Narrative fiction Dombey and Son had often dealt in h ides but never in h earts. They left that fancy ware to b oys and girls, and b oarding-schools and.

Narrative fiction

Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. (Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848, p. 6)

Novel – Fully developed narrative

Short Story – mood and impression

Novella – events developed into tale

Development of Narrative FictionAntiquity: Homer (Epic fiction), Iliad and Odyssey

(ca. 7. BC); Virgil (70-18 BC.), Aeneys (ca. 31-19 BC)

Middle Ages/Renaissance: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian Divina Commedia, ca. 1307-1321)

English : Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552-1599), Faerie Queene (1590, 1596);

Spain: Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Don Quixote (1605-1615)

Restoration: John Milton (1608-1674), Paradise Lost (1667)

England in the 18th Century: Henry Fielding (1707-1754); Joseph Andrews (1742), Tom Jones (1749); Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Robinson Crusoe (1719), Samuel Richardson (1689-1761); Pamela (1740-1741) and Clarissa (1748-1749),Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Tristram Shandy (1767-1768)…

Narrative/Narratology/Basics Narrative – one that tells a story with a narrator Narratology – study of narrative strategies and

structuresStory – What is the narrative about?o Chronological progression of narrated events

(Everything was banned, so people started playing, when the playing was banned, people killed)

Discourse – How is the narration done?o Shaping of the material in the story by the narrator;

(who is saying that what was banned, what type of mediating narrator is communicating the story to us)

Narrative Texts - ApproachesStory Oriented (structuralism) –

Story is the point of departure, chronology, connections

Discourse Oriented (formalism) –Someone/something transmits the story, told through someone’s eyes, and someone’s ‘point of view’

Experientialist (realism, existentialism, etc.) –Real life sensations, based on real life experience

Communication Model Extratextual (beyond) and Intratextual (within) (page 104)

Diagetis (telling) and Mimesis (showing/resembling)

(“He was sure he saw the dark clouds” – “the dark clouds descended on his eyes”)

Embedded communication

Extradiagetic

“You can tell that Ophelia is working class woman just by looking at her worn out hands, layers of dead skin furring out in tiny specks. She worked on the house day and night. She is a typical housewife.”Diagetic“I am not a housewife”, Ophelia told her. “Then whose wife are you?”, Clara retorted. “well, I am my husband’s wife.”

Subject – Object Relationship

Story Orientated Narratology

Characters/Plot/Narrative World

Characterization: explicit (self) and implicit (others)

Character Perspective/Narrator Perspective Knowledge/Psychology/Values or Norms (identify both in the short story)

Story Vs PlotStory– Chronological order of eventsPlot – Various elements of story put together in a

logical order (casual dependence of elements)“The King died and then the Queen died is the story The King died and then the Queen died of grief is a

plot”(http://www2.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de)Event – Division within plot (Act)

(identify the story and plot in the short story)

Kernels vs. Satellites Kernel – central to plot (forbidding, forbidding) Satellites – embellish the plot sequence,

omission does not disrupt logical sequence (tip-cat, everything, town)

Plot Structure/Deep StructureCommonly recurrent structure of a plot

Types of PlotSingle and Multiple plotsSeduction plot, courtship plot, quest plot, etc.

Exposition in NovelsAb ovo (beginning)In medias res (in the middle of the action)In ultimas res (beginning with the end of the

action)(isolated and integrated expositions)

Ending in Novels Open – problems unresolved (just punished)Closed – solved (punished rewarded)Deus ex machina ending (outside intervention)

Discourse-Oriented Narratology – 1Narrative Situations

Mode, Person, and Perspective

ModeNarrator/Reflector

PersonFirst Person/Third Person

PerspectiveInternal Perspective/External Perspective

Narrative Situations (typological –Karl Stanzel)1) First-person – ‘experiencing I’; ‘witnessing I’Limitations: does not know much about the other

characters’ motifs and intentions, must always offer logical explanation“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o‘clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”

Narrative Situation2) Authorial – figurally inserted, outside of the

world of characters; concrete, tangible, self-identified immediately. Interjections, moral commentaries, flash forward, secondary texts. “[...] I shall not look on myself as accountable to any court of critical jurisdiction whatever; for as I am, in reality, the founder of a new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws I please therein.” ( Fielding II, 1)

Advantages: omniscience and omnipresence; spatial, temporal and psychological privileges

See p. 112 for an example.

Narrative Situation

3) Figural – a) the narrator recedes from the story making it difficult to tell who is the diction proper; b) a reflector, primarily a third person, replaces the narrator, telling events observed closely from a first person perspectiveSee p. 114 for an example.Story telling frame vs. viewing frameFirst person, authorial vs. figuralAddressing by clear speaker vs. absent present speaker (example p. 115).

Other narrative situationsSecond Person – reader is drawn in as the character

"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Let the world around you fade."

Dialogue narration– narrator’s role is limited“They look like white elephants," she said."I've never seen one," the man drank his beer."No, you wouldn't have.""I might have," the man said. "Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything."The girl looked at the bead curtain. "They've painted something on it," she said. "What does it say?""Anis del Toro. It's a drink.""Could we try it?"

Camera-eye narration – perceiving and narrating events and images as seen through eye objectively. Narrator does not know what the character thinks, as camera cannot see thoughts and feeling.

Historical developments16th to 19th Century – First person and

Bildungsromaneg. Don Quixote (1605)

18th Century – Authorial narration; autobiographical fiction

eg. Robinson Crusoe (1719) 19th Century – Figural narration – a switch

from “telling mode” to “showing mode” – a sign of modernismeg. Jane Austen’s novels (1775- 1817)