23 EXAMPLES OF NARRATIVE TEXTS - LITERATURE

The narratives are stories that follow tell a series of events that take place in an atmosphere and a certain period of time. That story can be real or fictitious.

The sequence in which the narrated events occur can be linear; in flash-back (remembering past events), in media res (when it starts in the middle of the story) or in flash-foward (if it starts at the end).

The normal structure of the narrative text is as follows:

- Introduction. Where the reader is introduced to the environment and the time, in addition to presenting the main characters.

-Knot. Where the problem or main subject of the text arises.

-Outcome. Part where the conflict is resolved.

The role of the characters, as well as that of the narrator himself, can vary according to the author's wishes. On the other hand, there are main and secondary characters. Similarly, there are first, second, or third person narrators.

First paragraphs of Platero y yo, where the author describes his donkey.

Examples of narrative texts

Here are some examples of the fragments of various famous narratives from world literature:

Don Quijote of La Mancha

Don Quixote is represented with a leptosomal body. Source: pixabay.com

“In a place in La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, it was not long ago that a nobleman of the shipyard spear, old shield, skinny nag and running greyhound lived.

A pot of something more cow than ram, splashing most nights, duels and losses on Saturdays, lantejas on Fridays, some extra palomino on Sundays, consumed the three parts of his farm.

The rest of them finished wearing a veil tunic, hairy tights for the holidays, with their slippers of the same, and on weekdays they honored themselves with their finest fleece. "

The little Prince

“-If I gave a general the order to fly from flower to flower like a butterfly, or to write a tragedy, or to transform into a seabird and the general did not execute the order received, whose fault would it be, mine or of the?

"It would be your fault," said the little prince firmly.

-Exactly. You just have to ask each one, what each one can give - continued the king. Authority rests first of all on reason. If you order your people to jump into the sea, the people will make a revolution. I have the right to demand obedience, because my orders are reasonable. "

Madame Bovary

“That man with so much practice did not distinguish the difference of feelings under the equality of expressions.

Because libertine or venal lips had murmured similar phrases to him, he only weakly believed in their candor; It was necessary to reduce, he thought, the exaggerated speeches that conceal mediocre affections; as if the fullness of the soul does not overflow at times by the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure of its needs, its concepts, nor its pains, and the human word is like a cauldron broken into the one that we play melodies to make the bears dance, when we want to move the stars. "

Perfume

“Many times, when this aperitif of abominations was not enough for him to start, he would take a short olfactory walk through Grimal's tannery and indulge himself with the stench of bloody skins and dyes and fertilizers or imagine the broth of six hundred thousand Parisians in the suffocating heat of the dog days.

Then, suddenly, this was the meaning of the exercise, hatred welled up in him with the violence of orgasm, exploding like a storm against those smells that had dared to offend his illustrious nose.

It fell on them like hail on a wheat field, pulverized them like a raging hurricane and drowned them in a purifying deluge of distilled water. So just was his anger and so great was his revenge. "

The odyssey

"Nurse dear," said Penelope, "do not raise your prayers yet or be overjoyed. You know well how welcome it would be in the palace for everyone, and especially for me and for our son, whom we father, but this news that you announce is not true, but that one of the immortals has killed the illustrious suitors, irritated for his painful insolence and wicked actions; for they did not respect any of the men who set foot on the earth, neither the people nor the nobleman, whoever came to them. "

The old man and the sea

“Those freckles ran down the sides of his face all the way down and his hands had the deep scars caused by manipulating the ropes when holding large fish.

But none of these scars were recent. They were as old as the erosions of an arid desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes; and these had the same color of the sea and were happy and undefeated. "

Miss Barbara

“The plain is beautiful and terrible at the same time; in it they fit comfortably, beautiful life and atrocious death; It lurks everywhere, but no one there fears it. "

Pantaleon and the visitors

"Yes, well, before entering Pantilandia I was a" laundress ", as you said, and afterwards where Moquitos. There are those who believe that the "washerwomen" earn horrors and spend the high life. A lie of this size, Sinchi.

It's a fucking job, scrubbed up, walking all day, you get your feet so swollen and often pure, to return home with the frizzy done, without having raised a client. "

The Name of the Rose by Humberto Eco (1980)

“There are magical moments, of great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, in which we have visions of people we have known in the past (« en me retraçant ces details, j'en suis à me demander s'ils sont réels, ou bien si je les ai rêvés »).

As I learned later when reading the beautiful little book of the Abbé de Bucquoy, we can also have visions of books not yet written. "

The hen with its throat cut by Horacio Quiroga (1917)

“All day, sitting in the patio, on a bench were the four idiotic children of the Mazzini-Ferraz couple. Their tongues were between their lips, their eyes were stupid, and they turned their heads with their mouths open. "

harry potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Source: pixabay.com

“When he got to the corner, he noticed the first sign that something strange was happening: a cat was looking at a map of the city. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen, but then he turned his head to look again.

There was a tabby cat on the corner of Privet Drive, but he didn't see any plans. What had she been thinking about? It must have been an optical illusion "

Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

“… The disease had sharpened my senses, instead of destroying or dulling them. And my ear was the sharpest of all. She heard everything that can be heard on earth and in heaven.

I heard many things in hell. How can I be crazy then? Listen… and see how sanely, how calmly I tell you my story ”.

Metamorphosis

"When Gregorio Samsa woke up one morning from a restless sleep, he found himself on his bed turned into a monstrous insect."

The library of Babel

“The universe (which others call the Library) is made up of an indefinite, and perhaps infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with vast ventilation shafts in the middle, surrounded by very low railings.

From any hexagon, you can see the lower and upper floors: endlessly ”.

The tunnel

“The fall of the sun was lighting a gigantic foundry between the clouds of the west.

I felt that this magical moment would never happen again. "Never again, never again," I thought, as I began to experience the vertigo of the cliff and to think how easy it would be to drag her into the abyss, with me ».

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1609)

“You, my beloved Gertrude, must also withdraw, because we have arranged for Hamlet to come here, as if by chance, to find Ophelia. Her father and I, witnesses fittest to the end, will place ourselves where we see without being seen.

Thus we will be able to judge what happens between the two, and in the actions and words of the Prince we will know if the evil from which he suffers is passion of love. "

Schoolgirl

“You don't have to need to meet him in person to realize that he doesn't have any female followers.

You openly confess that you are horribly poor, stingy, ugly and dirty (…) and how you fall asleep on the floor after making a good mess, about all the debts you have and about many other dirty and dishonorable things that, let me know say so, they affect you very negatively. "

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)

“… Lord Henry Wotton, who had already consumed innumerable cigarettes, according to his custom, glimpsed, from the end of the sofa where he was lying - upholstered in the style of Persian rugs -, the radiance of the blooms of a laburnum, of sweetness and The color of honey, whose quivering branches hardly seemed capable of supporting the weight of a beauty as dazzling as his…

Rabindranath Tagore's Rainy Day

"Don't go out, my son! The road to the market is deserted, the path along the river slippery, the wind roars and floats through the bamboo canes like a vermin caught in a net. "

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

“… I was trying to find a gap in the fence, when I observed that one of the villagers who was in the field next door was advancing towards the gate, the same size as the one I saw chasing our boat in the sea.

In stature he seemed as tall as a tower spire, and at each step he advanced about ten yards, as far as I could calculate.

Charles Dickens Christmas Carol (1843)

Source: pixabay.com

“Marley was dead; that to begin with. There is no doubt about it. The clergyman, the official, the owner of the funeral home and the one who presided over the mourning had signed the certificate of his burial. Also Scrooge had signed, and Scrooge's signature, of recognized solvency in the mercantile world, had value in any paper where it appeared ”.

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“When Mr. Darcy delivered this letter to her, Elizabeth did not expect Elizabeth to renew her offers, but neither did she expect, far from it, such content. It is easy to suppose with what anxiety she read what she said and what more contradictory emotions she raised in her chest. Her feelings could not be clearly defined while reading.

She saw first with amazement that Darcy still found excuses for his behavior, when she was firmly convinced that he was incapable of finding any explanation that a just sense of decorum would not force him to hide.

Silversmith and I (1914)

“Platero is small, hairy, soft; so soft on the outside, that one would say all cotton, that does not have bones. Only the jet mirrors of his eyes are as hard as two black glass beetles.

I let him loose, and he goes to the meadow, and warmly caresses with his snout, barely touching them, the little pink, light blue and yellow flowers… I call him sweetly: «Silversmith?» laughs, I don't know what ideal jingle… ”.

References

Alexandria Library (s / f). Penelope recognizes Odysseus. Recovered from: alejandria.nidaval.com
Cáceres, Orlando (2016). Example of short narrative texts. Recovered from: aboutespanol.com
The power of the word (s / f). The perfume (fragment). Recovered from: epdlp.com
Janovsky, Angela (s / f). What is Narrative Writing? - Definition, Types, Characteristics & Examples. Recovered from: com
Martínez, Ricardo (2015). Schoolgirl. Recovered from: elplacerdelalectura.com
Nieves, Luís (s / f). Metamorphosis. Recovered from: ciudadseva.com
Porto, Julián and others (2010). Definition of narrative text. Recovered from: definicionde.com
First rain (2015). The library of Babel, by Jorge Luis Borges (fragment). Recovered from: primeralluvia.wordpress.com
Swift, Jonathan (1726). Gulliver's Travels. Editing and translation Emilio Lorenzo Tirado. Editorial Espasa Calpe, second edition, 2007- 267 pages.
Wilde, Oscar (1890). The Picture of Dorian Gray. Translation José Luís López Muñoz, 1999. Santillana Ediciones Generales, 2010- 310 pages

23 EXAMPLES OF NARRATIVE TEXTS - LITERATURE - 2025