FEATURES OF ORAL NARRATIVES

Oral narratives

An oral narrative is a story that is performed by word of mouth.  They are also called tales,folktales or folklores. Others also just call them stories. They reflect a people’s culture,beliefs and experiences. They were in the past told by elders to the children after work especially in the evening. A grandmother or grandfather would  sit with their grandchildren around  a burning fire  in the moonlight as they narrated stories to children.

The Fox and the Crow

A fox once saw a crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree. “That’s for me, as I am a fox,” said Mr. Fox, and he walked up to the foot of the tree.

“Good day, Ms. Crow,” he cried. “How well you are looking today: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does. Let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds.”

The crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Mr. Fox. “That will do,” said he. “That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future — “Do not trust flatterers! ”

(Adapted from Prentice Hall Literature, Ed. Roger Babusci et al. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991)

Exercise 1

Narrate to your friend a story you enjoyed its narration. Tell your friend why

you like that story

Features of oral narratives.

How do we know that a text we are reading is an oral narrative?

Most oral narratives have a distinct characteristic that identifies them from other genres of oral literature. The following are some of the features that define oral narratives:

1.     They have opening formula. This is the common way in which most stories start. For example, most start with ‘Long time ago’, ‘Once upon a time..’ or ‘One day…’. These signal the listener that the story has begun. The opening formula also takes the audience to a world of imagination from a world of reality. In the narrative above, the opening formula is in the expression ‘A fox once saw…#

2.     They have a closing formula. Most stories tend to end in a particular way so as to signal the audience that the story has ended. Some of the expressions used to signal the end include: ‘There ends my story…’,’From that day..’ or ‘.That is why….’.Others end by stating the moral message like the one above: ‘Do not trust flatters’

3.     Most stories have a moral lessons. Because stories carry with them many human experiences, they have many lessons that can be learnt. Most stories uphold virtues such as obedience and respect as they condemn vices such as greed,laziness and gullibility. Some stories can directly state the lessons in their ending by giving advice ora proverb that summarizes the lesson. For instance in the story above, we learn that It is important to ask yourself after reading a story the lessons you learnt trusting someone blindly can hurt us ‘Do not trust flatters’. The crow trusted the fox’s praises about her only for her to lose her cheese to the fox after cawing to him.

4.     Most stories use fantasy. This refers to narration of things or events that are unreal and impossible in the real world. For instance, most animalsspeak like humans in the story yet we know animals cannot speak like the fox and the crow are engaged in the conversation. This is fantasy as it is impossible for the fox and crow to speak. Fantasy can also be in creation of supernatural characters like a human turning into an ogre or even elephant.

5.     Most stories have timelessness. This is the unclear time most narratives are set in. use of opening formula like ‘One day’ do not point to any particular time but make the story relevant to generations today and tomorrow.

6.     Some stories have songs in them. The use of songs help break monotony of narration and boredom. It also helps develop the plot and other key themes and characters. It is always important to ask yourself why a song has been used in a story

7.     Use of repetition. Most stories tend to have instances of repetition due to theiroral nature. The narrator may repeat certain expressions for emphasis or for humour. For example: ‘He jumped and jumped until he got tired’

8.     Some narratives have dialogue and direct speech. Being an oral story, the characters are likely to engage in dialogue which is always presented in two direct quotations to show the two speakers. Others might just appear as one quotation without a response like in the case above where only the fox speaks. This is direct speech. ‘Do not trust flatters,’he said.

9.     Some narratives have use direct translation. This is translating a sentence from a language word for word so that is deviates from the standard English expression. For example ‘Is where my child?’ instead of ‘where is my child?’

10.  Use of local dialect and ideophones also characterize oral narratives.Some stories use words or expressions from the local language. This gives the story a local flavour and makes it authentic. Ideophones are imitations of sounds made by objects,animals or humans.

For example: ‘Long time ago, there was ondiek jawuoro (greedy hyena). It use to cry kieu kieu.

 

 

Exercise 2

Read the story below and identify all the features of oral narratives evident in it. Remember to give example from the story for each feature you identify.

 

Once upon a time, a tribe of Monkeys made their home in their pleasure garden of the king. On a certain holiday when the drum was beaten to call the people together, the King's gardener, hearing the drum, said to himself, "Even though it is a holiday, the garden must be watered. Accordingly, I will ask the Monkeys to water the garden for me, so that I can be off to enjoy myself and keep holiday with the rest."  So he called the Monkeys and asked them to water the garden. When the Monkeys had promised to water all the young trees faithfully, the gardener gave them water skins and the wooden pot with which to perform the task.

 

After the gardener had gone, the Monkeys took up the water skins and the watering pot and began to water the young trees. But the leader of the monkeys stopped them.   "Wait,"   he said, We must be careful not to waste water. Before you water them, you must first pull up each tree and look at the size of the roots. Then you must give plenty of water to those which have long, deep roots, but less to those with short roots. For when this water is finished, we shall have work to get any more.

"To be sure," said the other monkeys, "that is what we must do." So they pulled up all the trees just as their leader had told them to do and all the young trees died.