Narratology

Instead, if characteristics can be defined, if only tentatively, these characteristics can serve as the point of departure for the next phase: a description of the way in which each narrative text is constructed. Once this is accomplished, we have a description of a narrative system. On the basis of this description, we can then examine the variations that are possible when the narrative system is concretized into narrative texts. This last step presupposes that an infinite number of narrative texts can be described using the finite number of concepts con tained within the narrative system.

theory is a systematic set of generalized statements about a particular segment of reality.

A narrative text is a text in which an agent or subject conveys to an addressee (‘tells’ the reader) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings, or a combination thereof. A story is the content of that text, and produces a particular manifestation, inflection, and ‘colouring’of a fabula; the fabula is presented in a certain manner. A fabula is a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors. These three definitions together constitute the theory this book elaborates.

e can distinguish three layers in a narrative text: the text, the story, and the fabula. Each of these layers can be described.

Playing with sequential ordering is not just a literary convention; it is also a means of drawing attention to certain things, to emphasize, to bring about aesthetic or psychological effects, to show various interpretations of an event, to indicate the subtle difference between expectation and realization, and much else besides. Interestingly, it is literary narrative’s way of achieving a density that is akin to the simultaneity often claimed for visual images as distinct from literature.

focus, interest, ideology

The actors have an intention; they aspire towards an aim. That aspiration is the achievement of something pleasant, agreeable or favourable, or the evasion of something unpleasant, disagreeable or unfavourable. The verbs to wish and to fear indicate this teleological rela tion and are, therefore, used as abstractions of the intentional connections between elements.

Fourth, the locations at which events occur can also lead to the formation of a structure.

lapse. Some events can occur at the same time, others succeed one another.

Third, the events can be placed against time lapse