Events

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Lecture 5

• Events

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Readings

• Bal, Narratology, 1.2, 2.3-2.3
• Chatman, Story and Discourse, chapter 2
• Genette, Narrative Discourse, pp. 25-160
• Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction, chapter 2
• Toolan, Narrative, 2.1, 3.1-3.3

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Importance of Events

• Important for narrative and its definition
• Events are the constituents of a story, and are
  thus crucial to the it. Without events, there
  will be no story.
• Definitions
• Bal transition of one state to another,
• Rimmon-Kenan (1983 15) a change from one
  state of affairs to another.
• An event is essentially a process, an alteration,
  which deals with the occurrence of change.

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Events and the Minimal Story

• The importance of events to the story can be
  illustrated in the definitions of a minimal story
  
• Seems to be essential even in a minimal story

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Importance of Events to Propp

• To Propp, the study of what is done should
  precede the question of who does it and how it
  is done.
• Thus to Propp, events (what is done) is prior
  to character or agency of the action (who does
  it), and the style of the action or means by
  which it is done (how it is done).

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Micro- and Macro-Sequences of Events
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Micro- and Macro-Sequences of Events

• In Chatman's approach, the major and minor events
  of a story can be compared to what he calls the
  story's kernels and satellites
• kernels are the building blocks of a plot, they
  are the branching points in a story by which
  choices between alternative courses of action
  take place
• satellites (also called catalysts) are involved
  in the elaboration and filling-in of kernels
  (1978 53-6)

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Temporal Succession and Causality

• There are two ways by which we relate the
  proximate events in a story either in terms of
• temporal succession or
• causality.

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Importance of Temporal Succession

• Temporal succession has a connection with the
  actual chronology of the narrative.
• Because of its importance, some scholars have
  defined narrative in terms of temporal
  succession.
• However, like the definition which hinges on the
  minimal narrative, this may be too simple (or
  skeletal) a definition of narrative for most
  other scholars or students of narrative

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Causality

• E. M. Forsters famous distinction between story,
  which is merely a succession of events, and plot,
  which involves causality.
• Events may be causally recursive, in the sense
  that one event causes another, which in turn
  causes another, and so on (note that the use of
  the word recursive here is quite different from
  its use in linguistics, as it involves a linear
  instead of a hierarchical ordering).

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Temporal Succession and Causality

• Through language
• Indicating Causal Connection Use of conjunctions
  or conjunctive adjuncts such as because, since,
  as, therefore, hence, thus, consequently, as a
  result, for this reason, because of that.
• Indicating Temporal Succession (causal connection
  to be inferred by the reader) Use of
  conjunctions or conjunctive adjuncts such as and,
  later, afterwards, after which, prior to that,
  before that.

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Temporal Succession and Causality Language
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Temporal Succession and Causality Film

• In cinematic narratives however, it is usually
  the case that causality is indicated by a
  succession of images we establish causality
  through our understanding of how such images
  encode events which are causally related in
  everyday life (or in other films or narratives).

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Events, Characters and Actions

• An event may arise from the (conscious) action of
  a character.
• In fact, one definition of action is that it is
  an event initiated by a character.
• Also, it may arise from natural causes, or
• Inner psychological states
• (Involuntary actions)

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Collection of Events

• An event may not involve only a single action,
  but may constitute a collection of the actions of
  a character or characters in this case, it may
  be appropriate, in certain contexts, to describe
  it as a macro-event.
• However, the distinction between event and macro-
  or micro-event may not be relevant in the
  analysis of many narratives.

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Events in Relation to Story and Discourse

• Dealt with earlier
• Disjunctions between the two quite common

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Order of Events and Anachrony

• There are two types of anachrony analepsis or
  prolepsis. The three terms were introduced into
  narrative studies by Genette (1980 35-47).

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Analepsis

• Involves the narration of a story-event after
  later events have been told. They may involve a
  flashback, retrospection or (after Genette)
  analepsis.

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Prolepsis

• Involves the narration of a story-event before
  earlier events have been told. Prolepsis is
  different from merely hinting at a future
  occurrence it is different from anticipation as
  we normally understand the word (cf. Bal 1985
  63-6).

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Another way of looking at anachrony

• To view it in terms of the telling of an event to
  the past or future of what can be called the
  narrative now (see Talib 1990).
• Narrative now is that of the narrator
• Character-motivated anachrony does not fully
  deviate from the assumed chronology.

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Duration

• An important consideration in the study of events
  is duration, that is to say, how long the event
  is for example, whether
• it lasts an hour, a year or only a few minutes
• it is long or short or
• it could be measured in terms of x till y
  (Rimmon-Kenan 1983 46).

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Duration Story and discourse

• Story and discourse may have different effects on
  duration.

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Duration Some Terms.

• acceleration,
• deceleration,
• ellipsis
• descriptive pause and
• scene.

Defined
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Duration Acceleration Deceleration

• In acceleration, one devotes a short segment of
  the text or discourse to the event, which occurs
  over a comparatively longer time span in the
  story deceleration is the other way round.
• Acceleration and deceleration are relative to the
  norm established for the text.

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Duration Ellipsis Descriptive Pause

• The contrast between story time and discourse
  time may result in ellipsis, where an event in
  the story is deleted in the discourse.
• On the other hand, it may result in a descriptive
  pause, where time in the story is stretched or
  suspended in discourse in order to describe
  something

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Duration Scene

• In a scene, story duration and discourse (or
  text) duration are conventionally considered
  identical.
• Dialogue is often regarded as the best example of
  scene the narrator virtually disappears here.
  
• In a cinematic narrative, the equivalence of
  story duration to discourse (or text) duration in
  a scene is more easily measured than in written
  narratives (which are affected by different
  reading times)

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Frequency

• We ask how often an event occurs.
• This question can be asked in relation to how
  many times the event occurs in a minute, a month,
  or a page (Rimmon-Kenan 1983 46).
• Refers to either to story, discourse or (within
  discourse) discourse levels
• A minute, for example, refers either to story or
  discourse
• It is likely that a month refers to story
• Whereas a page refers to discourse

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Events and the Plot

• The events of a story may combine to form the
  plot
• Events are the building blocks of the plot.
• As such, they form an essential part of any
  analysis of the plot

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Events and Setting

• Mentioned earlier
• To Bal the close linkage of certain events with
  their settings, such as declarations of love by
  moonlight, rendezvous in an inn, ghostly
  appearances among ruins, brawls in cafés, etc.

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Events and Binary Categories

• Some scholars, such as Lévi-Strauss, Greimas and
  Bremond, have analysed events in terms of binary
  categories
• For example, Bremond whether an action has been
  done or not done, which results in an event
  occurring or not occurring.
• This may be too simplistic for some of us

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Event Labels

• Events have been analysed by using event labels
  to name or classify them.
• Such labels have been used by Barthes in his S/Z,
  where they are used not only be in the form of
  obvious one-word descriptions such as killing
  or marriage ceremony but also, in the form of
  propositions, or simple sentences used to
  describe the events, such as a kills b.

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Event Labels Advantage Problem

• May be more informative than classifying events
  in terms of simple binary categories
• However, they may proliferate, and may not allow
  us to easily perceive general patterns in a
  narrative or in a group of narratives.
• Thus, unlike the binary approach, which may
  suffer from too much simplicity, such an approach
  may suffer from too much complexity

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Linguistic Analysis,

• Which sentences/clauses/words represent the
  events of a story?

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• Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
• Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
• He put her in a pumpkin shell
• And there he kept her, very well.

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End of Lecture