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what readers of narratives expect: they need to get to know the narrator. When
5
writing a narrative, you have to think of yourself as a character in a novel or a
/
film, and you need to employ characterization techniques in order to build that
character.
Sometimes this characterization will take the form of direct description of yourself at
Narrative
the time of the event you are recounting, as in this excerpt from Hunger Makes Me a
Modern Girl in which the writer, Carrie Brownstein, gives us a sense of herself:

As my friends embarked on adolescence, developing what seemed to be a natural,
God-given talent for makeup and hair removal, my nose grew too big, my gums
appeared to be sliding down my two front teeth, and my chest and back remained
indistinguishable from each other. I felt the confidence of my younger self slipping
away.

But sometimes, the characterization will be a little more indirect, by describing
actions, gestures, dialogue, or thoughts that reveal something about you, the
narrator. For instance, look at the beginning of “By Any Other Name,” in which the
narrator, Santha Rama Rau, and her sister are starting at a new school in India, run
by the British:
On the first day of school, a hot, windless morning of a north Indian September, we
stood in the headmistress’s study and she said, “Now you’re the new girls. What are your
names?”
My sister answered for us. “I am Premila, and she” — nodding in my direction — “is
Santha.”
The headmistress had been in India, I suppose, fifteen years or so, but she still smiled her
helpless inability to cope with Indian names. Her rimless half-glasses glittered, and the
precarious bun on the top of her head trembled as she shook her head. “Oh, my dears,
those are much too hard for me. Suppose we give you pretty English names. Wouldn’t
that be more jolly? Let’s see, now — Pamela for you, I think.” She shrugged in a baffled
way at my sister. “That’s as close as I can get. And for you,” she said to me, “how about
Cynthia? Isn’t that nice?”
My sister was always less easily intimidated than I was, and while she kept a stubborn
silence, I said, “Thank you,” in a very tiny voice.

Several aspects of Santha’s character become clear in this excerpt. She is shy and
reserved, letting her sister do the talking for her, and most significantly, she says “thank
you” to the headmistress who has just ignored their culture and changed their names
to suit herself. Santha is polite to a fault and, at this time in her life, unable to stand up
for herself in the face of injustice.

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Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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