1.3.7 Analyze the Story and its Narrator

What conflict is best revealed in this passage from Helen Keller's The Story of My Life?

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

• Helen's fear that she will never be able to communicate with her teacher

• Helen's frustration with the challenges of learning to communicate

• Helen's grief that she no longer had the ability to communicate

• Helen's anger at not being able to communicate with her teacher

Why would an author choose a third-person narrator?

• To make the readers feel like they are in the story

• To create a neutral or unbiased viewpoint on the story

• To give the reader a more personal experience.

• To show what only one of the characters is thinking

Read this passage:

I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst.

This passage from the story is an example of which element of plot?

• Climax

• Falling Action

• Rising Action

• Conclusion

Which type of narrator would an author use if he or she wanted to limit the perspective of the story to only 1 character?

• First person

• Narrative

• Third person

• Rhetorical

Read this passage:

Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand beneath the spout. As the cool stream gushed into one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.

This passage is an example of which element of plot?

• Conclusion

• Climax

• Rising action

• Exposition

Which sentence is an example of third person narration?

• You ask the teacher to help you figure out a math problem.

• I asked the teacher to help me figure out a math problem.

• "Can you help me figure out the math problem?" I asked the teacher.

• She asked the teacher to help her figure out a math problem.

This passage is an example of which stage of plot?

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one in which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between to the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was 7 years old.

• Climax

• Conclusion

• Exposition

• Conflict

Which sentence is an example of first-person narration?

• "Where are you going?" you ask your sister, as she runs out of the house.

• "Where are you going?" Martin asks his sister, as she ran out of the house.

• "Guess where I'm going?" Martin's sister said, as she ran out of the house.

• "Where are you going?" I asked my sister as she runs out of the house.

Read this passage:

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one in which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between to the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was 7 years old.

Which point of view is being used?

• First person

• Third person

• Fourth person

• Second person

Read this passage:

I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.

Which word from the passage provides a clue to the type of narration being used?

• Mother

• Someone

• Me

• Love