Literary%20Theory

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Literary Theory

• Class Three

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• Gérard Genette
• ??.???

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Gérard Genette

• Narrative Discourse. 1972. Trans. Jane E. Lewin.
  Itaca, NY Cornell UP, 1980.
• Narrative Discourse Revisited. 1983. Trans. Jane
  E. Lewin. Itaca, NY Cornell UP, 1988.
• ??? III?, ????????, ????, 2003

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Genette (1) Mode ??
Mimetic ?? Diegetic ??
Showing Staging a scene Slow motion Telling Summarizing Fastforward
What is done and said is staged for the reader, creating the illusion that we are seeing and hearing things for ourselves. A rapid summary of a long sequence of events, but all taking place off-stage, as it were.
(Barry 231-32)
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Genette (1) Mode ??
Mimetic?? Diegetic??
???????,????????,?????????,???????,??????????????????????????,??????????????,??????,????????Ray-Ban???????????????????????? ??????,??????????????????????,??????????????? ????, ????????, ????????????????? ??????, ??, ????????????????????? ??????!??????? ???,??,????? ?????????????? (??? ????? ??? 76-77) ???????????,??????????????????,????,????,??????????????,???????,???,?????????????????,??????????????,?????????????????,????? ????,????. . . .????,??????,??????,??????????,????????????,??????????? (??? ????? ??? 93)
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Genette (2) Focalization ??
(viewpoint or perspective)
External focalization ??? The viewpoint is outside the character depicted. (observable to a witness of the event)
Internal focalization ??? What the character think and feel. (inaccessible to a witness)
Zero focalization ??? Omniscient narration The narrated is presented in . . . a nonlocatable, indeterminable perceptual or conceptual position (Prince 103)
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Genette (2) Focalization ??
(viewpoint or perspective)
External focalization ??? ????????????????????,??????????????????????,?????,??????????,??????????????!?????????!? ??????,??????,????????? ??????????????????????????????????,?????????,????????????????? (??? ??????? ???? 110)
Internal focalization ??? ?????????????,????????????????????? (??? ??????? 173) ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????,?????????????????????????,????????????,?????????????(??? ??????? 175)
Zero focalization ??? ????,???????????,?????????????????????????????????,????????????????????? ?(??? ??????? 185)
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Genette (3) Voice ??
authorial persona (covert) (effaced) A mere telling medium which strives for neutrality and transparency. Ex. ????????Ceremony A mere telling medium which strives for neutrality and transparency. Ex. ????????Ceremony
character-narrator (overt) (intrusive) (dramatized) Hetero- Diegetic ??? The narrator is a character outside the story s/he narrates. Ex. Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby
character-narrator (overt) (intrusive) (dramatized) Homo- Diegetic ??? The narrator is a character in the story s/he tells. Ex. The Oval Portrait, The Aspern Papers, Heart of Darkness
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Genette (4) Order ??
Analepsis ?? Back-take Flashback ?????,??????????????,??????,??????,?????????,???????????????,??????????????????,?????????????????????????????,???,???????????????????,???????, ????????????, ?????????????????, ?????, ?????, ???????????, ????????? (??? ???? ??? 315)
Prolepsis ?? Fore-take Anticipation ?????????????,????????????,???????????,?????????????????,??????????,????????,?????,???????????????? (?? ????? ????? 107)
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Genette (5) Story Levels ??
Frame narratives Single-ended The frame is not returned to at the end of the embedded. (e.g. The Turn of the Screw)
Frame narratives Double-ended The frame is re-introduced at the end of the embedded. (e.g. Heart of Darkness)
Frame narratives Intrusive (an alienation device) The embedded is occasionally interrupted to revert to the frame. (e.g. Heart of Darkness)
Embedded narratives Or the meta-narrative, a narrative within the narrative. Its the main story. (e.g. individual tales of The Canterbury Tales.) Or the meta-narrative, a narrative within the narrative. Its the main story. (e.g. individual tales of The Canterbury Tales.)
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Genette (6) Speech
Direct Speech Tagged ??????????????????????????????? (182)
Direct Speech Untagged ???????????? ?????? ?????????? ?????? (181)
Direct Speech Selectively tagged ???????????????,???????????????????,?????????????,????????(183)
Indirect Speech Tagged indirect speech ?????????????????????????,?????????? (183)
Indirect Speech Free indirect speech ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????,????????????? (177)
(??? ??????? )
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Free Indirect Discourse

• FID narrated monologue
• pensée avec
• FID is often taken to contain mixed within it
  markers of two voices (a narrators and a
  characters).

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Free Indirect Discourse

• Definition the technique for rendering a
  characters thought in his own idiom while
  maintaining the third-person reference and the
  basic tense of narration (Cohn 100).

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Free Indirect Discourse

• FID is often marked by such contextual features
  (1) general markers of colloquialism (such as
  ejaculations, lexical fillers) (2) more specific
  markers of a group or class to which a character
  belongs (3) a characters personal idiom (4)
  markers of social-role relationships (Prince
  35-36).

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Example 1

• Direct discourse
• Tom said, Gosh, I am tired.
• (2) Indirect discourse
• Tom said that he was tired.
• (3) Free indirect discourse
• Gosh, he was tired.
• 
  (Fludernik 74)

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Example 2

• She Lily started up and looked forth on the
  passing streets. Gerty!they were nearing Gertys
  corner. If only she could reach there before this
  laboring anguish burst from her breast to her
  lipsif only she could feel the hold of Gertys
  arms while she shook in the ague-fit of fear that
  was coming upon her!
• (The House of Mirth I, xiii Wharton 1962 173)
• (quoted in Fludernik 78)

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Example 3

• The trader was not shocked nor amazed . . . .
  He had seen Death many times . . . and so he only
  swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was
  devilish unlucky, and that, if things went on in
  this way, he should not make a cent on the trip.
• (Uncle Toms
  Cabin, xii Stowe 1981 130)
• (quoted in
  Fludernik 116)

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Recommended References on Free Indirect Discourse

• http//osf1.gmu.edu/dkaufman/narrative.htm
• http//www.ualberta.ca/dmiall/ShortStory/Mansfiel
  d-Woolf.htm
• http//www.literaryencyclopedia.com/php/stopics.ph
  p?rectrueUID444

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• Jacques Derrida

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• ???? (Word/Logos), ?????, ????. . . . ?????,
  ??????. (??. ????)
• ?????(Shaun)???? (Tristan) ???? ??????,
  ????????????, ???????. ????????????, . . . .
  ????????. ????????, ???. (??? ???)
• Payne, Michael. ????. ????. ??. 2005.
  ?171-72.

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• Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the
  Human Sciences (1966)

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• Structure

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Centered Structure

• All notions of structure have a centre. It is a
  sign the transcendental signifier -- that
  will give meaning to all others.

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Logocentrism ??????

• This desire for a center is called
  logocentrism.
• Western though has developed innumerable terms
  which operate as centering principles God, the
  Idea, the World spirit, the Self, and so on.
  (Eagleton 131)

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Center Presence Logos

• Logos (Greek for word) is a term which in the
  New Testament carries the greatest possible
  concentration of presence In the beginning was
  the Word. Being the origin of all things, the
  Word underwrites the full presence of the world
  . . . . (Selden 88)

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Centers in Literary Texts

• Typical concepts of centre in literary criticism,
  for instance, would include the author, the
  historical context, the reader, the ideology of a
  political economy, each of which provide a ground
  outside the text for limiting interpretation.
• http//courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deconstruc
  tion.htm

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The center rests upon a paradox.

• The center is, paradoxically, within the
  structure and outside it. The center is at the
  center of the totality, and yet, since the center
  does not belong to the totality (is not part of
  the totality), the totality has its center
  elsewhere. The center is not the center.

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Food for Thought

• Give concrete examples to support Derridas claim
  that the definition of structure is
  contradictory, namely that the center is both
  inside and outside a structure.

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• Différance ??

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Roots in Structuralism

• "In language there are only differences"
  (Saussure, Course in General Linguistics).
• The distinctive doctrine of structuralism the
  belief that the individual units of any system
  have meaning only by virtue of their relations to
  one another (Eagleton, Literary Theory, 94).

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Not binary opposition but différance

• Derrida points out that a binary opposition is
  algebraic (ab, a equals not-b), and that two
  terms can't exist without reference to the
  other--light (as presence) is defined as the
  absence of darkness, goodness the absence of
  evil, etc. . . .
• http//www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/199
  7derridaA.html

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Not binary opposition but différance

• Deconstruction wants to erase the boundaries (the
  slash) between oppositions, hence to show that
  the values and order implied by the opposition
  are . . . not rigid.
• http//www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/199
  7derridaA.html

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Différance ??

• (1) It means to differ to be separate from to
  discriminate
• (2) It wishes to defer to delay to postpone

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Différance

• The one, take note, implies spatiality
  (difference) while the other implies temporality
  (deferral).
• http//courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deconstruc
  tion.htm

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Différance

• Différance is what prevents the sign from being a
  full presence.
• When we cannot make present a thing, take hold
  of it, show it, we use a sign we signify a
  deferred presence, something absent (Gras 279).

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A is a supplément ?? to B (1)

• A writing
• B God, Truth, love . . . .
• A is added to B.
• A substitutes for B.
• A is a superfluous addition to B.
• A makes up for the absence of B.
• A usurps the place of B.

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A is a supplément to B (2)

• A makes up for Bs deficiency.
• A corrupts the purity of B.
• A is necessary so that B can be restored.
• A is an accident alienating B from itself.
• A is that without which B would be lost.

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A is a supplément to B (3)

• A is that through which B is lost.
• A is a danger to B.
• A is a remedy to B.
• As fallacious charm seduces one away from B.
• A can never satisfy the desire of B.
• A protects against direct encounter with B.
• 
  (Johnson 45)

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• ?????,???????????(the original)
  ?????????,??????????,??????????????,?????????????
  ?????????????????,?????????????????????????????,??
  ?????
• ??????????????????????,??????????????????????,????
  ???????????????????????,??????????????????????????
  ??????????(unconsciousness) ?
• Payne, Michael. ????. ????. ??. 2005. ?189-90.

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An Example Identity

• The deconstructionist wants to show that the
  notion of identity, which seems so basic, so
  "present," actually depends upon the notion of
  difference. Identity is only comprehensible in
  terms of difference, just as difference can only
  be understood in terms of identity.
• http//independent-bangladesh.com/news/sep/17/1709
  2005ft.htm

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An Example Identity

• Identity can be considered as an essential and
  integrated unity (my identity involves my name,
  my status, my hair colour and the number of my
  fingers, among many other things). The idea of a
  unity broken into differences is one possible
  traditional idea.
• http//courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deconstruc
  tion.htm

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An Example Identity

• Another one would be the idea of an identity that
  could be contrasted to other identities as its
  differences (and for which it too would be
  different). I am different from my colleagues,
  my students, my family and friends and my
  enemies.
• http//courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deconstruc
  tion.htm

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An Example Identity

• What was thought to be foundational (identity) is
  itself dependent upon the concept it was
  privileged over (difference). The conclusion that
  neither term is foundational, but that both are
  mutually dependent upon each other, is precisely
  the conclusion that Derrida wants us to reach.
• http//independent-bangladesh.com/news/sep/17/1709
  2005ft.htm

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• Deconstruction as a Critical Approach
• 3 Stages
• (Barry 74-76)

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The Verbal Stage

• Close Reading
• Identify contradictions or paradoxes.
• The polarity of common binary oppositions (like
  male and female, day and night, light and dark)
  is reversed. And then the second term, rather
  than the first, is shown to be privileged and
  regarded as the more desirable.
• 
  (Barry 74)

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The Verbal Stage

• Here's the basic method of deconstruction find a
  binary opposition. Show how each term, rather
  than being polar opposite of its paired term, is
  actually part of it. Then the structure or
  opposition which kept them apart collapses . . .
  . Ultimately, you can't tell which is which, and
  the idea of binary opposites loses meaning, or is
  put into "play. http//www.colorado.edu/English/E
  NGL2012Klages/1997derridaA.html

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The Textual Stage

• Look for shifts or breaks in the continuity of
  the text (shifts in focus, shifts in time, or
  tone, or point of view, or attitude, or pace, or
  vocabulary) these shifts reveal instabilities of
  attitude, and hence the lack of a fixed and
  unified position.
• Omissions are important here, that is, when a
  text doesnt tell us things we would like to be
  told. (Barry
  75)

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The Linguistic Stage

• Look for linguistic oddities, or moments in the
  text when the adequacy of language itself as a
  medium of communication is called into question.

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• ??????????????????,???????????,???????????????????
  ???????????????????????????????,??????,??????????
  ????,?????????????????????????????????,
  ???/?????????,??????????????,???????????,?????????
  ???,???????,??????????????????????,???????????????
  ????????,?????????????????????
• Payne, Michael. ????. ????. ??. 2005. ?175-76.

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Structuralism vs. Deconstruction

• Whereas structuralism finds order and meaning in
  the text as in the sentence, deconstruction finds
  disorder and a constant tendency of the language
  to refute its apparent sense. Hence the
  approachs name texts are found to deconstruct
  themselves rather than to provide a stable,
  identifiable meaning (Guerin et al. 255)
• See Barry 63-65 for a more comprehensive list.

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• The End