Definitions Galore

As someone new to the study of narrative, I am frustrated by the discrepancies in definitions between narratologists. If narratology is the science of literature, an idea repeated often throughout our readings, then shouldn't there be clearly defined concepts for narratologists to work with? Imagine the chaos if chemists did not agree upon the foundational chemistry concepts.

Narratologists seem to agree on the bases of their study; they want to study the events within a story. However, each narratologist has their own interpretation and definition of concepts such as fabula, plot, sjuzet, and story. The various interpretations are not wildly different, either. They are just different enough. How I see it, narratology has a decent foundation but everyone within the field is working with different colored and sized bricks.

I think it finally clicked for me once I read Barbara Hernstein Smith's "Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories." She recognizes the complexity of the field due to the multitude of dualistic concepts. In her words, narratology is "afflicted" by these. I feel so, too. However, my frustration diminished as I continued to read Hernstein Smith.

I emphasized a bit earlier that no narrative version can be independent of a particular teller and occasion of telling and, therefore that we may assume that every narrative version has been constructed in accord with some set of purposes or interests. (142)

If we follow this idea that narratives are unique based off of who is telling and who is receiving, then it makes sense that the concepts of narratology are slightly different based on the narratologist's definitions. Everyone interprets stories differently. Everyone summarizes differently. So everyone works within their interpretations of the concepts.

Hernstein Smith also believes that every retelling of a narrative creates a new narrative with unique goals (143). Our interpretations are essentially new versions of the narrative. Wouldn't that mean that every time a narratologist defined a concept, she was adding to the collection of versions or retellings of that concept? We might find ourselves reading a collection of 345 variants of ~~Cinderella~~ narrative theory.

Comments

Melanie and Melanie: Growing up with Separated Lesbian Moms in the South

I came from a sperm bank, well I came from a vagina, but first I came from a sperm bank. That’s not generally my opener, but we need to make it clear. My moms discovered their sexuality long before I came along in 1992. When I was three, they separated. Gay marriage had not been legalized up to this point, so there was no divorce process involved. However, my mama, Sharon, she gave birth to me, and she wanted full custody of me. My other mom, Sylvia, worked tirelessly to pay for my existence and Sharon’s pregnancy care; she loved me, and I was her child no matter what. They went to court, and Sylvia became one of the first lesbian parents in the state of Texas to receive shared custody of a child that was not biologically hers. In some cases, this still doesn’t always happen, particularly in cases with gay and lesbian parents, regardless of how involved the parent is in their child’s life. “Who do you want to live with?” Flash forward seven years or so, and I’m being given more...

Speech in its essence is not neutral.

“All fiction can be profitably regarded as argument” The OED Online defines “profitably” as: “with advantage or benefit; usefully” ("profitably, adv."). “Profitably” caught me off guard, but when I consider it in this junction, I’m inclined to agree. I found this quote in a work by Ronald Sukenick called Narralogues: Truth in Fiction . Sukenick makes this argument after establishing that he finds “significance” through the narrative as opposed to the plot. When I originally read the word “profitably” I felt myself wanting to be in disagreement with the claim because of the monetary implications of “profit.” Then again, I found it hard to make a case for a work of fiction that didn’t stand to gain from profit. We all have writings (and maybe even written narratives) that we don’t plan on showing to the world, but it’s hard to imagine not being willing to exchange those writings when offered money. That’s not an ideal way of thinking, but we don’t live in an ideal world. ...

All Pickles Were Once Cucumbers

I tried to take a more literary approach towards something that disrupts its canon, but I came up short. I thought about a lot of crossover episodes that seemed violating like when they did the whole Scandal/How to Get Away With Murder thing for the fans. Granted it worked, and now I’ve watched Scandal . Also, the “Uncle Grandpa” episode from Steven Universe was super annoying to me, but it is a children’s show and I probably shouldn’t complain about it. What I realized, instead, is that there are a lot of shows that break their canon of probability in ways that work- you may have already guessed which one I’m going with. The Living Handbook of Narratology explores the foundation of possible worlds: “The foundation of PW theory is the idea that reality—conceived as the sum of the imaginable rather than as the sum of what exists physically—is a universe composed of a plurality of distinct worlds. This universe is hierarchically structured by the opposition of one element, ...

ENG 6283: Narrative Theory

Search This Blog