Practice
Read the following short passages to determine who the narrators are and what personal feelings (opinions) the narrators may be expressing.
1. It's two days' journey to London by horse, and when we rode into London, I began to feel afraid. This was a big, big city, and we were just two insignificant young men from a small town. I'll never forget the noise, and the smells, and the crowds. There were 200 000 people living in the City of London─I never saw so many people before in my life.
The narrator is
The personal feelings are
( a contemporary of Shakespeare )
( quite emotionally involved. The narrator is still impressed by the excitement of his early experience in London, and is emotionally involved in what he is telling. )
2. Cold rain mixed with snow fell against the kitchen window of the house trailer in the US town of Elkins, West Virginia. Melinda Eichelberger, seven months pregnant, pulled a tray of Christmas cookies from the oven. The cold weather outside made the trailer a cozy place on this night of December 23, 1990. "Who wants a cookie?" Melinda called to Steve, 21, and their three-year-old daughter, Brittany, in the next room. Brittany quickly came around the corner. "I want one!" she said with a grin.
( an omniscient narrator who tells a story he knows well. )
( objective. The narrator doesn't comment much but tells the beginning of a story objectively. )
3. It was nine o'clock when I got up to my room and that was too late to study for the unit test so I lay in my bed with the light off and decided what I would do the next day when I was in Mr. B.'s math class not knowing the 8- and 9-times tables. S o, you see, the cheating was planned after all.
( a boy who has cheated in a test. )
( honest. The narrator is analytic, serious about what he has done. )
4. Oil was probably made from very small sea animals. When they died, they sank to the bottom of the sea. The weight of heavy rocks pushed all the dead bodies together and after many millions of years, they changed into oil. Like coal, oil is found deep in the earth, often in places which are very difficult to reach. Men drill into the ground where they think oil can be found but they are not always successful. Drilling a hole so deep into the ground can take one year and oil is found in only one out of eight holes. Drilling for oil has become a dangerous job in the last few years. Several people have lost their lives while drilling for oil in the North Sea.
( one who has a good knowledge of energy. )
( objective. He is objective, scientific about his subject. )
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