Essay Example on Child Narrator: Delivering Stories With Meaning

Advantages of Using a Child Narrator

A child narrator is the delivery of stories in which the child's perspectives and an easily understandable language. In most cases, when a child is talking to someone else or is in a discussion, the use of indirect reporting is more, and this is in a way that they understand more. Indirect speech is reporting what another person said in a particular context without tampering with the meaning. This type of speech is used by most narrators in the literature books and, in this case, the Woman Warrior and The House of Mango Street. In this literature books, the writers concentrate most on the indirect speech and child narrating to give the audience a clear understanding of the stories and what is happening. The child narrator stands to achieve some advantages, and, in some ways, there are also drawbacks while narrating the stories. The benefits and drawbacks areas discussed in this text;

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Children understand better, and they get a clear definition of what the narrator intended to communicate. The narrator does not struggle while trying to deliver the story as the audience is well versed with the language and the information that is being provided. Using a child's tongue to narrate stories to the adult audience is more straightforward and understandable.

A child's narrator will stand an advantage to use more straightforward and not complex words and language. This will enhance the excellent flow of the story, and there will be a good and better understanding of the audience. Using simple language will give a chance to the audience to participate and boost their concentration. While talking to children, the author has to make sure that they are entertained and engaging in order to ensure the proper delivery of the message.

Children's stories are more of comic and entertainment, thus require a lot of acting to enhance passing the relevant message. This gives the narrator a chance to give their best and drive the point home as the audience will use the art of seeing to be able to understand. The narrator thus does not struggle while delivering the story as there are different ways and telling stories actions, and they can use to deliver the message.

Drawbacks of Using a Child Narrator

There is a high possibility that when a narrator tells a story from a child's perspective, then the audience is not likely to forget and will thus keep the memory of the narration. There is no language that is sweet as that of a child, and therefore there will be good remembrance of what was said. The narrator finds a simple way to deliver the message and, in a way, that it would be easy to remember even after listening to other stories different or similar from the one they heard.

There is maximum concentration and attention from the audience as one is eager to find out what happens next. The stories are not as direct as anticipated as the narrator also tries to make them exciting and give a better storyline with a good flow of information and suspension where possible. The art of having the audience suspended, thus boost their attention and have them listening to the end of the story.

While telling a story from a child's perspective, there are also some drawbacks that are associated with it. First, there are chances that the audience will be much confusion as they are not used to it, and they might criticize the narrator and judge him. They will end up saying that he or she is not fit for it and thus they might choose not to listen to any of his narrations

The audience may never turn up again for any of the narrator's events in which he or she is expected to give a narrative. This is because if it was an adult audience, then they will take it as a waste of time and resources and thus choose never to attend. This will, in turn, kill the narrator's morale and disappoint him or her, and he or she may never give another narration to anyone.

As much as the language used is simple and clear, the message may not be delivered as expected. The audience may be one of the complicated and hard words, and thus, the simple terms used may give them a different meaning from what the narrator intended to provide. This will, therefore, make the story lose the meaning and thus end up not being helpful to the audience. There could also be cases of confusion in that everyone interprets the information given differently, and thus there is no mutual understanding of the information, and no one really understands what the narrator intended to mean.

Childs narration means using indirect speech to give a story to the audience. Not all stories can be told using indirect speech, and when this is done, then the information is distorted, and it is even hard to understand what the narrator really meant. It is also hard at some time for the narrators to change the speech and achieve the maximum transition from direct to indirect speech. Therefore, this is thus a drawback to both the audience and the narrator and thus gives the ideal image of telling stories through a child's perspective.

A narrator of this kind is unreliable due to many factors as they are not very accurate, and their information might be misleading. There might be the better part of having such a narrator, but to some extent, it is misleading and unreliable in ways like;

Due to many actions and comics used during the narrations, the audience might not get the intended message that was to be communicated, and thus they are not reliable for passing important information. The audience may be drawn into the fiction world, and thus the real information may not be understood as it was anticipated.

While using the reported speech, a lot of information is left out, and it is thus misleading. It also takes a lot of time to have the information delivered and not necessarily timely. Thus, when one wants to deliver urgent or important details, then this kind of narrator cannot be relied on. If they are to be relied on, then the information will have relied, and there are possibilities that it will not be delivered as intended.

The child narrator cannot be relied on in all events. Some events need a different type of intonation and different methods of information delivery. There might be the use of jokes where they are not supposed and thus may create an effect on how the message or story will be received by the audience. There are those events that are applicable to have a child narrator, but in other events serious and those that need effective and efficient narrators, then they cannot be relied on.

Child Narration in "Woman Warrior" and "The House on Mango Street"

In the books, Woman Warrior and The House on The Mango Street, the authors and narrators employ the use of child narrator, and it helps in delivering their stories. Maxine Hong, who is the author and narrator of the book, Woman Warrior, narrates the story in which its main setting is on the women who are related to her, and they have a close connection. She also happens to share the antagonist role of her mother in the setting of the story. The book does not use a lot of child narration, as it is expressed in the book The Mango on The Street.

In the book The House on The Mango Street, the narrator uses allot of child narration and tries to show the use of the aspect of the world in a child's eye, referred to as esperanza. She explains things she has been trough and her experiences, and how she has managed to go through them and how they have occurred.in the book, the narrator describes her own life referring to a tree making it more imaginative, and it gives us a clear picture of how her life is and how the events unfolded themselves. This is expressed in "Four Skinny Trees," in which she uses a child's tone and fairly tail to narrate and also use of a poetic narration style.

Conclusion

It is clear that the child narrator makes the story or narration more interesting, and there are high chances that one grasps the required information and is able to interpret it easily. Applying Esperanza in narration attracts the readers or listeners' attention, and they cannot wait to know what happens next. It also boosts the concentration as there is a good flow of the poetic sound through the rhyming and the intonations used in the texts or stories being given. The use of child narrator would mean that the storytelling will be full of actions and drama, and thus it would be hard for one to forget what the story was talking about. The events unfold easily, and each action follows another and thus easy to connect and relate the events in the story being narrated. There is the use of simple language, and thus the audience does not struggle as much to understand what the narrator is talking about.