SETTING IN ORAL NARRATIVES

 Setting

Setting refers to the time and place where the story takes place. It can be in the forest in the evening. Most stories are generally timeless as they don’t give specific time reference. They just use adverbials of time like,’One day’,’Once’ and ‘Once upon time’. This is very important as it makes the story to transcend the scope of time and apply to many generations. Some stories use historical events to mention time. A story might talk of the coming of the white man or a particular celestial event like solar eclipse. This might help us understand the time. But other ways of talking of time can be like morning,afternoon,evening, at night, rainy day or sunny day. This helps us understand the issues and the cultures of the communities behind the story.

The place a story is set is also important. Ask yourself ‘Where are the characters?’ This is the setting. The knowledge of setting can help us appreciate the cultural practices of the community in the story and their values.

Culture is how a community lives its life following what they consider the norm. Aspects of culture in narratives can be classified as  social, economic and political.

 

Social activity refers to their way of lives and beliefs such as marriage, initiation, burying the dead,family relations. In ‘The Fox and Crow’ story, we learn that the community values songs.

 The fox requests the crow to sing for him. Singing is a social activity.

 

Economic activity: what they do to earn livelihood: trade,farming, mining,pottery. In the story , there is livestock keeping, we can tell this by the mentioning of cheese. Cheese is a dairy product of cows.

 

Political activity . How they are organized and governed. Eg kingship, village elders leadership or war. The reference to the crow as the Queen of the birds suggests that the community is led by a monarch. The queen or king is always the head of the monarch.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TRICKSTER NARRATIVES

  Trickster Narratives. This is a story in which a character plays uses his wit or tricks to fool or cheat other characters. The character who tricks the others is called a trickster. It is normally a small animal or a weaker animal that is despised by others but is very intelligent. Animals such as hare,spider and foxes are depicted as tricksters in many stories The character that is tricked is called a dupe. They are normally big or powerful but depicted as gullible .They include animals such as lions,elephants,crocodiles and hyenas. The Crow and the Fox is an example of a trickster narrative. Features of Trickster Narratives 1.      The trickster uses wits or trickery to cheat the others 2.      The dupe is always gullible as he readily does what they are told to do 3.      They communicate issues of betrayal and deception 4.      The underlying message is that intelligence is better th...
Read more

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 hea...
Read more

Characters in Oral Narratives

  Characters in Oral Narratives Characters are the people, animals or objects that make the events in the story happen. Our focus story has two main characters: the crow and the fox. Characters can be classified in the following ways: Main characters and minor characters Main character is the character that the conflict of the story is centred around. He or she contributes to the conflict in the story. In short , the story revolves around them and what they do or say. The main characters in our focus story are the fox and the crow. Minor characters are the characters that add little or no contribution to the conflict in the story. There are there to support the main characters in the story. Protagonists and antagonists Protagonist is the main character in the story that faces a problem. He or she is always the audience favourite as they sympathize with him or her. They are naturally good based on their actions as they mean no evil to anyone. The crow is a good example...
Read more