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Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film

31 May 1980-
About: The article was published on 1980-05-31 and is currently open access. It has received 1885 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Narrative structure & Narrative criticism.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the origins of early swimming in the surf at the famous Australian beach of Bondi as a case study and identify the conditions under which historical narratives gain social acceptance and the philosophical value of analyzing origins.
Abstract: The search for origins is a hallmark of historical practice; origins are also fundamental to historical narratives, the predominant form by which historians present their interpretations of the past Yet, paradoxically, history is ill-suited to studying firsts or origins As the historian of culture and influential figure in historiography Jacob Burckhardt reminds us, single beginnings are rare phenomena In this article, I investigate this paradox using swimming in the surf at the renowned Australian beach of Bondi as a case study At one level, the history of swimming at Bondi is well known Waverley Council built the Bondi Baths in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to protect bathers from dangerous surf and currents and to control how bathers revealed themselves in public Over time, bathers became more proficient swimmers, and competitive individuals practiced the activity as a codified sport Adventurous souls braved the surf and became surf swimmers and bodysurfers, and local authorities progressively relaxed the rules that defined how, and when, bathers presented their bodies in public By the 1920s, Bondi was a bathing and swimming Mecca among Sydneysiders and other Australians However, this history is strangely silent about the origins (and nature) of early swimming at Bondi While scant primary sources partly explain the silence, it is also a function of the fact that history does not contain fully defined or fully formed subjects ready for analysis Historians demarcate and position their subjects that they then configure into narratives Each of these historiographical processes involves choices on the part of the historian that leaves inordinate space for alternative histories In the search for Bondi’s first swimmer, I highlight these choices that, I argue, simultaneously direct attention to the speculative nature of origins and reaffirm them as an inescapable dimension of narrative form In concluding this article, I identify the conditions under which historical narratives gain social acceptance and the philosophical value of analyzing origins

9 citations

01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: The authors explored Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) as a post-modern critique of modern literary modes, and examined the experimental technique in the novel using narrative theory.
Abstract: This article explores Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) as a postmodern critique of modern literary modes. As a novel recapitulating within itself a postmodern relative perspective of reality, it elucidates one aspect of postmodernism, that of literary experimentation. Vonnegut experiments with the narrator,setting and characters of the novel to provide a fictional critique of the literary exhaustion prevailing in modern literary modes. Experimentation is thus remedial replenishment for such exhaustion through authorial metafictional intrusion into the text. Accordingly, the article uses Patricia Waugh, Gerard Genette and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative theory to examine the experimental technique in the novel. What makes the majority of metafictional style unique is not only its presence in the novel, but also its conflated depiction of the American individual’s suffering after the Second World War.For this later style, the self-justifying manner in the novel extrapolates textual dialogic relations to accentuate the author’s critical voice. Such voice originates in the main narrative point of view in the text and is known as focalization.

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For the formalists, there is an opposition between poetic and non-poetic language, and literary or poetic language is autonomous as discussed by the authors, and this opposition is fully manifested in the observable properties of literary and nonliterary language.
Abstract: Russian formalists, French structuralists and recent Anglo-American literary critics assert that literature is a special kind of discourse. Their assumptions are that literature can be distinguished from other kinds of discourses by its 'literariness'. For the formalists, there is an opposition between poetic and non-poetic language, and literary or poetic language is autonomous. These are the main points of their argument, according to Pratt (1977): language functions in literature differently from the way it does elsewhere; relations between the literary and non-literary functions of language are one of opposition; 3. this oppostion is fully manifested in the observable properties of literary and non-literary language.

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Rob Stones1
TL;DR: The authors argue that The Good Woman of Bangkok contains two tales or narratives, a simple one with a simple moral, and a more sophisticated, subversive one that is more attuned - albeit imperfectly -to the requirements of a mature public sphere.
Abstract: Framed by the ethical considerations of Martha Nussbaum on 'the lives of distant others' and Zygmunt Bauman on 'being-for' the Other, this article critically analyses Australian director Denis O'Rourke's 'documentary fiction film' The Good Woman of Bangkok, the story of Aoi, a woman from a rural village in Udon in the northeast of Thailand who works in the Bangkok sex trade. The analysis attempts to give specificity and critical precision to what is too often a more intuitive and generalized critique of the contribution of current affairs programmes to the quality of understanding in the public sphere. The article combines textual analysis and social theory - two forms of analysis too often kept apart - to analyse the relationship between the text of the documentary per se and the conceptualization of social reality within that text. I argue that The Good Woman of Bangkok contains two tales or narratives, a simple one with a simple moral, and a more sophisticated, subversive one that is more attuned - albeit imperfectly - to the requirements of a mature public sphere. The more subversive thread undermines the simple tale by disrupting our belief in the overly naive picture of social reality that the latter depends upon. The article incorporates an argument for more dialogue between social theorists and documentary film makers.

8 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
03 Jun 2015
TL;DR: Drawing from the larger story world made up of multiple comic books, movies, games, and television shows, United Universe aims to provide clarity and background for the novice, and depth and engagement for more knowledgeable viewers.
Abstract: United Universe is a second screen transmedia experience aimed at supporting understanding of a complex storyworld presented across media artifacts. Using the highly interconnected and allusive Marvel Cinematic Universe as a primary example, United Universe abstracts a story into the fundamental elements of characters, events, items, and locations, and presents them in a "glanceable" manner to the interactor. As significant story elements are referenced, the application provides explanatory information on the second screen. Drawing from the larger story world made up of multiple comic books, movies, games, and television shows, United Universe aims to provide clarity and background for the novice, and depth and engagement for more knowledgeable viewers.

8 citations


Cites background from "Story and Discourse: Narrative Stru..."

  • ...Overview In order to orient viewers to a storyworld that runs across multiple media artifacts, we drew on abstract descriptions of story elements proposed by the branch of literary criticism known as narratology [5]....

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