Associate prof.

Gabriela Iuliana Colipc-Ciobanu,

PhD

I. Early models for the analysis of

narrative discourse
II. Grard Genettes theory of narrative
discourse
III. Structuralist narratology at the turn
of the millennium : Mieke Bal

From the Aristotelian mimesis to early twentiethcentury typologies of point of view.

Story and Plot.
Wayne Booths Neo-Aristotelian approach to
narrative discourse.
The Formalist fabula/sjuzet distinction.
The Structuralist histoire/rcit or story/discourse
distinction.

Plato (The Republic)

Mimesis/Diegesis
reality

imitation/copy

of

direct imitation of speech (dialogue)/ vs./ indirect

imitation of reality (summarising narration)

Artistic representations of material objects are too far from reality,

being imitations of imitations. (Kenny, 2013: xii)
Copies of reality, mere substitutes for the things themselves
may, unfortunately, be false or illusory substitutes that stir up
antisocial emotions (violence or weakness) and they may
represent bad persons and actions, encouraging imitation of
evil.
(Mitchell, 1995: 14-15)

Aristotle (Poetics)

Mimesis related to truth and likelihood (not to truth/

falsehood) Mimesis = a representational model of
reality (not a mere, perfect imitation/copy of reality).
The writers job is not to relate what actually happened, but
rather the kind of thing that would happen, either
necessarily or probably. In addition, (s)he tells about truths
that, even if not necessarily in the philosophical sense, are
universal in their application to human nature. Literature is
supposed to teach lessons based on necessity or probability.
(Kenny, 2013: xxvii, xxviii)
Both indirect narrative and direct representation become
varieties of mimesis.
Forms of mimesis distinctions in terms of their medium
(epic, drama, painting, sculpture, dancing and music), their
object (people in action), and their mode of representation
(the narrative/epic and the dramatic) (Poetics. I. Various
Kinds of Poetry) the first plot and character typologies.

The understanding of a piece of writing

fictional or non-fictional can only be explained
in terms of our existing model(s) of reality
that are influenced by:
the structure of fact, explanation, supposition,
which draws on our already existing knowledge ;
the plausibility of the report, i.e. the possibility of
making plausible connections between one act and
another. (Leech, 1992: 154)

the written text = a representational model

which may turn out to be more or less
faithful to the represented reality

Model of reality

Model of reality

Message

Writer
encodes

Message

Semantic level

Semantic level

Syntactic level

Syntactic level

Graphological level

Graphological level

Text

Reader
decodes

Until the end of the nineteenth century, writers and

critics have drawn upon the Aristotelian theory of
mimesis, showing more concern with the extent to
which literary works managed to comply with the
constantly debated upon and redefined principle of
verisimilitude. There have been, of course, some who,
more or less explicitly, have investigated different
aspects of narrative structure, calling into question
the pre-established conventions of novel writing and
challenging
the
readers
expectations.
(e.g.
Cervantes, Diderot, Sterne, etc.). Nevertheless, it is
only from the nineteenth century on that narrative
techniques become the subject of more systematic
analysis and Flaubert or Henry James are among the
first to pave the way for the development of
narratology as a well-defined approach to narratives.

Percy Lubbock (The Craft of Fiction, 1921)

a typology of narrative situations in which two sets of

criteria are combined: on the one hand, the opposition
between showing/telling (as a result of Lubbocks
enlarging on mimesis/diegesis), on the other hand, the
distinction between different modes of representation or
points of view (i.e. the panoramic survey, the
dramatized narrator, the dramatized mind and pure
drama).

Norman Friedman (1955)

eight narrative situations, the distinctions being given by

the same criterion of the point of view (i.e. editorial
omniscience, neutral omniscience, I as a witness, I as
protagonist, multiple selective omniscience, selective
omniscience, dramatic mode and camera).

E. M. Forster (1927) the distinction between the

what and the how = story and plot
(1) The king died and then the queen died.

(2) The king died, and then the queen died of grief.
(3) The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered
that it was through grief at the death of the king.

Story: a narrative of events arranged in their timesequence (1).

Plot: a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on
causality (2); a narrative of events with more mystery in
it, with the time-sequence suspended and capable of
further high development (3). (Forster in Scholes 1966:
221)

The Chicago School/ Neo-Aristotelianism: Its

theoretical basis is principally derived from
Aristotles concepts of plot, character and genre, as
presented in his Rhetoric and Poetics.
Wayne Booth (The Rhetoric of Fiction, 1961)
basic premises:
All narrative is a form of rhetoric.
The distinction between showing and telling in fiction
too simplistic.
distinctions between different instances involved in
the communication process in literature.

Booth does not see the author as the only person involved in creating
a work of fiction. Instead, he sees this creation as comprised of both
author and reader with a narrator to guide the reader through the
maze of the text. For Booth, the reader and the author cannot be
separated because of the power both author and reader exert on the
text and the power the text exerts on the author and reader. Booth
argues that the author constructs an implied author and a
narrator, both of whom connect to a specific reading community.
implied author (the authors official scribe or second self) whom
the reader invents by deduction from the attitudes articulated in the
fiction.
The implied author chooses, consciously or unconsciously, what we
read; we infer him as an ideal, literary, created version of the
real man; he is the sum of his own choices in:
style (providing insight into the authors norms);
tone (through which the author implies his judgment of the material
presented);
technique (the artistry of the author).

It is only by distinguishing between the author and his implied image

that we can avoid pointless and unverifiable talk about such qualities
as sincerity or seriousness in the author. (Booth, 1983: 74-5)

Narrator typologies (1):

Undramatized narrators (that are not given personal
characteristics): In so far as a novel does not refer directly to this
[implied] author, there will be no distinction between him and the
implied, undramatized narrator. (151)
Dramatized narrators: () even the most reticent narrator has
been dramatized as soon as he refers to himself as I. The range
of dramatized narrators is usually wide, from vivid narratorcharacters, disguised narrator-characters telling the audience
what it needs to know or seemingly acting out their roles to thirdperson centers of consciousness through whom authors have
filtered their narratives. Hence the further distinction between
mere observers and narrator-agents (who produce measurable
effect on the course of events). (152-3)

Modes of representation and narrator type

(2):

All narrators and observers, whether first or third person,

can relay their tales to us primarily as scene (), primarily
as summary () or, most commonly, as a combination of
the two. [] the contrast between scene and summary,
between showing and telling, is likely to be of little use until
we specify the kind of narrator who is providing the scene
or the summary. (154-5)
Commentary: (1) merely ornamental, serving a rhetorical
purpose, without being part of the dramatic structure; (2)
integral to the dramatic structure.

self-conscious narrators, aware of themselves as writers

(Such fiction shatters any illusion that the narrator is telling
something that has actually happened by revealing to the
reader that the narration is a work of fictional art, or by flaunting
the discrepancies between its patent fictionality and the reality
it seems to represent.) /versus/ narrators who rarely, if ever,
discuss their writing chores or who seem unaware that
they are writing/thinking/speaking/reflecting a literary
work.

Narrator typologies (3):

reliable narrator: usually in the third person, coming close

to the values of the implied author (he speaks for or acts in
accordance with the norms of the work, which is to say, the implied
author's norms);
unreliable narrator: often a character within the story,
deviating from the values of the implied author.
It is true that most of the great reliable narrators indulge in large amounts of
incidental irony, and they are thus unreliable in the sense of being potentially
deceptive. But difficult irony is not sufficient to make a narrator unreliable. Nor is
unreliability ordinarily a matter of lying (). It is most often a matter of what
[Henry] James calls inconscience; the narrator is mistaken, or he believes himself to
have qualities which the author denies him.
Unreliable narrators thus differ markedly depending on how far and in what
direction they depart from their authors norms; the older term tone, like the
currently fashionable terms irony and distance, covers many effects that we
should distinguish. (158-9)

The author also creates an implied/postulated reader whose

values and background represent the ideal reader: The author
creates, in short, an image of himself and another image of his
reader; he makes his reader, as he makes his second self, and the
most successful reading is one in which the created selves, author
and reader, can find complete agreement. (138)
Real author implied author narrator ----- narratee implied
reader real reader

Russian Formalism: Refuting the earlier perspectives which

regarded literature as a mere reflection of biographical,
historical or social reality, it insisted on its specificity so it
aimed at finding a "scientific", objective method for defining
the specific features of literature, its methods and devices.
What constitutes literature is its difference from other orders
of fact; literature is defined by its special use of language
deviating from and distorting practical language. The object
of literary studies = LITERARINESS of the poetic and fictional
works, their specific organization and the structural devices
that differentiate them from other types of discourses.
DEFAMILIARIZATION: Art defamiliarizes things that have
become habitual or automatic. It makes objects unfamiliar, in
order to help us experience the artfulness of objects, in other
words to ensure our fresh, non-habitual, non-automatic
perception of words and ideas. The purpose of a work of art is
to change our mode of perception from the automatic and
practical to the artistic. (Viktor Shklovsky, 1917)

Fabula/Sjuzet:

Fabula (story) = the raw material, the chronological sequence

of events.
Sjuzet (plot) = the order and manner in which they are
actually presented in the narrative. It prevents us from regarding
the incidents as typical and familiar.

The relation between fabula and sjuzhet is roughly

analogous to the one between practical and poetic
language. The sjuzhet creates a defamiliarizing effect
on the fabula; the devices of the sjuzhet are not designed
as instruments for conveying the fabula, but are
foregrounded at the expense of the fabula.
E.g. Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy (Skhlovsky) The
constructional devices (chaotic narrative order, prominent
self-conscious authorial commentary, transposition of
material, temporal displacements, the inclusion of
secondary anecdotes, digressions of all kinds) are laid bare
and not motivated by the events or situations in the story.

Vladimir Propp (Morphology of the Folktale) establishes the important

principle according to which personages are variable, but their
functions are constant and limited.
The functions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a tale,
independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled and they constitute the
fundamental components of a tale.
The number of functions known to the fairy tale is limited.
The sequence of functions is always identical.
All fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure.

Propp organizes the quest of his heroes into six main stages
(preparation; complication; transference; struggle; return;
recognition) and thirty one different functions.
Propp also identifies several spheres of action (the evil doer/the
villain; the giver donor, provider; helper/assistant; the
emperor and his daughter; the sender/dispatcher; the hero
seeker or victim; the false hero) with three possible situations:
1.The sphere of action corresponds exactly to one character.
2.One character functions in several spheres of action.
3.One sphere of action includes several characters (one role may
employ more than one hero).

Structuralism: The essence of structuralist

theories is the belief that things cannot be
understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the
context of the larger structures (hence, the term
structuralism). Its most revolutionary feature: the
importance that it attributes to language used as
a model for all sorts of non-linguistic institutions.
Literature is not only organised like language, but it
is actually made of language (Todorov literature is
always about language) and thus it makes us
aware of the nature of language itself. Language is
not just the means of communication in literature,
but it is also the content of literature. Therefore,
the relationship between literature and language is
one of parallelism/homology: literature is organised
at every level like language the task of creating a
universal grammar of narratives.

Structuralist narratology (Roland Barthes,

Tzvetan Todorov, etc.) the two-fold distinction of
fabula/ sjuzet translated it into French terms as
histoire/rcit. (On English grounds, the French
terms will be transposed by Seymour Chatman, for
instance, into story/discourse.)
Events

Histoire/
Story

Characters
Setting

Narrative
Rcit/ Discourse

Structuralist Narratology: Andr J. Greimas

According to Greimas, human beings make meaning by structuring the

world in terms of two kinds of opposed pairs: A is the opposite of B and
-A is the opposite of B. It is this fundamental structure of binary
oppositions that shapes all human languages, human experience, and
consequently, the narratives through which that experience is
articulated. plot formulas (conflict and resolution, struggle and
reconciliation, separation and union) are carried out by actants
(character functions).
six
character
functions:
helper/opponent.
three main patterns of plot:

subject/object;

sender/receiver;

Stories of Quest/Desire: a Subject (hero) searches for an Object (person/state/thing).

Stories of Communication: a Sender (person/god/institution, etc.) sends the Subject
in search of the Object which the Receiver ultimately receives.
Stories of Auxiliary Support or Hindrance (sub-plots): A Helper supports the
Subject in the Quest; an Opponent hinders the Subject from carrying on his Quest.

20 functions grouped into three main types of structures (syntagms):

Contractual structures (making/breaking agreements; establishment/violation of

prohibitions; alienation/reconciliation);
Performative structures (performance of tasks, trials, struggles);
Disjunctive structures (travel, movement, arrivals, departures).