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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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Dissertation
25 Aug 2009
TL;DR: DREAM OF a THOUSAND HEROES: THE ARCHETYPAL HERO in CONTEMPORARY MYTHology, with as mentioned in this paperERENCE to the SANDMAN by NEIL GAIMAN
Abstract: DREAM OF A THOUSAND HEROES: THE ARCHETYPAL HERO IN CONTEMPORARY MYTHOLOGY, WITH REFERENCE TO THE SANDMAN BY NEIL GAIMAN

5 citations

01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: This article explored the stylistic particularities of traumatically loaded episodes in terms of the shifting between the matrix contextual frame and the generated sub-worlds, and pointed out the importance of drawing upon conceptual point of view in dealing with episodes containing deliberate metaphors and/or schema refreshment.
Abstract: Text World Theory is a remarkable approach for exploration of the reader's cognitive interactions with the text. This study involves a Text World Theory perspective on Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried to explore the stylistic particularities of traumatically-loaded episodes in terms of the shifting between the matrix contextual frame and the generated sub-worlds. O'Brien's techniques of tense manipulation, displacement of world-builders, and deliberate metaphors with or without schema refreshment have been examined to highlight the way textual features cue the reader's movements between various event frames. It was found that tense manipulation requires a more careful examination due to the fact that the absence of tense shifting is not always a sign of the absence of world shifting. Besides, priming of certain kinds of sub-worlds or displacement of world-builders was sometimes under the impact of emotion. Also, the importance of drawing upon conceptual point of view in dealing with episodes containing deliberate metaphors and/or schema refreshment was pointed out.

5 citations


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

  • ...49) predicate of „beautiful‟ does not represent what the narrator actually sees; instead, it manifests his belief or attitude or evaluation of the contextual frame: it is therefore given from a “conceptual point of view”, according to Seymour Chatman's taxonomy[36]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the process of co-creation of the YARN digital storytelling platform, explore the methodological approach employed for successful co-design, and reflect on how their initial experiences have led to a longer term, hyperlocal focus around issues of empowerment, upskilling and digital engagement in a Scottish island community.
Abstract: This article draws on work undertaken during two recent research projects that focused on the practices and experiences of a group of heritage volunteers working on rural settlement archaeology on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. In it we outline the process of co-creation of the YARN digital storytelling platform, explore the methodological approach employed for successful co-design, and reflect on how our initial experiences have led to a longer term, hyperlocal focus around issues of empowerment, upskilling and digital engagement in a Scottish island community.

5 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The Law of Reading Fiction as mentioned in this paper is an operative framework for the whole novel, a powerful means of selection and justification that has been used to implement both the regularity of the narrative design and its re-ability.
Abstract: I Preamble: The Law of Reading FictionWilkie Collins's TZie Woman in White, first pubushed between 1859 and 1860, features no less than ten different narrators whose eyewitness accounts, diary entries, letters and personal statements make up the separate parts of what the drawing master and editor Walter Hartright, rtimself one of the chief narrators, claims to have afterwards arranged in terms of a conclusive whole or, as he puts it in his brief "introductory Unes," "one complete series of events" (Collins I)2 According to Hartright, the completeness and integrity of this "series of events" has been achieved by a faithful appUcation of what he initiaUy refers to as "the machinery of the Law" He uses this "machinery" as a model for his own narrative organisation, suggesting that "the story here presented" is told just as it might have been told in a Court of Justice, that is, "by more than one witness," but also "with the same object," namely "to present the truth always in its most direct and most inteUigible aspect" (1) Thus, right from the start, this "Law" is introduced as an operative framework for the whole novel, a powerful means of selection and justification that has been used to implement both the regularity of the narrative design and its reUability It is introduced as a theoretical model, in other words, that has been devised to structure the practical writing and reading of the narrative text, ensuring the credibUity of its statements and the economy of its effects At the same time, however, judging by the "introductory lines," the "Law" also seems a rather doubtful and corrupted instrument to be deployed for that purpose, as it cannot really "be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion" and may even, "in certain inevitable cases," be "the pre-engaged servant of the long purse" (1) Indeed, Hartright's "story" itself exemplifies a yet undiscovered "case of suspicion," as he emphasises, that has escaped the grip of the law and is still "left to be told, for the first time, in this place" (1) Whatever its merits, then, as a basic model for the organisation of the prospective narrative, the law certainly seems to be a rather unconvincing choice On the one hand, it is represented in terms of an authoritative system of clarification and distinction, an institutional mechanism of transformation and consolidation that is supposed to convert contingent events into calculable cases, indeterminate facts into meaningful evidence, inconsequent details into well-grounded proof, suspects into convicts, intuition into justified true belief and signifying discourse into significant plot On the other hand, however, the law is expressly declared to work in a highly unpredictable and erratic fashion, potentially serving dubious purposes and thus creating an uneasy feeling of hidden secrets and unresolved cases that its "machinery" is unable to "fathom" or clear upThe following essay will explore the irresolvable tension between these two aspects of the law and the way this tension grows as the novel unfolds Eventually, I wish to argue that the ambivalent attitude towards the law, as expressed in Walter's "introductory lines," reveals a general problem that is developed and negotiated throughout Collins' s text This problem may be described as the creative struggle between a single pre-conceived theoretical law - which I take as a synonym for any binding principle or plan - and the many ways in which this pre-established law may subsequently be executed, reformed and transformed in the course of time Putting it in these terms allows for a theoretical comparison between the conduct of a legal investigation and a reader's construction of a narrative plot because just as every law necessarily needs to be enacted and interpreted by a judge in order for it to have any effect in the first place, so every story or plot necessarily needs to be assembled and interpreted by a reader for it to make senseUnsurprisingly, therefore, this analogy between the appUcation of a law and the reading of a story is, again, expUcitly suggested by the "introductory Unes" of CoUins's novel, prefacing the narrative to come: "As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now" (1) …

5 citations