Text types: Stories

Linking clauses to create a story

Pronoun chains

In stories pronouns and possessive adjectives are used to keep track of the characters taking part in the events. 

In the fable The Hare and the Tortoise the storyteller uses two separate sets of pronoun chains, chains to keep track of the Hare and the Tortoise. At one point the chains intersect when the word they refers to both the Hare and the Tortoise.

In the fable The Hare and the Tortoise the storyteller uses quoted speech. In the quoted speech the pronoun I is used to refer to the character who is talking and the pronoun you is used to refer to the character who is being spoken to. In quoted speech the Tortoise also says: "Let's have a race." The contraction let's is short for let us. The pronoun us refers to both the Hare and the Tortoise.

In the ORIENTATION stage of the fable The Hare and the Tortoise the words other and others are also used like pronouns. These words refer to all the other animals besides the Hare and the Tortoise:

One day the Hare was boasting to the other animals that he could run very fast. He laughed at the Tortoise and said: "Look at your short legs. You are so slow!" The Tortoise laughed with the others. She knew that she was slow. 

To see how the storyteller keeps track of the Hare and the Tortoise in the fable The Hare and the Tortoise, click here: