2. Narrative Text

Narrative Text

Definition of Narrative Text

Narrative text is a text with complication or problematic events and it tries to find the resolutions to solve the problems. An important part of narrative text is the narrative mode, the set of methods used to communicate the narrative through a process narration.

There are many types of narrative. Generally, it could be categorized into the fictional narrative or imaginary, the nonfictional narrative, or combination of both;

A Fictional Narrative presents an imaginary narrator’s account of a story that happened in an imaginary world. It includes fairy tales, folklore or folktales, horror stories, fables, legends, myths, and science fictions.

A Nonfictional Narrative (also factual narrative) presents a real-life person’s account of a real-life story. It includes historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, and personal experience. 

Generic Structure of Narrative Text

The generic structure of narrative text focuses on a series of stages that proposed to build a story. In traditional narrative the stages include:

Orientation : the introduction of the characters who involve in the story, time and the place where the story takes place.

Complication : a series of events in which the main character attempts to solve the problem.

Resolution : the ending of the story containing the problem solution. (Pratyasto, 2011:32)

Language Feature of Narrative Text

There are some features that writers should be recognized in writing a narrative text. Those are as follows:

Using thinking verb

Using active verb

Using connectives

Using time conjunction

Using simple past tense

Example of Narrative Text 

Ali Baba

Orientation : Once upon a time there were 40 cruel thieves who put their stolen money and treasures in a cave. They went in the cave by saying “Open Sesame” to the cave entrance. A poor person, named Ali Baba saw them while they were doing that, so he heard the opening word. After they left, he went toward the cave and opened it. Suddenly he found a very large quantity of money and golden treasures. He took some of it and went back home. After that he became a rich man and his brother wanted to know how he became rich. 

Complication : Ali Baba turned into the richest man in his village. His evil brother was really jealous of him, and wanted to know how he could get such a lot of money. Therefore, when Ali Baba went to the cave again to take some more money, his brother followed him. He saw everything, and decided to go back the next day to take some money for himself. The next morning he found a lot of money in the cave, and he wanted to take all of them. Unfortunately, when he was busy carrying the money to his house, the thieves came. The boss of the thieves asked him how he knew about the cave. He told everything, but unluckily they killed him and went to Ali Baba’s house. 

After finding Ali Baba’s house, they made a plan to kill him the following night. Some of the thieves hid in big jars, and the boss pretended that he was a merchant who wanted to sell the jars to Ali Baba. Ali Baba who was a kind man invited the boss of the thief to have lunch together. 

Resolution : After lunch they took a rest. Luckily, the house maid went out of the house, and found that there were thieves inside the jars. She finally boiled hot oil and poured it into the jars to kill all of them. The boss of the thieves was caught, and put into prison.