the net snags; we pull up an old lamp.) Step 1: narrator: «eu», «puxámos», first person, takes part. Step 2: characters: the narrator and the grandfather. Step 3: time: dawn; space: the boat, the ria. Step 4: action: net snags, they pull, they find the lamp.
The narrator is not the author
When a tale says «Eu tinha medo do escuro» (“I was afraid of the dark”), the “I” is not, by itself, the person who wrote the book. The narrator is a voice created by the author: a child, an old man, a cat, even an object. The author writes; the narrator tells inside the text. To find out who narrates, look for signs in the text («eu», «nós», or «ele», «ela») and not for the name on the cover.
Retelling and understanding stories
These parts appear in everything that tells something: a film (who narrates? where and when is it set?), a game with a story, a news report (who, what, when, where) or a friend's account of the weekend. When you summarise a tale for a classmate, you use the same questions without noticing: who, where, when, and what happened.
Test what you learned
In a narrative, what is the narrator?
- a) The voice that tells the story
- b) The person who wrote the book
- c) The main character
Correct answer: a) The voice that tells the story — Yes: the narrator is whoever tells the story inside the text, taking part in it or telling from outside.
Read: «Na terça-feira, no pátio da escola, a Inês encontrou um gato branco debaixo do banco. — Não tenhas medo — sussurrou ela.» Which analysis is right?
- a) Time: the schoolyard; space: Tuesday
- b) The narrator is Inês, because she speaks
- c) Time: Tuesday; space: the schoolyard; the narrator tells from outside
Correct answer: c) Time: Tuesday; space: the schoolyard; the narrator tells from outside — Yes: Tuesday answers when, the schoolyard answers where, and the narrator says «a Inês», not «eu».
A tale begins: «Eu tinha medo do escuro.» (I was afraid of the dark.) Who is the «eu»?
- a) Necessarily the author of the book
- b) The reader who is reading the tale
- c) The narrator, a voice created by the author, who takes part in the story
Correct answer: c) The narrator, a voice created by the author, who takes part in the story — Yes: “I” marks a narrator who takes part; who that narrator is depends on the text, not on the cover.
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