This document discusses several narrative devices used in storytelling including point of view, foreshadowing, flashbacks, inferences, and allusions. It explains that point of view refers to the perspective or vantage point from which the story is told. Foreshadowing provides hints about future events, while flashbacks show scenes from the past. Inferences are educated guesses made by readers based on their own knowledge and experiences. Allusions are indirect references to other famous works.

1. By the Waters of Babylon
Stephen Vincent Benet English II
Clzianoski

2. LESSON OBJECTIVES
• Analyze narrative devices
• Define foreshadowing and
flashbacks
• Identify point of view
in a story
#GOALS

3. Picture Prompt
Journal Entry
What do you see in
this picture?
Write a short story or
journal entry about
it.

4. HOW IMPORTANT IS TECHNOLOGY IN
EVERYDAY LIFE?
Technology A-Z
Did You Know?
Did You Know 2015

5. POINT OF VIEW
• The vantage point from which the story is told.
• Created by the author’s choice of narrator.
• Narrator can be a character in the story or an
outside observer.
• Can be
• First person (I, we). The narrator is a character in the story.
• Third person limited (he, she, they). The narrator is an
outside observer.
• Omniscient third person (he, we, they)
The narrator can see into the hearts and minds of all the
characters.

6. POINT OF VIEW: HERE’S A TIP!
1. I am in the room.
I = First person
2. You come in the room.
You = Second person
3. Then he or she came in the room.
He / She = Third person

7. NAÏVE NARRATOR
• A kind of first person point of view
• The narrator doesn’t understand
what he or she is seeing or
experiencing

8. INFERENCES
• Educated guesses
• What you know + guess = Inference
• Based on how the author uses things
you know from your own life or what
you have read somewhere else

9. FORESHADOWING
• When an author gives you hints
about what is to come
• A way of capturing the passage of
time
• Without these hints, the end of the
story might not make sense

10. FLASHBACK
• a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in
a time earlier than the main story.
• A sudden and disturbing vivid memory
of an event in the past.

11. ALLUSION
• An indirect reference to a famous
person, place, event, or literary work.
• The title of Stephen Vincent Bent’s
story, “By the Waters of Babylon,” is
an allusion to Psalm 137 which begins
with “By the waters of Babylon”
• Don McLean – “Waters of Babylon”