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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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01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The authors found that even types of programmes which appear to be far less likely as narratives, such as advertisements, music videos or nature documentaries, often tell a story, though these stories admittedly vary considerably in terms of how elaborate they are: a commercial for pain relievers may rely on comparison and argument, or an ad for a car may be abstract and descriptive, but a vast number of advertisements offer a compressed narrative exemplifying the products' beneficial effects.
Abstract: As ‘the principal storyteller in contemporary American society’ (Kozloff 1992: 67) — as well as in many other contemporary societies — television is replete with narrative forms and genres. It is not only ‘the sitcom, the action series, the cartoon, the soap opera, the miniseries, the made-for-TV movie’ (ibid.: 68) that clearly show narrative traits. Even types of programmes which appear to be far less likely as narratives — such as advertisements, music videos or nature documentaries — often tell a story, though these stories admittedly vary considerably in terms of how elaborate they are:
A commercial for pain relievers may rely on comparison and argument, or an ad for a car may be abstract and descriptive, but a vast number of advertisements offer a compressed narrative exemplifying the products’ beneficial effects. Music videos often enact the storyline of the song’s lyrics. Nature documentaries tend to follow the story of the animal’s life cycle or of the seasonal progression in a geographical area. (Ibid.: 68–9)
52 citations
51 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine Austen's use of FID in a series of passages from Emma, emphasizing the narrator's role in an effort to provide a more accurate picture of Austen practice than has been available in criticism influenced by the prevailing theoretical accounts.
Abstract: Jane Austen is generally acknowledged to be the first English novelist to make sustained use of free indirect discourse in the representation of figurai speech and thought.1 Unfortunately, however, the theory of free indirect discourse (FID) in Eng lish has not been congenial to Austen's work, often obscuring the way the technique functions in her novels.2 Two theoretical tendencies, in particular, have contributed to this confusion. First, the most influential accounts of FID in English have tended to stress the autonomy of FID representations of speech and thought and to contrast them with authoritative narrative commentary: FID is, on this account, the preemi nent technique of "objective" narration, in which the narrator supposedly withdraws or disappears in favor of impersonal figurai representation.3 Second, FID has often been characterized as innately disruptive and destabilizing?a technique that allows other voices to compete with and so undermine the monologic authority of the nar rator or the implied author.4 Whatever their relevance to later fiction, these character izations of FID are inadequate and misleading when applied to Austen's novels, which deploy FID in conjunction with a trustworthy, authoritative narrative voice and which repeatedly intertwine FID with narratorial commentary, sometimes inside of a single sentence. Indeed, much of the aesthetic pleasure in Austen's FID passages comes from subtle modulations among narrative registers, as the prose moves in and out of a complex array of voices, including that of the narrator herself. In this essay, I will examine Austen's use of FID in a series of passages from Emma, emphasizing the narrator's role in an effort to provide a more accurate picture of Austen's practice than has been available in criticism influenced by the prevailing theoretical accounts. In Emma, I will argue, FID is best seen not as a representation of autonomous figurai discourse but as a kind of narratorial mimicry, analogous to the flexible imitations of
51 citations