Narrative

Question 1

focalisation OED

Answer 1

The limited point of view from which the events of a story are narrated. eg. First person narration. The perspective through which a narrative is presented.

Question 2

free indirect discourse OED

Answer 2

a special type of third-person narration that slips in and out of characters’ consciousness. In other words, characters’ thoughts, feelings, and words are filtered through the third-person narrator in free indirect discourse.

Question 3

mimesis OED

Answer 3

the representation or imitation of the real world in (a work of) art, literature, etc.
Sometimes used with reference to Aristotle Poetics 1447a or Plato Republic 598b. Although Plato and Aristotle use mimesis to refer generally to the imitation of nature in art, both also use the term more specifically. Plato contrasts two types of speech: the author’s own narrative voice (diegesis) and the ‘imitated’ voice of a character (mimesis). Aristotle extended this use to encompass imitative action as well as speech

Question 4

diegesis OED

Answer 4

the fictional time, place, characters, and events which constitute the universe of the narrative.

Question 5

Abbott - “The management

of plot…

Answer 5

is among other things the management of suspense, which in turn generates the energy that draws us through any well-constructed narrative - in Ryan, Marie-Laure. “Toward a Definition of Narrative.” The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, edited by David Herman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 22–36. Cambridge Companions to Literature.

Question 6

Abbott - the distinction between story and

how it is communicated is…

Answer 6

so fundamental that scholars of narrative often bring narration and plot together under a single heading, narrative discourse.

Question 7

there is little dispute that a story is composed of…

Answer 7

action (an event or events) and characters (more broadly existents or entities) and that it always proceeds forward in time

Question 8

controversy around whether the rendering/ narrative precedes or follows the story

Answer 8

does story rely on narrative to become itself?

Question 9

narration relies on

Answer 9

the nature of the narrator, especially their distance from the action of the plot

Question 10

homodiegetic narrators

Answer 10

narrators who are also characters in the

story = more often personally affected and therefore biased

Question 11

heterodiegetic narrator

Answer 11

narrators who stand outside the story - more often reliable

Question 12

Aristotle’s concept of “muthos,” often

translated as plot, is…

Answer 12

the fashioned story, shaped with a beginning, middle, and end.

Question 13

What are things that plot does to a story?

Answer 13

re-arranges, expands,

contracts, or repeats events by temporary delays, concealments, and confusions

Question 14

Forster in Aspects of the Novel ch.5 denotes

Answer 14

the causality of a plot in comparison to a story, the series of events doesn’t need to be chronologically ordered….

Question 15

First person narrators are not always the hero, often are wronged and are onlookers eg. …

Answer 15

in Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes

Question 16

Peter Brooks said “The intentionality of plot lies in its….

Answer 16

orientation toward the end even while the end must be achieved only through detour… - from Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative

Question 17

Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, “she sliced like a knife through

Answer 17

everything, at the same time was outside, looking on” pg.8-9 - through a moment of time, talks of the loss of identity in the city

Question 18

Henry James states “Literature should be

Answer 18

either instructive or amusing” in his essay ‘The Art of Fiction’

Question 19

“The story,” if it represents anything…

Answer 19

is the subject, the idea, the data of the novel” Henry James

Question 20

“a vivid sense of…

Answer 20

reality” is “the first aid of fiction” according to James

Question 21

James expands on the idea of

Answer 21

“selection” as crucial to a plot

Question 22

James - “genres have little interest for

Answer 22

the producer, from whose point of view it is, of course, that we are attempting to consider the art of fiction”

Question 23

mrs dalloway - “But Lucrezia herself could not help

Answer 23

looking at the motor car and the tree pattern on the blinds. Was it the Queen in there – the Queen going shopping?”

Question 24

Tolkein says fantasy is “escapist, and that is its…

Answer 24

glory…the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”