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Chapter 20 Understanding Narrative -II

Background In this chapter we will continue with our earlier discussion on narrative, its key concepts, and theorists. Fabula and Sjuzet A text has a two-tier mode of existence that Russian Formalists call fabula (story and s!u"et. #hile fabula is the raw material or the basic story, s!u"et is the transformation of the fabula into a narrative discourse of aesthetic form. $onsider how %eter &uskind explores the mind of a serial-killer in his Perfume: The Story of a Murderer ('()* . +es, he was ,ranouille the ,reat- .ow it had become manifest. It was he, !ust as in his narcissistic fantasies of old, but now in reality. And in that moment he experienced the /reatest triumph of his life. And he was terrified. 0e was terrified because he could not en!oy one second of it. In that moment as he stepped out of the carria/e into the bri/ht sunli/ht of the parade /rounds, clad in the perfume that made people love him, the perfume on which he had worked for two years, the perfume that he had thirsted to possess his whole life lon/1 in that moment, as he saw and smelled how irresistible its effect was and how with li/htnin/ speed it spread and made captives of the people all around him---in that moment his whole dis/ust for humankind rose up a/ain within him and completely soured his triumph, so that he felt not only no !oy, but not even the least bit of satisfaction. #hat he had always lon/ed for-that other people should love him---became at the moment of its achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found /ratification in love, but always only in hatred---in hatin/ and in bein/ hated (p. 23( .

+ou must note that when a novel is adapted into a film, /enerally the plot (story takes over. I su//est you watch the film version of Perfume4 I am sure you will miss several elements of &uskind5s sjuzet, in this otherwise well-made film. (2667 er!eneutics 8he word traces its roots to the name of the messen/er ,od 0ermes, who was associated with transmutin/ what is beyond human understandin/ into somethin/ which human understandin/ can /rasp. 0ermeneutics essentially deals with the 9uestion of understandin/ the practice of interpretation4 and also searches for a set of principles that will facilitate correct interpretations. 8he scholarly names associated with the term are: Friedrich &chleiermacher (';7)-')<3 and #ilhelm =ilthey (')<<-'('' who built their theories upon the works of ,erman theolo/ians who worked on the development of methods of >iblical interpretation. ?dmund 0usserl (')*(-'(<) , 0ans-,eor/ ,adamer ('(66-2662 and @artin 0eide//er ('))(-'(;7 are the important names in the ,erman hermeneutic tradition4 where 0usserl5s theories of phenomenolo/y had /reat implications for theories of interpretation. ?. =. 0irsch is credited for brin/in/ the concept to the An/lo-American academia throu/h Aalidity in Interpretation ('(7; . Interpretation has both supporters and detractors. In '(*6, Archibald @acleish5s Ars Poetica emphasi"ed that BA poem should not meanC >ut be54 &usan &onta/ took a similar position in Against Interpretation ('(76 , and in '(;6 Roland >arthes5 readin/ of >al"ac5s &CCD asserted Bthe hermeunitic code5 as the mainstay of literary narrative.

"ise-en-ab#!e 8erm meanin/ Ethrown into the abyssE and adapted from the lan/ua/e of heraldry to desi/nate a part of a novel which is a replica in miniature of the whole novel4 Mise-enabyme leads towards an indeterminacy and a re/ress of duplications.

James Phelan and Rhetoric Narratology %helan ('(*'- has developed and populari"ed the term Brhetorical narratolo/y.5 In Narrati e as !hetoric: Techni"ue# Audiences# $thics# Ideology ('((7 , %helan implies that a rhetorical approach to narrative allows us to address the issues which are affective, thematic and ethical. In $%periencing &iction: 'udgments# Progressions# and the !hetorical Theory of Narrati e (266; , he posits, Bcan we read the same booksF5 su//estin/ that shared experience in readin/ books are possible and desirable. 8he book includes a ran/e of texts, such as Gane Austen5s Persuasion, ?dith #harton5s BRoman Fever5 and Ian @c?wan5s Atonement. &cholars have observed a close affinity between %helan and the .ew $ritics, with his tendency to pay close attention to textual detail and a disdain for referencin/ to historical or bio/raphical information. (see, http:CCen.wikipedia.or/CwikiCGamesH%helanHI2)literaryHscholarI2( . Vladimir Propp and Morphology of the Folktale %ropp5s method of structuralist method of analysis was used in theories of narrative. In Morphology of the &ol(tale ('(7) , %ropp states that althou/h folk tales consist of a hu/e number of characters, they contain a relatively small number of functions. #hat he means that while there may be a lar/e number of characters in folktales, the number of functions they perform is much smaller. @orpholo/y cate/ori"es the main characters as: Aillain, 0elper, =onor (ma/ician , Female in distress, =ispatcher, 0ero, and the False hero. (8hou/h %ropp draws on $laude Jevi-&trauss5s analysis of myth, Jevi-&trauss wrote a scathin/ essay on Morphology .

Narrative $evels% A text may have more than one level of story. A character in one level may appear as the narrator of another. In other words, texts can have Bstories within stories.5 8hese two narrative levels are typically referred to as Bnarrative5 and Bmetanarrative.5 Narrator% 8he author or character who produces the narrative. .arrators are classified accordin/ to the narrative level to which they belon/ and their participation in the

die/esis. A narrator who is outside the die/esis is an heterodie/etic narrator, and a narrator who functions in the die/esis is a homodie/etic narrator. Read the followin/ extract from ,erard ,enette5s Narrati e )iscourse:

,il >las is incontestably the hero of the story he tells, Jockwood is incontestably not1 Absence is absolute, but presence has de/rees. &o will have to differentiate within the homodie/etic type at least two varieties: one where the narrator is the hero of his narrative (,il >las and one where he plays only a secondary role, which almost always turns out to be a role as observer and witness: Jockwood, the anonymous narrator of *ouis *ambert, Ishmael in Moby )ic(, @arlow in *ord 'im, $arraway in The +reat +atsby, Deitblom in =octor Faustus---not to mention the most illustrious and most representative one of all, the transparent (but in9uisitive =r. #atson of $onan =oyle. It is as if the narrator cannot be an ordinary walk-on in his narrative: he can be only the star, or else a mere bystander. For the first variety (which to some extent represents the stron/ de/ree of the homodie/etic we will reserve the unavoidable term autodie/etic. (p. 23* .

If in every narrative we define the narrator5s status both by its narrative level (extra- or intradie/etic and by its relationship to the story (hetero- or homodie/etic , we can represent the four basic types of narrator5s status as follows: (' extradie/eticheterodie/etic----paradi/m: 0omer , a narrator in the first de/ree who tells a story he is absent from4 (2 extradie/etic-homodie/etic ----paradi/m: ,il >las, a narrator in the first de/ree who tells his own story4 (< intradie/etic-heterodie/etic---paradi/m: &chehera"ade, a narrator in the second de/ree who tells stories she is on the whole absent from4 (3 intadie/etic-homodie/etic---paradi/m: Klysses in >ooks IL-LII, a narrator in the second de/ree who tells his own story (p. 23) .

&oint o' (ie)% ?very narrative has a narrator. 8he an/le of vision or perspective from which events in a narrative are represented. ,enette prefers the term Efocali"ationE and emphasi"es the critical importance of not confusin/ Ewho speaksE (voice with Ewho

seesE (perpective . 8he narrator of the novel need not necessarily be the holder of its point of view. R.M. .arayan in The +uide ( '(*) bisected the line of his story between an omniscient narrator and a key character in the novel, that is, the hero, Ra!u. #hile the first person point of view is used to describe Ra!u5s childhood, his relationship with other inhabitants of his town, @al/udi, his affair with Rosie, her rise to fame as a dancer, and his subse9uent moral and social decline. 8he omniscient point of view is employed to /ive Ra!u a /reater world-view, which runs parallel with his new-found status as a Breluctant5 /uru. A mix of two approaches /ives us a better insi/ht into Ra!u5s character, and makes The +uide a comin/-of-a/e novel. 0enry Games in Portrait of a *ady ( employs the device of an omniscient narrator, but at times the author steps in the narrative to offer his personal observations: Knder certain circumstances there are few hours in life more a/reeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. 8here are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not---some people of course never do,---the situation is in itself deli/htful. 8hose that I have in mind in be/innin/ to unfold this simple history offered an admirable settin/ to an innocent pastime. (p. ' . 8he choice of the point(s of view from which the story is told is perhaps the most important sin/le decision that the writer has to make. Ima/ine for example, the story of Aeschylus5 ,edipus bein/ retold from Gocasta5s (Nedipus5 wifeCmother point of view. 0ow different would that narrative be from Nedipus5F A/ain, how impactful would Anna -arenina be if told from the husband, $ount Marenin5s point of viewF

Unreliable narrator 8he point of usin/ an unreliable narrator is to reveal an interestin/ /ap between appearance and reality, and to show how human bein/s distort or conceal the latter. 8his need not be a conscious, or mischievous, intention on their part. 0is narrative is a kind of confession, but it is riddled with devious self-!ustification and special pleadin/, and only at the very end does he arrive at an understandin/ of himself , too late to profit by it. A well-known example of usin/ the device of an unreliable narrator is 0enry Games5s The Turn of the Scre. discussed earlier.

Murosawa5s !ashomon ('(*6 is plotted with competin/ points-of-view in flashbacks, and details unreliable perspectives. 8he narrative is replete with facts submitted as evidence but immediately 9uestioned. In other words, every narrator is untrustworthy, alon/ with the overall film which dismisses the search for truth. &tevens, the ?n/lish butler in Ma"uo Ishi/uro5s The !emains of the )ay ('((< is an example of unreliable narrator, who suppresses his passions and beliefs to such an extent that the readers cannot take anythin/ he says at face value. &imilarly, in the $hinese film /ero (2662 , the messen/er-hero, intri/uin/ly called the Knnamed one, is an unreliable narrator. A nameless warrior is allowed an audience with the emperor who wants to know if the swordsman has really killed three potential assassins who once threatened the emperor5s life. 8he warrior narrates his different stories of how he rid the kin/dom of the three enemies. 8he kin/, however, remains unconvinced and 9uestions the tale, as do the viewers.

*UI+ ,- Answer in brief: i. ii. iii. #rite a brief note on the concept of the Bunreliable narrator.5 ?xplain what you understand by the narrative levels. #hat do you understand by the term Bpoint of view5.

2- Fill in the blanks% i. 1111..wrote a scathin/ essay on %ropp5s Morphology0 ii. 0ermeneutics deals with the practice of1111.. iii. ,il >las, a narrator in the first de/ree who tells his own story is an example of111.paradi/m.

.ns)er ke#% 2: i-$laude Jevi-&trauss 4 ii-interpretation 4 iii- extradie/etic-homodie/etic

Suggested readings% '. ,enette, ,erard. Narrati e )iscourse: An $ssay in Method. Ithaca, .+: $ornell Kniversity %ress, '()6. 2. Games, 0enry. Portrait of a *ady. Nxford: NK%, '()'. <. Rimmon-Menan, &. Narrati e &iction: 1ontemporary Poetics. Jondon: @ethuen, '()<. 3. &uskind, %eter. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Jondon O.+: %en/uin, '()*.

Suggested )ebsites http:CCtvtropes.or/CpmwikiCpmwiki.phpC@ainCKnreliable.arrator

http:CCwww.an/listik.unibayreuth.deCenC&tudiumCIntroHH@aterialHJI8CnarrativeH2H2Cindex.ht ml http:CCweb.viu.caC/uppyCcrewlink*CunitHone.htm http:CCwww.cla.purdue.eduCen/lishCtheoryCnarratolo/yCtermsC

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