Narratology

Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan

Focalisation and Narration

FOCALISATION: WHO SEES?

Position of the focaliser relative to the story:

• External focalisation vs. Internal focalisation
• View of the focalised from outside vs. from within

NARRATION: WHO SPEAKS?

Temporal relations between narration and story:

• 'ulterior narration' [after the events]
• 'anterior narration' [before the events]
• 'simultaneous narration' [during the events]
• 'intercalated narration' [narration and events alternate, e.g. in epistolary novels]

Narrative Levels:

• extradiegetic level: The level "immediately superior to the first narrative and concerned with its narration".
• diegetic level: "the events themselves" [diegesis = story]
• hypodiegetic level: "stories told by fictional characters [...] a second degree narrative"

"The diegetic level is narrated by an extradiegetic narrator, the hypodiegetic level by a diegetic (intradiegetic) one" (p. 92)

Functions of hypodiegetic narratives:

• Actional function: the hypodiegetic narrative contributes to the development of the plot
• Explicative function: the hypodiegetic level offers an explanation of the diegetic level
• Thematic function: the hypodiegetic narrative is in analogy to main narrative

A TYPOLOGY OF NARRATORS

Narrators may be distinguished in the following respects:

By Narrative Level: extradiegetic narrators, intradiegetic narrators, hypo- and hypohypodiegetic narrators.

By the Extent of Participation in the Story: Homodiegetic narrators are involved in the story, heterodiegetic narrators are not.

By their Degree of Perceptibility:

• Description of setting.
• Identification of characters.
• Temporal summary.
• Definition of character.
• Reports of what characters did not think or say.
• Commentary.

By Reliability: Signs of unreliability are:

• the narrator has limited knowledge;
• is personally involved;
• represents a problematic value-scheme.

Source: Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London, New York: Routledge. 1994 [1983]. 71–105.

Characterisation

[= the modes by which information about individual characters is conveyed]

Direct definition of character

• Who defines? (narrator, characters, about self or others?)
• In what situation is the definition stated?

Indirect presentation

• Actions (commission / omission / contemplated action)
• Characteristics of Speech
• External appearance
• Environment

physical: room, house, street, town.

human: family, social connections.

Reinforcement of Characterisation by Analogy

• Names (telling names, symbolic names, etc.)
• Landscape.
• Contrasts and similarities between characters.

Source: Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London, New York: Routledge. 1994 [1983]. 59–70.

Franz K. Stanzel

first-person narration (Ich-Erzählsituation)

• first-person narrator: the narrator is part of the world of the characters
• tendency towards subjective / unreliable presentation
• narrating self (erzählendes Ich) vs. experiencing self (erlebendes Ich)
• narrator-as-protagonist vs. narrator-as-witness
• typical genres: diaries, letters, essays, (fictional) autobiographies

example: I shook my head at this unpleasant surprise, for indeed I should have anticipated it. I had it coming. It was always the same.

authorial narration (Auktoriale Erzählsituation)

• third-person narrator: the narrator is not part of the world of the characters
• tendency towards objective / 'reliable' presentation
• 'omniscience'
• omnipresence
• 'telling' rather than 'showing': intrusive comments

example: The paranoid shook his head at the unpleasant surprise – the way that whiny people always do - and he thought: "I had it coming."

figural narrative situation (Personale Erzählsituation)

• third-person narrator assuming the perspective of a character: perceptions, emotions, thoughts, vocabulary are the character's, not the narrator's
• tendency towards subjective / immediate presentation
• 'showing' rather than 'telling': no intrusive comments

example: The paranoid shook his head at the unpleasant surprise. Why on earth was it always him? Why him? Again and again! He had it coming!

Source: Franz Stanzel. Die typischen Erzählsituationen im Roman. Wien, Stuttgart: Braumüller, 1955.