This paper holds that there were three kinds of narrative tenses in the novel, "Border Town", namely, the past tense, the present tense and the future tense.

本文以为《边城》文本在叙事语态上存在三种时态，即过去之事、现在之事、未来之事。

youdao

In narrative, the reporting verb is in the past tense.

在叙述过程中，间接引语的动词通常用过去式。

youdao

Present tense is a unique narrative way in the modern historical fiction. It extracts the historical background, makes the story show on the real stage, and the long old past have a modern sense.

现在时态是现代历史小说独有的历史叙述方式，它抽去历史背景，将故事放入现实舞台上演，从而使久远的过去获得现代意味。

youdao

Everything that we had thought that Milton was telling us in the lyric present -- telling us directly, now -- suddenly gets shoved back into the narrative past: "thus sang the uncouth swain." The past tense is important there.

我们想过的弥尔顿在这首抒情诗里,直接告诉我们的所有事，现在，都突然在过去的旁白中一涌而现了：,“吟唱着粗鄙的青年人“，这里的过去时态很重要。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

The placement and gestures of the figures within the Munch-like composition, especially Jonah, clarify the tense narrative.

WSJ: Tale Told by a Modern Romantic | Jonah | Albert Pinkham Ryder | By Sidney Lawrence

As the narrative moves between past and present between past tense and present tense and between recollected events and dramatised scenes the spreading bleakness is lightened by enjoyable observations of Edinburgh and a background cast of students, university bureaucrats and overly cheerful television presenters.

ECONOMIST: Exploring knowledge and self-knowledge