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Andrie Prasetyo

Muslim | English Teacher | Longlife Learner | Entrepreneurship Enthusiast | Blogger

Narrative Text: “Once Upon A Time…”

ENG | 16 March 2013 | 15:18 Dibaca: 2089   Komentar: 0   0

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess…” That kind of sentence can be found easily when we read stories and tales like Cinderella, Rapunzel, or Little Red Riding Hood. It might look a little bit silly right now, but when we were small children, I am sure that you were amused to hear such stories. In our English lesson in junior high school (SMP), a story that is told in order to amuse or to entertain its readers is considered as a narrative text. Legends, myths, and folklores like the legends of Jaka Tarub, Nyi Roro Kidul or Malin Kundang can also categorized into this group.
A narrative text is usually told in past tenses. It might be simple, perfect, or perfect continuous tense. It is similar with recount text, the different is most narrative texts are fictional, while recount texts are based on real life events.
In this article, we will discuss narrative text using the legend of Malin Kundang as an example. This legend is very famous in Indonesia, the moral of the story is that children must respect their parents no matter how bad their condition is. On the shore of Air Manis, West Sumatra, we can see a rock which is said to be the petrified disrespectful child, Malin Kundang.
A narrative text usually consists of three parts, such as:
In this part, the writer tells the reader about characters and settings of the story. It might be quite descriptive like how the characters look, how they interact with people, how the situation of the characters’ neighbourhood, in what area it is located, etc. Let see an example we have from the story of Malin Kundang below:

This part shows the main character starts to find his / her problems or challenges. In other words, this is the part where the story starts to flow. The tension will increase until it reaches a point where the main event of the story, something that we call climax in dramas. For example:

This is where the problems are solved, either for better or worse. So, it means the story does not have to end happily. This is the example of resolution of Malin Kundang story:
Some writers also add parts like evaluation and reorientation to their narrative texts. Evaluation is the part where the writer evaluates what have happened to the main character. Reorientation is a part after resolution which tells what happens aftermath. However, these two parts (evaluation and reorientation) are additional. OK then, that was a simple explanation about narrative text, I hope it can be helpful for you, fellows. Enjoy!
Source of Malin Kundang Story: Click HERE


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