What is narration? Narration is a story being told to capture the attention of its audience. The narrator shares experiences in ways that will captivate the audience and evoke times and places in compelling ways. In "Shooting an Elephant," by George Orwell, details are developed to enhance the narrative point. In "Fourth of July," by Audre Lorde, verb tense and point of view are also kept consistent, so Lorde can help her audience follow the unfolding story as it occurs in both time and space. The conflict in both pieces keeps the audience aware of what is happening in the narratives.
"Shooting an Elephant," Orwell and "Fourth of July," Lorde both identify conflicts. In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell is looking for a reason to shoot the elephant, but as the story goes on Orwell continues to notice he has no reason to shoot the elephant. (Orwell, para.6), "I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not shoot him." (Orwell, para.8), "But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot the elephant." By the end of the story he finally admits why he killed the elephant. (Orwell, para.14), "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." Therefore, meaning the only reason he shot the elephant, was that he was being pressured and to avoid being humiliated by the people. In "Fourth of July," Lorde, racism is the identified conflict. (Lorde, para.5), "I wanted to eat in the dining car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me . . . dinning car food always cost too much money . . . , nor where those same hands had been just before. My mother never mentioned that black people were not allowed in the railroad dining car headed south in 1947.
