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Tommy Ervin

Prof. Jacobs

Freshman composition II

25 September, 2017

Fiction Analysis Essay

Growing up my mother and grandmother where both teachers and they taught me how to

read at a very young age. One thing I will always will remember from my childhood is how my

grandmother used to read me at least one story every day before I got to play with my toys or

play sports. She used to narrate the books in different voices to show the different characters in

the story. Almost every story she read to me had a lesson or a theme to it. Thats when I first

learned that theme is used in books to make a general statement about the story to teach you

something. On the other hand point of view and narration are related because when a story is told

from a certain perspective a theme is commonly used.

In the Grasshopper and the bell cricket Narration and point of view and theme are the

elements that can be used in this story. Narration and point of view are related to theme of the

story in this case. In the Grasshopper and the bell cricket first person narration is used in this

short story. This indicates that the narrator is a major or minor character in the story. Since the

narrator is a character in the story it is common for a theme to be told.

To understand how a story is narrated, you need to recognize both voice and focus. A

story is said to be from a characters point of view, or a character is said to be a focal or focalizing
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character, if for the most part the action centers on that character, as if we see with that

characters yes or we watch that character closely. The point of view varies according to the

narrators position in the story and the grammatical person the narrative voice assumes. These

elements determine who is telling the story, who it is about, and what information the reader has

access to.

The narrator of the grasshopper and bell cricket speaks in first person. First person

singular narration is the most common narration. In first person the narrator uses the pronoun I.

The narrator may be a major or minor character within the story and therefore is and internal

narrator. The grasshopper and the bell cricket is narrated in the present tense. The verb tense

used in this story does affect how you read it. The verb tense makes it easy to realize that it was

written somewhere other than the United States. In the grasshopper and the bell cricket the

narrator plays a decent role in the action of the story. The narrator is the one who discovers the

children of the village in the woods with their colorful lanterns.

Point of view is the angle of considering things, which shows us the opinion, or the

feelings of the individuals involved in a situation. In the grasshopper and the bell cricket the

narrator speaks directly to the reader in the whole last paragraph. In that paragraph the narrator

was basically stating the moral and theme of the story. This is how the elements narration and

point of view relate to theme in the story. The narrator wrote probably you will find a girl like a

grasshopper whom you think is a bell cricket. The narrator was speaking directly to the reader

in that quote. Which only tells that he was teaching a lesson or stating a theme for the readers to

understand.

In the grasshopper and the bell cricket you really only know what the narrator is thinking.

He doesnt give you no other feelings about the other characters in the story. So you really cant
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decide on whats going through the other characters mind. The narrator focus shifts during the

story a few times. It goes from focusing on the insects to focusing on the boy and the girl in the

story. The narrator, the characters, and the reader all perceive matters in the same way. They do

because the whole point of this story is to state a theme. So in this case the narrator and the

readers have to understand the story in the same way.

Theme is defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work, which may

be started directly or indirectly. Theme is certainly not the only way fiction matters nor the only

thing we take away from our experience or reading it. Theme fictions point in the sense of its

sole objective or purpose. In some cases, a theme may take the form of a moral. In most cases

themes are instead general observations and insights about how humans actually do behave, or

about how life, the world, or some particular corner actually is.

In the grasshopper and bell cricket the narrator of this story is most likely an older man

from the village. We can figure this because when he saw the beautiful lights in the woods he

knew it was children from the village. The main purpose of this story is to state a theme. When

stating a theme two objects or things are used to symbolize something in the story. In this case

the grasshopper and bell cricket are used to symbolize the boy and girl and finding true love. The

bell cricket is used to symbolize an unexpected but appreciative gift. In this story the final three

paragraphs are mainly for stating the theme. You can figure this because the narrator is talking to

the reader. The theme of this story is when looking for true love look hard because there arent

too many perfect matches out here for you. So there for when searching for your soul mate make

sure its true love because there arent too many bell crickets out here but there are plenty of

grasshoppers.
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Works cited

Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

Mays, Kelly J. Narration and Point of View. The Norton Introduction to Literature, W.W.

Norton & Company, 2017, p. 114.

Mays, Kelly J. Theme. The Norton Introduction to Literature, W.W. Norton & Company,

2017, p. 249.