Narratives Flashcards
Events
narrative
- smallest unit of story/plot
- are actions that change a given situation in the story
- peoples action forward brings about change
- not always equally important
Story time vs. Discourse time
Narrative
story time: time it takes to narrate (time that passes in the story)
discourse time: time covered by the narrated event (time that it takes me to read the story)
Time Analysis
Narrative
3 aspects: duration, order, frequency
Time Analysis : Duration
Narrative
story time = st / discourse time = dt
Summary: dt < st
Scene: dt = st
Stretch: dt > st
Elipsis: no dt vs. only st
pause: only dt. vs. no st
Time Analysis: Order
Narrative
chronological vs. anachronological
- flash back
- flash forward
Time Analysis: Frequency
Narrative
Singulative: event happens once
Repetitive: Event happens once, but is referred to various times
Herative = Event happens multiple times
Point of view
Narrative
external vs. internal
Narrator vs. Character
Modes of Representation
Narrative
- Showing (mimesis): little or no narrational mediation, overtness or presence (no narrator)
- Telling (diegesis): Narrator in overt control of action presentation
Representation of Events
Narrative
mimetic
- direct discourse
- free indirect discourse
- indirect discourse
- report/summary
- comment
diegetic
Representation of Consciousness
Narrative
‘purely’ mimetic
- free direct discourse
- direct discourse
- free indirect discourse
- indirect discourse
- diegetic summary
‘purely’ diegetic
Examples for:
Direct Discourse
Indirect Discourse
Free Indirect Discourse
Direct Discourse: “She said, “I love Literary Studies”
Indirect Discourse: She said that she loved Literary Studies.
Free Indirect Discourse: She loved Literary Studies.
Narrative Situation (Stanzel)
Narrative
1st person
Authorial
Figural
1st person Narrator
- involved in the story
- “narrating I”/”experiencing I”
- involved as protagonist (I-as-protagonist) or peripheral character (I-as-witness)
- narrative situation: limited
-> no insight into the thoughts/feelings of the other characters
Authorial Narrator
- situated outside the world of characters (god-like view)
- present themselves as fictive individuals (by comments, moral judgements, etc. on events)
- typical features: flashforwards, generalisations
- narrative situation: unlimited
-> omniscience (insight into the internal processes of all characters and familiarity with their thoughts and feelings
-> omnipresence (invisible and fictive presence in all places where characters are alone, as well as presence in several locations at the same time)
-> able to see the entire course of narrative events in the past, present and future
Figural Narrator
- generally recedes so far, that the narrative transmissions are barely noticable
- narrated world is presented from the perspective of a character who is involved in the action -> ‘reflector’
- gives the reader the impression of having a direct insight into the thoughts and feelings of characters
- internal perspective -> doesn’t have the ability to see the entire course of events (like authorial narrator)
Genette’s Structuralist Taxonomy
Narrative voice
- narrative voice: Who speaks?
- extradiegetic: first level narrator
- intradiegetic: no first level narrator
(diegetic: telling extra: outside intra: inside) - heterodiegetic: narrator is not part of the story
- autodiegetic: narrator is part of the story and protagonist
- homodiegetic: narrator part of the story but not protagonist
(hetero: different auto: self homo: same)
-> two terms needed to analyse the narrative voice
Genette’s Structuralist Taxonomy
Focalization
- Focalizer = subject of the verbs of perception, thinking, feeling, remembering
- Focalization: who sees? > can change within a story
> internal: narrative events presented from a character’s perspective (observer knows as much as character(s)) - fixed: whole duration follows one character
- variable: switches from character to character
- multiple: one & same story is told from multiple perspectives
–> external: narrative events presented from narrator‘s perspective (observer knows less than character(s))
Short Story Theory (E.A.Poe)
Narrative
- unity of plot
- length/time
- totality of Tone
- limitation of place
=> unity of effect
How to write a Short Story?
- choose desired impression
- pick a climax
- consider length, tone
- pick a place
- determine necessary events
=> unity of effect
Plot vs. story (narrative)
- Plot: sequence of events + cause (causality)
> “the king died and then the queen died of grief” - Story: sequence of events (chronology)
> “the king died”
