NARRATIVE

Some recommended reading:

Gerard Genette
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan (see course guide bibliography)

Narrative fiction is ‘the narration of a series of fictional events’ Rimmon-Kenan

1)
Any narrative text, whether short story, novel or film, has two distinct elements:

a) A narrated STORY (WHAT?) – a sequence of events

b) A narrating discourse (HOW?) – the way the sequence of events is structured and
presented in the text so as to produce a particular meaning or emotional effect.

Genette calls the STORY ‘HISTOIRE’, R-K calls it ‘STORY’

Genette terms the narrating discourse the ‘RECIT’, while R-K calls it the ‘TEXT’.
I’m going to compromise and call it DISCOURSE.

2)
When we read a narrative text we abstract the STORY from the DISCOURSE by
translating the physical marks on the page (or the visual images and sounds in the
case of film) into a fictional sequence which is then stored in our minds. This STORY
can be translated back into a narrating discourse of our own and expressed in a
narrative text using our own words rather than those of the original, as happens if we
are asked to provide a brief synopsis of a book we have read. A STORY narrated in
one MEDIUM can also be presented in another, as is the case with the film versions
of novels or short stories.

Is story the same as ‘PLOT’, do you think? If not, why not?

3)
We are assisted in the task of abstracting STORY from DISCOURSE by our
expectations about what the former should be like. These provide us with models,
based on our previous experience of the “story” properties of other narrative texts we
have read. One such model might look like this:

a sequence of events
located in space and time
causally linked
involving characters in some relationship to each other
resulting in change

“The basic convention which governs the novel is our expectation that it will produce
a world” J.Culler

Is this expectation different in the case of a short story? If so how, and why?

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4)
Because it uses a primarily visual medium of presentation, film narrative allows us to
experience its fictional world at first hand. A short story or novel, however, is a report
of what someone else has experienced. We have no direct access to the fictional world
presented but must recreate it for ourselves out of the words of the text. It is therefore
a DOUBLY MEDIATED world, mediated to us via a narrating VOICE and a narrated
VIEW, both of which are aspects of the DISCOURSE.

Fictional World  Narrated View  Narrating Voice Reader

(Story) (DISCOURSE)

5)
LITERATURE IS A VERBAL MEDIUM, involving MAXIMAL USE OF
LANGUAGE

VOICE: the verbal channel through which the events of the story are communicated
to the reader (i.e. the answer to the question ‘WHO TELLS?).

A TYPOLOGY OF NARRATORS

The narrating VOICE can be located:

a) Inside the Fictional World: here the narrating VOICE is that of a character in the
story which is being told; since this voice usually refers to him or herself as “I”, this
mode is sometimes called “FIRST PERSON” narration Examples include ’Bartleby
the Scrivener’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and Great Expectations.
N.B. though, in Great Expectations, the point of view (‘focaliser’) is Pip as a young
boy, whereas the narrating voice is Pip as an adult.
Sometimes, as in Sherwood Anderson’s ‘I Want to Know Why’, the point of view and
the voice are the same.

The degree of participation of the narrating character in the action of the story s/he
tells can vary considerably:
Witness/Observer
Minor Participant/Major Participant (Protagonist)

b) Outside the Fictional World: here the narrating VOICE is not that of a character in
the story being told; since this VOICE usually refers to these characters as “he” or
“she”, this mode of narration is sometimes (albeit rather misleadingly) called “THIRD
PERSON” narration. If the “I”-form is used at all by the narrator, it is only to refer to
him/herself in the role of narrator. Examples include ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ and
‘Grace’.

The degree to which we are aware of the presence of this outside narrator, and hence
our sense of his/her personality, outlook, even gender varies considerably:

Objective/Impersonal Recorder
Interpreter/Explicator

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 Subjective Commentator

6)
Both kinds of narration can incorporate other VOICES: for example, by direct
quotation of passages of dialogue or documents, such as the Sherriff’s charge to the
jury in ‘The Two Drovers’, or by embedding one narrative inside another (as in
‘Thrawn Janet’).

Outside narration can also include INTERIOR MONOLOGUE, where the

consciousness of a character is verbalised and then quoted directly, and FREE
INDIRECT SPEECH, where the verbalised thoughts of a character are reported rather
than quoted by the narrator, but in such a way as to incorporate the VOICE of the
character into the narrator’s report ( as in ‘Five-Twenty’).
Here is a famous example of FREE INDIRECT SPEECH from Joyce’s story
‘Eveline’:
She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank
would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love too. But she wanted to
live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would
take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.

Another example in Bowen’s ‘The Demon Lover’ p347

7) VIEW: the point of view, perspective or focus from which the events of the story
are narrated; the answer to the question WHO SEES?

The POINT OF VIEW can be located:

a) Inside the Fictional World: here the POINT OF VIEW is that of a character in the
story being told – sometimes known as the FOCALISER.

This kind of FOCALISATION is said to be LIMITED, since it is confined to what the

focalising character perceives or thinks s/he perceives – both of the external fictional
world and his/her own thought s and feelings, as well as to what s/he can perceive of
the external behaviour of other characters or learn directly from them. Such character-
based FOCALISATION is potentially UNRELIABLE, since the perceptions of the
focaliser may be incomplete, coloured by prejudice or ignorance, or even distorted by
insanity!
N.B. The POINT OF VIEW may change in the course of a single narrative, as
happens in ‘Hills Like White Elephants’.

b) Outside the Fictional World: here the POINT OF VIEW is that of the outside
narrator.

It is a narrative convention that an outside narrator has the right of direct access to the
thoughts, feelings and motives of every character in the story. When choosing to
exercise that right, such an outside narrator is said to be OMNISCIENT (All-
Knowing). However, s/he may deliberately choose to restrict our view of events by
adopting the LIMITED perspective of a character in the story (e.g. the mother at the
beginning of Lawrence’s ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’)

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8)
TIME: the relations between DISCOURSE TIME (DT) and STORY TIME (ST).

These include:

a) SEQUENCE: There are three possible ways in which the ordering of events in the
DISCOURSE may relate to their chronology in the STORY:

(i) DT follows ST: the order of events is chronological

(ii) DT disrupts ST: by means of Flashback (Analepsis)

by means of Anticipation (Proplepsis)

(It is significant that these terms are from the art of rhetoric – ‘persuasive speech’.
What kind of ‘persuasion’ is taking place? How do these methods assist such
persuasion?)

b) DURATION: This refers to the relation between the time occupied by an event in
the fictional world of the STORY and the time given to its representation in the
DISCOURSE. The latter cannot be measured directly, of course: it is related to the
amount of space allocated to its representation in the text. There are five possibilities:

(i) Ellipsis: DT = 0 (creates mystery) MAX SPEED

(ii) Summary: DT < ST (accelerates pace)

(iii) Scene: DT =ST (dramatic immediacy)

(iv) Stretch: DT > ST (slows down pace)

(v) Pause: ST = 0 (creates suspense) MIN SPEED

With ELLIPSIS, zero textual space corresponds to some story duration.

With SCENE, story duration and text duration are conventionally considered
identical. The purest scenic form is DIALOGUE.

Think about Mansfield’s ‘Bank Holiday’. The three sections are relayed in the present
tense and seem to take place in ‘real time’. However, within this, she uses a lot of
delayed decoding to control the order and speed of the reader’s perceptions. Each
section corresponds to a slightly different ‘scene’, each one self-contained but leading
thematically and linked through ‘personel’ into the next. Is the whole story in ‘real
time’ – i.e. do the three scenic sections lead on from one another in ‘real time’ or are
they in fact moving ‘snapshots’ taken at three different times in the course of a single
day, so that DT =ST only during each individual section?

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Hemingway: ‘Hills Like White Elephants’

1 ‘If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit
things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will
have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.
The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being
above water.’
(Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, 1932)

2 He drank an anis at the bar and looked at the people. There must be
some actual world. There must be some place you could touch where people
were calm and reasonable. Once it had all been as simple as this.

(Hemingway, MS draft version of ‘Hills Like White Elephants’)

He drank an anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting
reasonably for the train.
(final version).

3 ‘Hemingway makes no attempt to influence the reader’s thoughts,

impressions, or conclusions. He himself is never there; not for a single instant
does he come between object and reader.’

(H.E. Bates, The Modern Short Story, 1941)