1. NARRATOLOGY
Critical Theory

2. Narratology: what is it?!
The study of narrative structures
How narratives make meaning
What the basic mechanisms and procedures are which are common to all acts of story-telling.

3. What Narratology is NOT!
Not the reading and interpretation of individual stories
BUT
The attempt to study the nature of ‘story’ itself, as a CONCEPT and as a CULTURAL PRACTICE.

4. ‘STORY’ versus ‘PLOT’
The ‘story’ is the actual sequence of events as they happen
The ‘plot’ is those events as they are edited, ordered, packaged, and presented in what we recognise as a narrative.

5. ‘Story’
The ‘story’, being the events as they happen, has to begin at the beginning, of course, and then move chronologically with nothing left out.

6. The ‘Plot’
The ‘plot’, on the other hand, may well begin somewhere in the middle of a chain of events, and may then backtrack, with a flashback which fills us in on things that happened earlier
Plot may have elements which flash forward, hinting at events which will happen later / foreshadowing
So, the plot is a version of the story which should not be taken literally.

7. But remember:
It is the whole packaging of the narrative which creates the overall effect.
Style + viewpoint + structure + pace + characterisation + techniques etc = the narrative

8. A Short History of Narratology!
Aristotle
Vladimir Propp
Gerard Genette

9. Good old Aristotle!
In his Poetics, Aristotle identifies CHARACTER and ACTION as the essential elements in a story
The character must be revealed through the action = through aspects of the plot

10. Aristotle’s Three Key Elements in a Plot
1. The Hamartia
‘Sin’ or ‘Fault’
In tragic drama = tragic flaw
2. The Anagnorisis
‘recognition’ or ‘realisation’
When the truth of the situation is recognised by the protagonist

11. Aristotle’s Three Key Elements in a Plot…
3. The Peripeteia
A ‘turn-round’ or a ‘reversal’ of fortune
In classic tragedy this is usually a fall from high to low estate, as the hero falls from greatness
** Categories essentially to do with moral purposes of the stories
** However, these three elements may not suit all narratives.

12. Vladimir Propp (1895-1970) Russian Formalist critic; Russian folktales
Morphology = the study of forms
His work is based on the notion that all tales are constructed by selecting items from a basic repertoire of 31 ‘functions’ (all possible actions)

13. Some of these functions:
One of the members of a family absents himself from home
The villain receives information about his victim
The hero leaves home
The hero is tested, interrogated, attacked etc which prepares his way for receiving either a magical agent or helper

14. … Hero and villain join in direct combat The hero is branded
The villain is defeated
The hero returns
The hero is pursued
A false hero presents unfounded claims
The hero is married and ascends the throne.
etc

15. Propp’s 7 ‘Spheres of Action’
1. The villain
2. The Donor (provider)
3. The Helper
4. The Princess (a sought-for-person) and her father
5. The Dispatcher
6. The Hero (seeker or victim)
7. The False Hero

16. Propps’ ‘Recipe’ for a Story
Take items from the ‘Functions’
and
Combine them with
‘roles’
from the
‘Spheres of Action’!

17. Gerrard Genette Focus: how the tale is told
The Process of telling the tale itself
6 key areas:

18. 1. Is the basic narrative ‘mimetic’ or ‘diegetic’?
Mimesis
= showing or dramatising; represented in a scenic way; setting, dialogue/ direct speech
= slow telling, what is done and said is ‘staged’ for the reader, creating the illusion that we are ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ things for ourselves.

19. … Diegesis = ‘telling’ or ‘relating’
= more rapid or panoramic or summarising way
= gives us the essential information as efficiently as possible, without creating the illusion that the events are taking place before our eyes.
** In reality, writers use the two modes in tandem for strategic reasons.

20. 2. Focalisation Viewpoint or perspective
Which point of view the story is told
External focalisation = viewpoint outside the character depicted; we are told things only external and observable; what the characters say and do
Internal focalisation = focus on what the characters think and feel

21. Focalisation… ‘ Thelma stood up and called out to Mario’
= EXTERNAL FOCALISATION
‘Thelma suddenly felt anxious that Mario was not going to see her and would walk by oblivious to where she was standing’
= INTERNAL FOCALISATION

22. Focalisation… Zero Focalisation
Novelist may freely enter minds and emotions of more than one character, as if privy to the thoughts and feelings of all of them.
Characteristic of ‘traditional’ or ‘classical’ narration
Also named ‘omniscient narration’

23. 3. Who is telling the story?

24. The Unidentified Narrator
A voice; tone; an intelligent recording consciousness;
The covert, effaced, non-intrusive, non-dramatised
May not be the author’s true voice
Disembodied narrator
Authorial persona

25. The Identified Narrator
A distinct, named character
Has a personal history, gender, social-class position, distinct likes and dislikes etc
Have witnessed, or learned about, or even participated in the events they tell
‘Overt’ or ‘dramatised’ or ‘intrusive narrators’

26. The Identified Narrator…
Either:
** Heterodiegetic Narrator
= not a character in the story he/she narrates but an outsider to it eg Mr. Lockwood in Wuthering Heights
** Homodiegetic Narrator
= present as a character in the story eg. Jane Eyre, Steven Messenger

27. The Unreliable Narrator
Narrator may be unreliable as they are:
- biased; prejudiced; cynical; puzzled; misleading
May have disturbed vision of events
E.G. Steven Messenger

28. The Effect of the Unreliable Narrator
may be alienating and disjointed for the reader
reader as active participant
reader must decode for themselves
a refracted picture of events is portrayed

29. How is time handled in a story?
Narratives often contain references back and references forward so that the order of telling does not correspond to the order of happening.
‘Analeptic’ = Flash back
‘Proleptic’ = Flash forward

30. What do good writers do?
Make strategic use of both analepsis and prolepsis in a story for the beginning is seldom the best place to start.
Stories tend to begin in the middle = ‘in medias res’

31. Basic narrative momentum generated and readers engaged by:
starting in the middle
with
analeptic material sketching out what went before
and
proleptic devices hinting at what the outcome will be.

32. How is the story ‘packaged’?
Stories are not always presented ‘straight’ or ‘linear’

33. ‘Frame Narratives’ or ‘Primary Narratives’
Contain within them ‘embedded’ narratives or ‘secondary narratives’
Use of a ‘framing device’
Also known as the ‘meta-narrative’ or ‘tales within tales’
Eg. ‘The Turn of the Screw’, ‘Twelfth Night’
NB: Primary narrative just means it comes first, rather than the main narrative, which usually it isn’t / secondary narrative usually the main story.

34. ‘Single-ended’, ‘double-ended’ or ‘intrusive’?
Frame situation is not returned to once the embedded narrative is complete
eg ‘The Turn of the Screw’, at the end, we don’t return to the original group telling the story around the fire.

35. ‘Single-ended’, ‘double-ended’ or ‘intrusive’?
The frame situation is reintroduced at the end of the embedded tales
Eg ‘Heart of Darkness’, we return, briefly, to the group of listeners to whom Marlow has been telling the tale.

36. ‘Single-ended’, ‘double-ended’ or ‘intrusive’?
When the embedded tale is occasionally interrupted to revert to the frame situation
Eg. ‘Heart of Darkness’, Marlow interrupts his own telling and talks to the group of men
Effect can be alienating and disrupting
Conrad did this to show his distaste for omniscient narration!

37. 6. How are speech and thought represented?

38. Direct and tagged
‘What’s your name?’ Mario asked her. ’It’s Thelma’, she replied.

39. Direct and Untagged
‘What’s your name?’
‘Thelma’

40. Indirect Speech
He asked her what her name was, and she told him it was Thelma.
Effect: formal distancing between reader and events.

41. Free Indirect Speech What was her name? It was Thelma
Effect: Suits an internally focalised narrative as it seems natural and ‘glides’.
What was her name? It was Thelma. Thelma was it?
Not the kind of name to launch a thousand ships. More of a suburban, lace-curtain sort of name, really.

42. Narratology as a branch of
STRUCTURALISM

43. STRUCTURALISM Focus on structure, symbol, design
Parallels, echoes, reflections, patterns and contrasts
Narrative becomes highly schematised

44. We look for the factors on the left and expect to find them in the parts of the tale listed on the right.
Parallels
Echoes
Reflections / Repetitions in
Contrasts
Patterns
Plot
Structure
Character / Motive
Situation / Circumstance
Language / Imagery

45. How does this apply to ‘Strange Objects’?

46. The thesis of Structuralism:
That narrative structures are founded upon underlying paired opposites, or dyads
These contrasts are the skeletal structure on which all narratives are fleshed out.

47. Binary Opposition- Narrative Structure
The tale may have a binary structure (a structure of paired opposites) made up of two contrasting halves
‘Strange Objects’- What are the two structural halves? What is the ‘framing narrative’?
= Steven Messenger’s first-person diary entries and the ‘contrasting half’ is the other material: Wouter Loos’ journal entries; police reports; advertisements; letters etc

48. Binary Opposition- Narrative Structure
Marked difference in narrative pace between the narrative halves:
Messenger’s narrative: moves with increasingly disjointed rapidity, reflecting his fractured sense of self; psychosis
‘Other’ narrative half: ordered text types; range of perspectives; methodical

49. Binary Opposition- Narrative Structure
Consider how each narrative half effects the other; what is the relationship between the two; distribution of power

50. Binary Opposition within the character of Steven Messenger
Consider contrasts and parallels between SM’s ‘two halves’ / his alter-ego / the ‘Other’

51. Other Binary Opposites to consider:
Life
Male
Light
Doing
Reality
Art
Female
Dark
Looking
Representation