Narratives

Purpose: 

To amuse or entertain the readers with actual or imaginary experiences in difference ways. Narratives always deal with some problems which lead to the climax and then turn into a solution to the problem.

Text Organization:

• Orientation (who were involved in the story, when and where).
• Complication (a problem arises followed by other problems).
• Resolution (solution to the problem).

Language Features:

• The use of noun phrases 

           (a beautiful princess, a huge temple).

• The use of connectives

          (first, before that, then, finally).

• The use of adverbial phrases of time and place

           (in the garden, two days ago).

• The use of the simple past tense

          (He walked away from the village, She spent her time in the hometown).

• The use of action verbs

          (walk, sleep, wake up).

• The use of saying verbs

          (say, tell, ask).

• The use of thinking verbs, feeling verbs, verbs of senses

         (She felt hungry, she thought she was clever, she smelt something burning).

Fairy tales, Fables, Mtyh, Tall Tales belong to Narratives.

An Example of Narrative Text:

Bandung Bondowoso and Roro Jonggrang

      Once, there was a beautiful Javanese princess whose name was Roro Jonggrang. Roro Jonggrang whose beauty was very famous in the land was the daughter of Prabu Baka, an evil king.

      One day, a handsome young man with super natural power, named Bandung Bondowoso, defeated and killed Prabu Baka. On seeing Princess Roro Jonggrang's beauty, Bandung Bondowoso fell in love and wanted to marry her.

     Meanwhile, Princess Roro Jonggrang felt sad due to the death of her father. She did not want to marry Bandung because he had killed her father. But she was also affraid of Bandung. So to refuse politely, she made a condition. "I will marry you but you have to build one thousand temples in one night as a wedding gift." requested Roro Jonggrang. Bandung agreed with this condition.

     Helped by the spirits of demons, Bandung Bondowoso started building the temples. Approaching midnight, the work was nearly done. Roro Jonggrang knew and thought, "What shall I do? Bandung is smarter than me. I will lose against Bandung.

     Suddenly she got an idea. She woke up all the women in the palace and ordered them to make the noisy sounds of grinding rice so that the roosters would think it had already dawn.

     Bandung Bondowoso get frustrated because he failed to complete the thousandth temple. "The princess has deceived me!" Following his anger, he cursed Roro Jonggrang, "You have cheated me. Now, the thousandth temple is you!"

     At once, the princess turned into a statue. Knowing this, Bandung Bondowoso regretted this and he went away into a far land. From then, people called the temple Prambanan Temple and the princess statue, Roro Jonggrang statue.