Lecture 10 - 12 - Narrative

• what actually happens in the text

• Chronological sequence

• following events make the story

Order and causality of events

• What are people doing - mostly through dialogue – Realism

• neutral description

• lack of feelings or insides of the character

• no judge or comment on the character

• writing a play using pros

• dramatic method (through dialogue)

• descriptions and a strong narrator presence – Romanticism

• comments about the character

• feel the presence of the narrator

• explanatory method

• form of writing

  • fiction is not the opposite of reality

• narratives need an mediating instance (narrator)

• no narrator in poems (speaker)

• dramas can have a narrative character

• Postmodernism

• narrator talks about the environment in detail

  • pictures a man far away

• reality effect

• relation between the text and the narrator

causes an effect

is a state

• can be seperated

• presentation of the character

• showing to telling

  • Free direct thought

  • Direct thought

  • Free indirect discourse

  • Indirect thought

• The narrator is the character

• Characters thoughts

• Jump between characters if the narrator changes (different chapters)

• What should I do

• The narrator describes what the character is doing or thinking but is not the character

• Characters’ thoughts reported in direct speech (with inquit formula is added – he she said)

• She thought “What should I do”

• The narrator sounds like the character but is not the character

• Characters’ thoughts, but the narrator is speaking

• Pronouns and tense shift to the narrator’s point of view

• What should she do

• The narrator is not using the language of the character

• presence of the narrator is the strongest

• A grammatical shift toward the narrator

• XY wondered what she should do

• sequences of events

• story oder can be different from the discourse order

• flashbacks, foreshadowing

• how often an event occurs

• sth. is happening every day in the story but is just mentioned once in the discourse

• Relation of story time and discourse time

• Storytime: time that passes within the world the characters inhabit, the story world (actual time)

• Discourse time: the time it takes to tell or read a story and presentation of sequences

• Discourse Time < story time

• The narrative is speeding up

• Often without details

• Discourse time > story time

• Description of mental process

• Discourse time is identical to the story time

• Showing rather than telling

• Consists of dialogue

• Discourse time is not realized while storytime is

• Leave out moments in time

• Leaves out steps in the chronological order

  • Time jumps

• Discourse time is realized whereas story time is not 

• Nothing happens but the narrator keeps on talking

• Reality effect because of additional information

• level

• relation

• appearance

• focalization

• extradiegetic

• intradiegetic

• telling the reader outside the story world

• all texts have an extradiegetic level (only one)

• level of the reader

• frame as the extradiegetic level to separate the worlds

• can’t communicate with the character

• story within a story

• don’t need to have one but can have an infinite amount (most texts don’t have one)

• story world

• painting within the painting as the intradiegetic level

• different point of view

• space

• time jumps don’t have to be on another level

• can communicate with characters

• heterodiegetic

• homodiegetic

• autodiegetic

• Narrator is not part of the story world

• narrator is the voice

• how is the voice related to the story

• often 3rd person narrator

• can also be I but not part of the story world

• Narrator is part of the story world but is not the main character

• interact with the characters

• also part of the story world (Main character)

• often first person

• Every autodiegetic narration is also homodiegetic but not the other way round

• every first person is unreliable as we only get their point of view (subjective)

• heterodiegetic narrator can be selective

  • if they are unreliable it can not be proven as they are outside of the story world

• Realism

• Most of the story is the imagination of the Farquhar (the man who is being hanged)

  • the whole story happens in his head

  • imagines the escape from the execution so that he can reunite with his family which symbolises hope

  • ticking watch symbolizes not only the less time he has left but also how to sharpen his senses are before his dead

  • more underlined through the little details he sees in nature

• takes place while the civil war

  • Main character as a local slave owner

• stretch through the thoughts in his mind before he dies

• Pause as we get additional information or a description of the scene to make it feel more real

• Ischrony through dialogues

• extradiegetic level

• heterodiegetic narration

• zero focalization

• overt through feelings of the character

• free indirect discourse

  • Characters’ thoughts, but the narrator is speaking

  
  

• the definitions of an unreliable Narrator

  • even tries to convince us he is not insane

  • tool that we shouldn’t trust the narrator

• story wouldn’t work with another narrative mode

  • “He is pondering in his room” – The end!

• killing a man due to his evil eye in order to get rid of the eye as it made him feel uncomfortable

  • separates the eye from the man as it is only the eye which borders him not the man himself

  • after the murder, he divides the dead body into pieces and hides them

  • after the police arrived as a neighbor called them he brought them into the bedroom

  • he imagined hearing the heart of the dead man which made him go crazy which is why he in the end told the police about the murder (bad conscience?)

• extradiegetic level

• autodiegetic relation as he is the main character

• summary ..every night about midnight…

• Pause as we get extra information about the mans feelings

• fixed internal focalization

• overt narration through commenting

• Realism

• Ellipsis

  • he is walking for hours in the snow but the discourse time is a way shorter

• extradiegetic

• heterodiegetic

  • as the voice doesn’t communicate with the characters from the story à …when the man turned aside...(3rd person)

• overt native voice

  • character is ignorant and the narrator gives a comment

  • it should worry the man but it did not

  • if we had a covert narrator man would suddenly die and we would not know the reason

• dynamic zero focalization

  • often dynamic when we have zero focalization

• A man In Canada who was new in this area, not impressed by the cold winter

  • has to build a fire on the way to keep him warm

  • as he got wet he started to freeze which leads him to death

• dies in the end from the cold

• the dog symbolizes the instinct for survival

• the boys symbolise destination, security, comfort, and companionship as they are the reason he decided to make the way to the camp in this cold

  • somehow they were also the reason he kept going

• Realism

• Alice Waythorn got married to Mr. Waythorn who was her third marriage

  • at first he did not really care

  • he was enjoyed that her ex-partners came back into her life or his life as the daughter from the first marriage got sick

  • he tried to avoid seeing them

  • only at home he felt save as it symbolizes the private world of the Waythorn family

  • situation changed as he met his first husband who was not as he expected him to be

  • he was afraid that the story repeats as he is somehow in the same boat as Alice’s first husband

  • in the end the other two and the Waythorns set together drinking a cup of tea

• Ellipse

  • …ten days later at the beginning of Chapter 3

• Pause as we get extra information through descriptions

• Isochrony through short dialogues

• extradiegetic

• heterodiegetic

• overt narration

• fixed internal focalization as we are in the head of the husband

• Realism

• Feminist short story

  • tries to be feminist but actually she is not as she still does what others want her to do (take the medicine)

• Collection of diary entries

  • Wallpaper is mirroring her mind (confused, hard to read)

• Questions the role of women in society and mental health ( usually considered hysterical if you didn’t follow the norm)

  • Women in this time should do what others tell her or expect from her, especially the husband

  • would like to pursue her own ideas which makes her different than other women

  • Wants to defy the norm (not allowed to write but does it anyway)

• haunted house almost a simile to her mind ( her mind is also haunted) →external

  • Woman is haunted – husband doesn’t believe her

  • Want to make her husband feel the way she does

  • her own husband doesn’t take her seriously but also her husband as a doctor doesn’t take her seriously

• The narrator (the character ) can’t relate to her husband John

  • Poison relationship as her husband is the reason for her getting more and more sick

  • Tried to talk to him but gave up really quickly

  • seems like she is feeling lonely as her husband is always gone (only there at night)

  • could imply that he also leaves her alone with her problems (he doesn’t think she is sick as her husband or as a doctor)

• her baby doesn’t play a big role in the story

  • but maybe it’s the reason for her sickness as it  indicates Postpartum depression

• At the end  she locked herself in the room

  • going crazy as she believes there is a women behind the wallpaper

  • believes that she was also a women behind a wallpaper and don’t want to be put back

• yellow wallpaper symboloses the obsession of the narrator

• diaray as a symbol of rebellion

  • shows us the life of the mind that the narrator has been forced to give up

  • written in a sometimes confusing way or just hard to read

• women behind the wallpaper as she identifies herself entirely with this mysterious figure.

• Unreliable narrator

  • the mode of narration is changing

  • first person narrator

• Free direct thought as we are getting the characters thoughts

• Ellipsis through time jumps (e.g. we have been here two weeks)

• Stretch through her thoughts

• Isochrony through dialogues

• Pause as we are getting extra information through comments eg. of the room

• Extradiegetic level

• No intradiegetic level

• Autodiegetic narrator as she is the main character

• Narration changes in the end of the story

  • Now what happens right now (present)

  • Before it was a diary entry from the past

  • She as a person changes which is why the narration changes

  • Frees herself (breaks free from the paper)

  • Breaks free from being caged by her husband

• overt narration

• dynamic internal focalization

• covert

• overt

• Anonymous narrator

• Often showing through dialogs

• Stays neutral and doesn’t voice opinions

• Narrator draws attention to himself

• Telling through Comments

• Unreliable narrator

• Autodiegetic narrator

• fixed

• dynamic

• internal focalization

• zero focalization

• external focalization

• we are in a character’s mind and only getting their point of view

• focalizer is the character

we know more than any of the characters

we know less than the characters

• Focalization doesn’t change over the course of the text

• Only one point of view

• Focalization changes

• Different point of views

• often with zero focalization

• if you change the literary theory the identity of the author becomes important in order to understand the structure of the text

  • white man writing story about colonialism changes the understanding of the text

  • death of the author problematic

• think of literary theories which are good and easy to apply on the text

• Literary theory could serve as a bridge between a text and larger social, cultural, political, and economic issues

• all cultures affected by the imperial process

• pointing out that colonialism was bad

• look at texts and literature and observe how they deal with the impact of colonialism

• others are different

  • we are better them then as we have something they don’t have

  • self and other

• burden of the white men to bring civilization to the people

  • educate them as they are no full people

• The aim of a postcolonial reading is not to merely identify and critique

  • is interested in more complex questions of hybridity, liminality, and identity which cannot be categorized in binaries

• not only race also gender

  • orient feminine

  • Europe masculine

• racist just say the other group is other then you no matter wether its positive or not

• polnish-british author

• one of the most important authors of the 19th century

1899

• longest part

• The Narrator describes the scene from the deck of a ship named Nellie as it rests at anchor at the mouth of the River Thames, near London

• sunset and the memories of the narrator

• Marlow interrupts the silence

• Marlow adds that conquest is never pretty and usually involves the powerful taking land from those who look different and are less powerful

• start of Marlow story

• story of Fresleven’s Death, which was the reason he was hired

• Company's office

• conversation with his aunt

• Marlow boards the steamer that will take him to the mouth of the Congo

• Company's Outer Station

• Grove of Death

• Introduction of Mr. Kurtz, a station head

• fifteen-day trek through the jungle

• arrival at the station

• Marlow is taken to the General manager

• Marlow fixes the ship

• We get more information about Kurtz

• Marlows first lie

• Marlow breaks off telling his story

• Marlow resumes his story

• Without rivets, Marlow can't do any work either

• shortest part

• General manager and his uncle

• General Manager's uncle and his Eldorado Expedition head into the jungle

• Marlow finishes repairing the ship (three months later)

• the long difficult trip

• Marlow continues with his story

• eight miles before the headquarter

• The next morning

• one mile before the headquarter

• message from the general manager

• Marlow interrupts his story once again to address the men on the ship

• BUT Kurtz was alive

• Arrival at the station

• Marlow and the Russian

• The pilgrims come out of the house bearing Kurtz on a stretcher

• Along the shore of the river near the ship the natives gather

• conflict between Kurtz and the General Manager

• Marlow and the Russian

• Marlow and Kurz (climax of the novel)

• departure of the ship the next day

• Death of Kurtz

• Marlow gets sick

• Marlow’s return to Europe

• representative of the Company comes to get Kurtz's papers

• Marlow and Kurzes Ex future wife

• Marlow, on the Nellie still at anchor in the Thames, goes quiet

• Colonialism

  • Most present in Part I

• Hollowness of the civilization

  • Most present in Part I and Part III

  • corruption

• Lack of truth

  • Main theme in Part III

• Work

  • Most present in Part I (but not that much compared to the other topics)

• Racism

  • Most present in Part I and Part II (but not that much compared to the other topics)

  • Book itself is not Racist but it criticises it

• Heart of Darkness is mostly made up of his story about his journey into the Belgian Congo

• Seaman

• Racist

  • Does othering

• colonialist

• Extradiegetic level

• Homodiegetic

• Overt narration through commenting

• Zero focalization through comments about Marlow’s Story

  • Know more than the characters

• Intradiegetic level

  • Marlow is telling the other seaman a story

  • Autodiegetic as Marlow is the main character

  • Overt narration as he is the main character

  • Unreliable narrator

  • Internal focalization as we only get to know what Marlow knows

• Dynamic focalization

• Author wants to distance from Marlow

• Marlow can not be the narrator as he would be unreliable

  • Marlow is racist

  • colonialist

• the author was a product of his time

  • his text critics that

  • paradox

  • he can not escape the racism of his time

  • somehow reproducing this

• divided into three parts

• Deeply problematic

• Weird narrative framing

• Hard to read in order to make the reader feel the way Marlow did on his way through the jungle

• application of the theory of structuralism

• only interested in the structure of the text

• application of the theory of postcolonialism

  • identity of the author suddenly becomes important

  • how culture represents colonialism

• Heart of Darkness is a way more complex

  • would be convinced Marlow would be the good guy but he is not

  • text is engaging with the racial politics of that time

• expressing the mindest

  • but the idea is the white man’s burden

• postcolonial reading of Heart of Darkness does not simply point out that the text reproduces racist discourses (which it does), but investigates the contradictions and ambiguities within these discourses

• postcolonial moment of the text

  • cant separate ideology

  • realizes that they are not inhuman

  • Africa as a weird place (back in time)