COMPARATION NOVELS "LETTER XI" AND "THE JOURNAL"

The novel “Letter XI” written by Richardson is a letter addressed to the mother of Pamela. She is the narrator so the intelligent reader understands that it’s a first person narrator who is the protagonist of the story told.

She uses a difficult language to express her situation and she uses a reported speech with an unknown man to write what’s happening.

Indeed there are lots of references to what her mother would say or think about her daughter’s situation like “you may well think” and “Now, you will say”, so the intelligent reader can understand that she knows well her mother’s attitude.

In this novel the reader has the feeling to be inside the character’s mind because she uses the reported speech and because she speaks about her feelings.

The novel “The Journal” written by Daniel Defoe is a diary in which he expresses what he has done to survive.

He writes dates and places to make his situation credible to the reader, also in this novel there is a first person narrator, Robinson Crusoe , the intelligent reader can understand it because the narrator uses the subjective pronoun I in the first line of the text.

The narrator uses an easy language and concrete words like “house”, “food”, “weapon”, “storm” that remain to a real situation.

All the text is arranged around the protagonist because he speaks about his miserable situation and about all what he did. So the center of the text is the protagonist.

In this novel the reader hasn’t the feeling to be inside the character’s mind but he feels distant from the protagonist.