on narratology

8/9/2019 on narratology

1/13

On Narratology: Criteria, Corpus, Context

Author(s): Gerald PrinceSource: Narrative, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 73-84Published by: Ohio State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20107044.

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2/13

DIALOGUE

On

Narratology:

Criteria,

Corpus,

Context

GERALD

PRINCE

Over

a

dozen

years ago,

in

a

fine

book

called

The Narrative

Act

devoted

to

the

study

of

narration and

point

of

view,

Susan

Sniader

Lanser

noted

that

narra

tology

(by

which

she

meant

"formalist-structuralist

poetics

of

narrative"),

in

its

exploration

of

narrative,

paid

no

attention

to

sex

or

gender

(she

tended

to

use

the

terms

interchangeably):

"[N]owhere

in

modern

narrative

theory

is there

mention

of

the

author's

or

narrator's

gender

[this

vacillation

too

may

be

telling]

as

a

sig

nificant

variable

. . .

[yet]

surely

the

sex

of

a

narrator

is

at

least

as

significant

a

factor

in

literary

communication

as

the

narrator's

grammatical person,

the

pres

ence or

absence of

direct

address

to

a

reader,

or

narrative

temporality"

(46-47).

A

few

years later,

in

a

1986 article entitled "Toward

a

Feminist

Narratology,"

Lanser examined

some

of

the

reasons

why

the

feminist and

the formalist investi

gation

of

narrative had

ignored

each other.

For,

just

as

narratologists

paid

little

attention

to

questions explored by

feminist

theory

and

criticism,

the

latter

hardly

showed enthusiasm

for

narratology:

feminist

thinkers

may

have

produced

a

lot

of

suggestive

work

on

narrative

(or

linear

narrative,

or

"bad"

linear

narrative)

and?say?its

"inherent"

Oedipal configuration,

but without

much

recourse

to

narratological

claims, methods,

and

arguments.

I

will condense

Lanser's

account

while recasting it and underlining its implications: (a) "everyday" terminology

versus

technical

language,

the

attempt

of

(some)

feminists

to

speak

and

write

in

ways

understandable

to

everyone

and thus

implicitly

to

criticize

the

elitism,

au

thoritarianism,

and

protectionism

of "science"

including

the

attempt

of narratol

ogist

to

develop

a

special

(scientific)

vocabulary;

(b)

distrust of

binary

logic

and

of universals

(as

tools of

the

patriarchy,

it

hierarchies, exclusions,

and

repres

sions)

versus

confidence

in

and

reliance

of

them

(as

necessary

to

argumentation

and

basic

to

the

enterprise

of

specifying

the rules that

govern

all

and

only

narra

tives);

(c)

mimetic

orientation

versus

semiotic

approach,

the view that narrative

says

something

about and

influences

the

world

versus an

interest

in

narrative

as

a

meaning-producing

instrument,

with no consideration of how related or ade

Gerald Prince

is Lois and

Jerry Magnin

Term

Professor

of

Romance

Languages

and

Co

Director of

the

Center

for Cultural Studies

at

the

University

of

Pennsylvania.

He

is

the

author of

Narrative

as

Theme

(1992)

and

is

now

working

on a

guide

to

the

twentieth-century

novel

in French

(to

appear

in

2001).

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/13

74

Gerald

Prince

quate to the world this meaning is; and (d) sensitivity to context and emphasis

on

the role

of

sex

or

gender

in the

production

and

processing

of

(narrative)

meaning

versus

bracketing

of

context

(since

narratologists aspire

to

grasp

and

analyze

narrative

qua

narrative).

Lanser's discussion

of these

incompatibilities

was

preliminary

to

a

call for

a

feminist

narratology

whereby,

she

hoped,

"feminist

criticism,

and

particularly

the

study

of

narratives

by

women,

might

benefit

from

the methods and

insights

of

narratology

and

.

. .

narratology,

in

turn,

might

be

altered

by

the

understand

ings

of

feminist criticism and the

experience

of

women's texts"

(342).

To

start the

movement

toward

such

a

revised

narratology,

to

pose

some

of

the

questions

and

focus on some of the (textual) aspects that a sex- or gender-conscious study of

narrative would

have

to

confront and

discuss,

Lanser

analyzed

a

short

letter,

al

legedly

written

by

an

unhappy

young

bride

to

an

intimate friend.

Lanser's choice

may

have

been

perplexing

(though willfully

so).

As

she herself

noted,

the

letter?

which

hardly

made

up

a

narrative in

the

usual

sense

of

the

term

(it

did

not

re

port

events;

it

did

not

tell

about

changes

in

states

of

affairs)?was

probably

apocryphal

and

no

definite conclusions

could

be

reached

about

its

real

author's

sex;

in

other

words,

no

definite

conclusions could be reached about

the

possible

influence

of that

sex

on

the nature

of the

text.

But Lanser's

analysis

was

interest

ing,

nonetheless,

especially

when

bearing

on

questions

of narrative

situation,

voice,

and

tone

(because

of

the

constraints

on

her

gender,

the

unhappy

letter

writer

had

to

resort

systematically

to

indirection).

Besides,

more

obviously

perti

nent

examples

could,

no

doubt,

have been

provided.

In her

1986

PMLA

article

on

the

engaging

narrator

and

then

in her

Gendered

Interventions

(an

excellent

study

of

narrative

discourse

and

gender

in

the

Victorian

novel),

Robyn

Warhol

showed

that,

contrary

to

what

often obtains

in

male-authored

or

with male

narrated

fiction,

an

engaging

rather than

distancing

attitude

toward the

reader

or

the narratee

tends

to

prevail

in female-authored novels

or

with female

narrators.

Lanser's call

for what

she

depicted

as

an

"expansive narratology"

("Toward

A

Feminist

Narratology" 358)

was

criticized

by

Nilli

Diengott,

who

argued

in

"Narratology

and

Feminism" that

gender

is

not

a

differentia specifica

of

narra

tive

and that "there

is

no

need, indeed,

no

possibility

of

reconciling

feminism

with

narratology"

(49),

given

that the former

constitutes

an

interpretive,

critical

enterprise

while the latter is

a

theoretical

activity.

In

her

response

("Shifting

the

Paradigm:

Feminism and

Narratology"),

Lanser

renewed

her

call

for

dialogue

among "feminists,

narratologists,

and

feminist

narratologists"

(59)

and

maintained

that

gender-inspired

questions

about the

nature,

scope,

methodology,

and

goals

of

narrative

poetics

could

lead

to

its

positive

transformation.

In

what

follows,

I

do

not

consider?any

more

than

Lanser did?what

narra

tology might bring to feminist- and gender-oriented narrative theory or criticism,

though

I

will mention

that,

according

to

her,

the

"comprehensiveness

and

care

with which

narratology

makes distinctions

can

prove

valuable

methods

for

tex

tual

analysis"

("Toward

A

Feminist

Narratology" 346).

Nor

do

I

intend

to

ex

plore

the

reasons

for

feminist

"resistance"

to

narratology?advanced

by

Lanser

and

others,

like

Josephine

Donovan

who,

in

"Toward

a

Women's

Poetics,"

in

veighs against

the

formalist "dissection

of

literature

as

if

it

were an

aesthetic

ma



4/13

Narratology

and Context 75

chine

made

up

of

...

so

many

nuts

and bolts

easily disintegrated

from

the

whole"

(108;

quoted

in

"Toward

a

Feminist

Narratology" 342)?though

I

will

say

that

at

least

some

of

those

reasons

strike

me

as

nostalgic (the

longing

for

a

transparent

language,

the

stance

against

"deathly science"),

not

particularly

com

pelling

(the

preference

for

strategies

of "'both

.

.

.

and' but

nevertheless

'nei

ther

. .

.

nor'"),

and

even

misguided.

Thus,

arguments

for

the

existence

of

universals need

not

be

regressive (in

fact,

they

sometimes

have

been

and

can

be

progressive)

and beliefs

in

certain universals

need

not

entail

beliefs

in others

(I

believe that

all

human

beings

die;

I

do

not

believe

that

all

human

beings

enjoy

Mozart);

similarly,

though they

often

constitute

a

symptom

of

or

basis for

preju

dice, distortion, and repression, binary distinctions?on which I think we all de

pend?do

not

necessarily

lead

to

the

creation

of

hegemonies

and

exclusions;

besides,

it

may

be relevant

to

point

out

that

narratology

does

not

always

proceed

in terms

of

simple

binary

differentiations?think

of

its

account

of

narrative

speed

(and

the/?ve

canonical

tempos

which

it

isolates),

or

of

narrative

frequency (and

its three

basic

modes),

or

of the

tripartite

investigation

of

links

between

narra

tive,

narrating,

and narrated?and

it

may

be

relevant

to

point

out

also

that

nar

ratology

does

not

always

exclude the middle

(think

of

free

indirect

discourse).

What

I

want to

discuss,

rather

(not

for

the

first

time and

mindful

of the

argu

ments

advanced

by

Lanser,

Diengott,

and

others),

is

why

some

of the

challenges

posed

to

narratology by

a

category

like

"gender"

should

be

addressed

by

narra

tologists

and how

they

might

be assessed.1

It is

important

to

note

at

the

outset,

I

think,

that the

very

domain

of

narra

tology

is

(and

has

been)

in

flux

and

that the

discipline

keeps

on

changing

as

its

boundaries

are

(re)drawn. Though

narratology

may

already

be

old,

it

is

still

quite

immature.

As

Michael

Mathieu-Colas

has

argued,

given

that

narratology

is

a

theory

of

narrative,

its

scope

depends,

first

of

all,

on

the

definition

of

narrative.

When

the

latter

is viewed

primarily

as

a

verbal mode of

event

representation (the

linguistic

telling

of

events

by

a

narrator

as

opposed

to,

say,

the

enacting

of

them

on

stage),

the

narratologist pays

little

or no

attention

to

the

story

as

such,

the

narrated,

the

what

that

is

represented,

and

concentrates

instead

on

the

discourse,

the

narrating,

the

way

in

which

the "what"

is

represented.

This

view

is

certainly

favored

by

some

important

dictionaries

(e.g.,

the

Grand

Larousse de la

langue

fran?aise)

and it

may

well

have

custom

on

its

side:

the

latin

term

narrare

desig

nated

a

linguistic

act

and?in

the

Western

tradition?the

opposition

between

diegesis

and

mimesis,

recounting

and

representing,

epic

and

drama,

narrative

and

theater

goes

back

to

Plato

and is still

very

common.

Furthermore,

this view

may

well

capture

the

specificity

of

a

purely

verbal

rendition of

events

by

a

narra

tor

and,

in

particular,

account

for

the

many

ways

in

which

the

same

set

of

re

lated events can be told?compare "Mary ate before she slept." and "Mary slept

after

she

ate."

or

consider

"John

mounted his

horse before

riding

off

into

the

sunset."

as

against

"John

rode

off

into the

sunset

after

mounting

his

horse."

But

this

view

neglects

the fact

that

nonverbal

or

mixed

modes

of

event

depiction

(e.g.,

movies

or

comic

strips)

are

frequently

taken

to

tell

stories,

to recount

them,

or

are

frequently

referred

to

as

narratives; besides,

it

tends

to

forget

that

the

story

too

makes

narrative whatever

it

is

(after

all,

without

story,

without

events,



5/13

76

Gerald

Prince

without

changes

in

states of

affairs,

no

narrative).

When,

on

the

contrary,

narra

tive is defined not so much in terms of mode

(a

narrator

narrating)

or substance

(linguistic

as

opposed

to

nonlinguistic)

but

rather

by

its

object (events),

the

nar

ratologist

focuses

on

the

structure

of

represented

events

and

their

possible

com

binations.

But he

or

she

might

then

neglect

to

account

for

the

various

forms

a

given

story

can

take.

There

is?as

usual?a

third direction.

If

both

story

and

dis

course,

narrated

and

narrating

make

up

narrative,

narratologists

who

define

the

latter

as

the

representation (verbal

or

nonverbal,

with

or

without

a

narrator)

of

one or more

events

can

try

to

integrate

and

give

equal

importance

to

the

study

of the

"what" and

the

"way."

Of

course,

even

if

all

narratologists

agreed

on a

definition of

narrative,

they

would

still

have

to

determine

what

in narrative

is

specific

or

relevant

to

narra

tive.

There

is

a

lot

more

than

narrative

in

narrative

(comic

power,

psychological

insight, tragic

force)

and

narratology aspires

to

be

a

theory

of

narrative

qua

nar

rative: it

attempts

to

characterize

all

and

only

possible

narrative

tests

to the

ex

tent

that

they

are

narrative

(that

they

exhibit features

distinctive

of

or

particularly

associated with

narrative).

Now,

if

narrative is

the

representation

of

events

or

changes

in states

of

affairs,

some

temporal

relations, say,

are

narrative-specific

whereas comic

power

or

psychological

insight

are

not

(since

there

are

many?

perhaps

too

many?narratives

that

exhibit

neither

and

many

non-narratives

that

exhibit both). But if comic power or psychological insight does not constitute a

differentia

specifica

of

narrative,

the

same

can

be

said

of

character,

of

descrip

tion,

or even

of

focalization.

Yet these three

categories?especially

the

last

one?

have

attracted

a

great

deal

of attention from

narratologists.

In

other

words,

the

argument

against

making

room

for

an

ingredient

such

as

gender

in

narratological

models

on

the

grounds

that

this

ingredient

is

not

specific

to?distinctive

of?

narrative

hardly

seems

compelling.

If

the

distinctiveness

criterion is

not

determinative,

what about

the

integral

ity

criterion?

Narratologists

pay

(infinitely)

more

attention

to

a

narrator's

diegetic

situation

or

degree

of

covertness

than,

for

instance,

to

a

narrator's

sex or

gender

presumably because every narrator can be described as extra- or intra-, homo- or

heterodiegietic

and

every

narrator

can

be

described

as more

or

less

overt

or co

vert

but

not

every

narrator

can

be characterized

in

sexual

or

gender

terms

(what

is the narrator's

sex

in

"Mary

ate

before

she

slept"

or

in "John

rode

off into the

sunset

after

mounting

his

horse"?

more

generally,

if

narrative features

and

narra

tological

accounts constitute

and

designate

a

narrating

agency,

must

this

agency

be

gendered?)

However,

narratologists

pay

considerable

attention

to

narrative

space,

say,

though

it is

quite

possible

to

narrate

without

referring

to

the

space

of

the

story,

the

space

of

the

narrating

instance,

or

the

relations between them?

consider

"Jane

spoke

to

Irma

before she

spoke

to

Sally."

They

pay

even more

at

tention

to

characters

though

it is

not

difficult

to

find

(minimal)

narratives without

characters,

whether

or

not

the latter

are

taken

to

be

anthropomorphic

con

structs?consider

"First

it

rained and then

it

snowed."

In other

words,

the

argu

ment

against

making

room

for

a

feature like

"gender"

because it

is

not

integral

to

narrative

also

proves

unpersuasive.

Besides,

it

could be

argued

that

narrators

and

narratees

must,

like

actors

or

characters,

be

gendered

or

not

gendered

and

that

this

aspect

of their

nature

can

remain

unspecified.



6/13

Narratology

and

Context

11

Other criteria prove just

as

problematic. Simplicity,

for

example, is

not

only

a

function

of

the

measures

selected

(number

of

elements used

in the

model,

number

of

rules

for

combining

these

elements,

diversity

of

the elements

or

the

rules)

but

also

a

function

of the results

yielded

(what

if

these

are

inconclusive

or

uninteresting?);

and

elegance?another

frequently

invoked criterion?should

be

left

to

the

tailor.

In

the

end,

perhaps

the

most

consistently

applied

and

applicable

criterion is

that

of

productivity.

The inclusion

(after

some

reluctance)

of such

categories

as

character

or

description

in

narratological

models

was

motivated

and

vindicated

by

their

traditional

and

continued

importance

in

"adequate"

accounts

of

narra

tive possibilities as well as by their capacity to be linked with or to raise narra

tively pertinent problems

(about

plot

structure,

say,

about narrative

domains

and

energetics,

about narrative

speed

and

frequency).

Now,

sex

or

gender

(and

race,

class,

religion,

age,

ethnicity,

sexual

preference,

or?and

here

I

am

resorting

on

purpose

to

seemingly

trivializing

features?height

or

weight)

may

prove

to

be

just

as

productive

(even

if

they

do

not

have

"tradition" behind

them).

In

any

case,

it

would

be

easy

(or,

at

least,

not

difficult)

to

start

incorporating

them

ex

plicitly

in

a

narratological

model,

for

instance

by

subsuming

them

under

the

ru

bric

"distance"

(the

space obtaining

between

narrators,

characters,

events

narrated,

and

narratees,

a

space

that

can

be

temporal,

intellectual, emotional,

etc.)

or

even?more

radically?by

subsuming

that

rubric

under

them

(given

the element

gender,

for

example,

such

and

such

a

set of

distances

may

obtain).

Just

as

arguments

inspired

by

the

wish

to

include

elements

like

gender

in

narratological

accounts

can

challenge

the

criterial

basis

of

certain

narratological

decisions,

they

can

put

into

question

the actual

nature

of

the

narratological

cor

pus.

Narratology

tries

to

formulate

rules

pertinent

to

all

and

only

possible

narra

tives.

Ideally,

its methods

and

reasonings

do

not

depend

on a

particular

set

of

narratives

(great

ones,

literary

ones,

fictional

ones,

or

even

extant

ones)

and

nar

ratologists

have

been known

to

invent narratives

in

order

to

bolster

their demon

strations

and

prove

their

points. Still,

there is

a

narratological canon,

a

set

of

texts

repeatedly

used

as

illustrations

(La

Modification

for

second-person

narra

tive,

"Hills

like

White

Elephants"

for

external

focalization,

"A

Rose

for

Emily"

for

the

homodiegetic

narrator-observer,

Ulysses

for

stream

of

consciousness).

And

this

canon

is

undeniably

androcentric:

Robyn

Warhol

points

out,

for

instance,

that

in

my

"Introduction

to

the

Study

of the

Narratee,"

there

are

as

many

as

eighty

examples

"and

only

two

of

them

[I

could have

sworn

it

was

three ]

are

from

female-authored

works"

(Gendered

Interventions

7).

Now,

narratology

is indeed

a

theoretical

activity

but?since

it constitutes

an

instance

of

"theory

transitive"

rather than "intratransitive"?it

is far

from

indif

ferent to critical enterprises (just as feminist critical practice is not detached from

theories

in

general

and feminist theories

in

particular).

On

the

one

hand,

narra

tology provides

tools and

ideas

for

investigations

of

specific

texts

and

leads

to

so

called

narratological

criticism,

of

which

I

think

there

are

two

main

variants.

First,

narratological

description

can

not

only

help

to

characterize

the

specificity

of

any

given

narrative,

to

compare

any

two

(sets

of)

narratives,

and

to

institute

narrative

classes

according

to

narratively pertinent

features,

but

it

can

also

help

to

illuminate

certain reactions

to texts

and

it

can

hein

to

found

or

suDDort

certain



7/13

78

Gerald

Prince

interpretive conclusions. Indeed,

as

G?rard Genette's outstanding Narrative Dis

course

and

a

long

tradition

of

(para-narratological)

Anglo-American

and Ger

manic

criticism centered

on

narrative

technique

demonstrate, any

narratologically

descriptive

statement

can

become

a

springboard

for

a

reading,

any

technical

fea

ture

can

lead

to

the

construction

of

meaning,

any

how

can

give

rise

to

a

why.

Second,

by

insisting

that there

is,

in

any

narrative

text,

an

autonomous

layer

constituting

that

which

in the

text

is

"properly"

narrative,

a

configuration

insti

tuting

events

as

such,

fixing

their

beginning

and their

end,

and

presiding

over

the

itinerary linking

them,

narratology

facilitates

the

choice of narrative

as

defining

pattern

or

as

thematic frame.

It

provides

many

entrance

points

and reference

points to the study of texts in terms of that pattern or that frame; and its influ

ence

explains

in

part

the

great

popularity

enjoyed

by

the

theme of

narrative

in

the

past

twenty

years

(the

large

number

of critical

essays

arguing

that

such

and

such

a

novel

or

short

story

is,

among

other

things

or

above

all,

a

reflection

on

narrative)

just

as

it

explains

in

part

the so-called narrativist

turn

(the

reliance

on

the

notion "narrative"

to

discuss

a

multitude of

activities, fields,

and

texts,

from

political speeches

legal

briefs,

and

philosophical

arguments

to

scientific

proofs,

psychoanalytic

sessions,

and L.L.

Bean

catalogues).

On the

other

hand,

these

investigations

of

specific

texts

and

domains,

these

enterprises

in

narratological

criticism,

in

turn,

test

the

validity

and

rigor

of

narra

tological

categories,

distinctions,

and

reasonings, they identify (more

or

less

sig

nificant)

elements

that

narratologists (may)

have

overlooked, underestimated,

or

misunderstood;

and

they

(can)

lead

to

basic

reformulations of

models of

narra

tive.

Genette

himself

admitted

that,

in his

synthetic exploration

of

narrative dis

course,

he

paid

little

attention

to

certain

possibilities

because Proust

had

not

(very

much)

exploited

them in

A

la

recherche

du

temps

perdu

(Narrative

Dis

course

Revisited

12,

51).

Thus,

it

can

be

argued

that

a

modification of

the

narra

tological

corpus

in

favor of female-authored

narratives,

for

example,

may

significantly

affect

the

very

models

produced

by

narratology;

and,

should it

turn

out

that such

a

change

does

not

lead

to

an

alteration of

the

models,

the

latter

would be

all the

more

credible,

all the less

open

to

negative

criticism.

If

narrative

poetics ought

to

be

more

alert

to

the

implications

of

the

corpus

it

privileges,

it

also

ought

to

be

more

sensitive

to

the

role

of

context?and,

more

specifically,

say,

to

the

possible

role

of

sex

or

gender?in

the

production (or

pro

cessing)

of narrative.

This

is

probably

the

crux

of

Lanser's

argument,

the

critical

point

made

by

any

"expansive"

study

of

narrative.

The

allegiance

of

classical

narratology

(the

narratology

of

the

sixties

and

seventies)

to

strategies

inspired

by

structural

linguistics

or

generative-transformational

grammar (both

of

which

are

notoriously

indifferent

to

context),

the

concern

for

capturing

the

differentiae

spe

cificae of narrative, and the "scientific" ambitions of the discipline (its desire, in

particular,

to

isolate

narrative

universals,

which transcend

context)

resulted in

the

narratologists'

reluctance

to

make

pragmatics

part

of their

domain

of

inquiry

and

in their

neglect

of

the

contextual

dimensions of narrative

generation.

But,

by

the

end

of the

seventies,

perhaps

because

of

repeated

(sociolinguistic)

reminders

about

the

importance

of communicative

contexts

in

semiotic

production (or

be

cause

of

awareness

that

narrative

can

be viewed

not

only

as an

object

or

product



8/13

Narratology

and

Context 79

but also

as

an

act

or

process) and certainly because of the very logic and devel

opment

of narrative

poetics,

a

number

of

narratologists (apart

from

Lanser)

be

gan

to

interrogate

certain

aspects

of

context

more

explicitly,

if

only

to

shed

more

light

on

narrative

qua

narrative.

In

Story

and

Discourse,

Seymour

Chatman

de

voted

several

pages

to

the

number

of

parties

one

had

to

posit

in

order

to

account

for the transmission

of

narrative

messages;

much

more

recently,

in

Narrative

as

Communication,

Didier Coste

developed

a

view of

narratology

as

"concerned

with

the

production,

transmission,

and

exchange

of information

on

change

and

simulacra of

change"

(5);

and,

on

several

occasions

(e.g.,

"Narrative

Pragmatics,

Message,

and

Point"),

I

have stressed that

narratological

models

ultimately

should

include?along with a syntactic, a semantic, and a discursive component?a

pragmatic

one.

At least

three context-related

areas

of

investigation

seem

to

me

worthy

of

some

discussion

here.

The

first

pertains

to

different

media

of

manifestation

and

their

expressive

possibilities

(as

recently explored

by

Chatman,

for

example,

in

his

Coming

to

Terms

and,

more

specifically,

in

his

discussion

of the

means

by

which verbal

texts

and

filmic

ones

actualize various

narrative

features

or

favor

certain

ways

of

presenting

them).

Neither

film

strictly

conceived

("moving pic

tures" without

linguistic

or

other

semiotic

accompaniments)

nor

written

language

finds

it

particularly

hard

to

use

diverse

narrative

speeds,

frequencies,

or

points

of

view.

But

they

differ

significantly

in their

ability

to

utilize

other

features

that

nar

ratologists

have

studied

at

length.

Thus,

it

may

be

difficult

for

film

to

provide

certain

signs

of

extradiegetic

narratees

(what

is

the

filmic

equivalent

of

a

sentence

like

"He

bought

one

of

those

shirts

that

you,

dear

reader,

would

never

even look

at"?),

or

to

take

full

advantage

of

the

category

"person"

(how

are

differences

be

tween

first-, second-,

and

third-person

narration

conveyed

filmically?),

or

to

ex

ploit

something

akin

to

free indirect

discourse.

In

other

words,

perhaps

certain

features

can

be actualized

(more

or

less

easily)

by

all

the semiotic

media

whereas

other

can

be

actualized

only by

some

or,

even,

by

one.

Indeed,

there

might

be

strong

correlations

between the

mediatic

exploitability

of features and

their

"properly

narrative"

relevance

(as

experimental

studies

by

Hans-Werner

Ludwig

and Werner

Faulstich

suggest,

the

use

of first-

as

opposed

to

third-person

narra

tion

in verbal

narratives

hardly

affects

the

receiver's

response)

and

narratologists

should

investigate

the

possibility.

The

second

area

pertains

to

tellability,

to

the

qualities

that

make

events

worthy

of

being

told. On the

one

hand,

tellability

must be

tied

to

context.

"Great

topics"

and

"sure-fire

themes"

have,

of

course,

long

been

thought

or

claimed

to

awaken

narrative desire

and

have

long

drawn

the

attention

of

best-seller

seekers.

A

sexist

French

formula

for successful narratives valorizes

the

elements

of

mys

tery, religion, sex, and aristocracy: "My God, said the Duchess, I am pregnant.

Who done

it?"

(Ryan 154);2

and

an

old

Readers'

Digest

recipe

is

supposed

to

stress?along

with

sex

and

religion?personal

experience,

foreign

travel,

money,

and

the

animal

kingdom:

"How I

Made

Love

to a

Rich

Bear in

the

Alps

and

Found God."

But

money,

sex,

or even

religion

do

not

always

play

equally

well

in

Peoria

and

Landernau;

and

the

pointedness

or

pointlessness

of

any

narrative

varies with

the

circumstances

of its

reception.

On

the other

hand,

some

narratolo



9/13

80

Gerald

Prince

gists,

in

exploring

what

in

a

semiotic

object foregrounds

its narrative

nature,

have

attempted

to

show that

tellability (or

narrativity

as

distinct from

mere nar

rativehood)

results

in

part

from

certain

aspects

of the

object

qua

object.

In

my

own

work,

for

instance,

I

have

argued

that the

narrativity

of

a

text

depends

on

the

extent

to

which that

text

constitutes

a

doubly-oriented

autonomous

whole

which

involves

some

kind

of

conflict

(consider

"The

cat sat

on

the mat"

versus

"The

cat

sat

on

the

dog's

mat.")

This

autonomous

whole, furthermore,

is

made

up

of

discrete,

particular,

positive,

and

temporally

distinct

actions

having logi

cally

unpredictable

antecedents

or

consequences,

and

which

avoids inordinate

amounts

of

commentary

about

them,

their

representation,

or

the

latter's

context

(Prince, Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative). Similarly, in her

splendid

Possible

Worlds,

Artificial

Intelligence,

and Narrative

Theory,

Marie

Laure

Ryan

not

only

shows that

an

adequate

model

of

plot

must

represent

the

relational

changes

obtaining

among

the constituents of

the

actual narrative world

(what

is

true

in

the

story)

and

the

constituents of

the

characters'

private

worlds

(the

virtual embedded narratives fashioned

in

terms

of

their

knowledge,

wishes,

obligations,

simulations, intentions,

or

fantasies);

she

also

argues

that

"not

all

plots

are

created

equal"

(148)

and that

narrativity

is rooted

in the

configuration

of

these

changes

and

specifically,

in

"the

richness

and

variety

of

the

domain

of

the

virtual"

(156).

In

fact,

Ryan

even

distinguishes

between

a

"theory

of tellabil

ity,"

accounting

for

potential

narrative

interest,

and

a

"theory

of

performance,"

accounting

for

actual

narrative

appeal

(148-49).

But,

given

the

difficulty

of

the

question

of

such

interest

or

appeal,

much

more

testing

and

investigation

are

no

doubt

needed

to

determine

the

input

of

text

or

context

in

the

production

of

tell

able

narratives.

The

third

area?and

perhaps

the

most

relevant?is

that of narrative

seman

tics. As

Ryan's

work

emphasizes,

narrative

intelligibility

is

based

upon

the

links,

in the

narrative

universe,

between

a

world

designated

as

real and

a

set

of virtual

worlds

(more

or

less

adequate representations, perceptions,

and notions of

the

"real"

world).

To

explain

what

governs

narrative

meaning,

the

narratologist

must

therefore establish

a

map

of

the worlds

making

up

the

narrative

universe and de

scribe

the

conventions

or

devices

allowing

for

the

specification

of

their alethic

value,

their

truth

coefficient.

Now,

the

propositions composing

a

narrative

and

its

worlds

can

be

distinguished

on

the

basis

of their

origin

(as

signified

by

the

text).

There

are,

on

the

one

hand,

those

which

the

narrator

expresses:

they

pre

sent

or

report

certain

states

of affairs and

certain

series

of

events

in

a

certain

world

(the

diegesis);

they

comment

on

them;

or

they

comment

on

the

presenta

tion itself

and

its

context.

On

the

other

hand,

there

are

the

propositions

which

a

character

in the

diegesis

formulates

and

which

also

can

refer

to

that

diegesis:

clarify it, comment on it, or remark on its presentation. In terms of the narrative,

and

barring

any

textual

indication

to

the

contrary,

the world

described

by

the

narrator

constitutes

the

world

as

it

is,

whatever its

correspondence

to

our

own

world

(or

the

way

we

imagine it).

If,

for

example,

the

narrator

declares

that Van

couver

in

the

capital

of

France,

that

Napoleon

won

the

battle

of

Waterloo,

or

that

Ulysses

was

very

naive,

each

one

of

these

declarations

represents

a

fact in

the

narrative

universe,

if

not

in

our

own.

Note

that their truth

does

not

necessar



10/13

Narratology

and

Context 81

ily depend

on

the homo-

or

heterodiegetic

status

of

the

narrator.

What

Philip

Marlowe and Mike

Hammer

say

of

the

environment in which

they

move

about

and

of their

adventures

in

that

environment is

no

less

true

(in

terms

of the

rele

vant

world)

than

the

statements

of the

heterodiegetic

narrator

of

Middlemarch

or

those of

a

CNN

announcer

on

the finals

at

Wimbledon.

Similarly,

incoherent

commentaries

by

the

narrating

voice,

as

well

as

deceptive

or

erroneous

explana

tions

and

illogical

conclusions

(according

to

the text

itself),

do

not

always

call

into

question

the

veracity

of

the

propositions

which

present

the

diegesis.

They

cast

doubt

on

the

interpretive

powers

of

the

narrator;

they

do

not

necessarily

de

prive

him

or

her

of other

powers.

In Jim

Thompson's

Killer

Inside

Me,

for in

stance, Lou Ford is a psychopath, but the geographical information he gives us

about

Central

City

is

no

less

correct.

On

the

contrary,

a

narrator's

(repeated)

hes

itations

concerning

what

is,

avowals

of

ignorance regarding

ontic

matters,

presen

tations of

existents

or

events

according

to

a

point

of

view

designated

as

(suspi

ciously)

subjective,

all weaken

his

or

her

authority,

his

or

her

ability

at

authenti

cation

(to

use

Lubomir

Dolezel's

term),

and call

into

question

the

truth of

the

propositions

composing

the

diegesis

(and

of

the comments

pertaining

to

them).

As for

the

propositions

formulated

by

the

characters,

their

truth

coefficient de

pends

above

all

on

their

conformity

to

what

this voice

says

explicitly

about

them,

or

on

the

reliability

of the characters themselves.

In

other

words,

however

accu

rate

these

propositions

may

be

in

our

world

("Paris

is the

capital

of

France,"

"Na

poleon

lost

the

battle

of

Waterloo,"

"Ulysses

was

very

cunning"),

they

are

true,

textually

speaking,

only

if

they

do

not

involve

any

contradiction

to

the

state

ments

of

the reliable

narrator,

if

they

are

not

designated by

him

or

her

as sus

pect,

untrue,

or

fictitious,

and if their

source

proves

generally trustworthy.

Obviously,

the

situation

can

often

be

quite complex.

One

frequently

finds

in

a

narrative

several

narrators and

many

characters.

Besides,

it is

not

just

a

matter

of

setting

up

distinctions

between

them in

terms

of

their

authority

or

reliability.

It

is

necessary

to

classify

all the

propositions

(and

their

relations)

according

to

their

degree

of

veracity

and

the

latter

depends

of

the

number and

importance

of

the

textually

true

propositions

or

relationships

which

are

contradicted

or con

firmed.

Let/?

and

q

be

two

propositions?formulated by

a

character?the first

of

which does

not

contradict

any

true

proposition

whereas

the

second

contradicts

a

single

one.

All

other

things

being

equal,

it

can

be

said

that

p

but

not

q

is in

con

formity

with the textual

truth.

The

same

would obtain

even

if/?

did

not

confirm

any

other

propositions

and

q

confirmed

a

dozen.

Suppose

now

that

p

contradicts

only

one

true

proposition,

but

one

entailing

numerous

consequences

in

the

narra

tive

universe,

and

that

q

contradicts

two

or

three

propositions

having

no conse

quences

at

all.

One

could

then

maintain,

perhaps,

that

p

is less close

to

an over

all textual truth than q. But there are thornier cases. Suppose, for example, that

p

and

q

contradict

only

each

other

and that

one

of

them

confirms

more

proposi

tions

that

the

other.

Should

we

consider

(on

the

ground

that

the

narrative would

thereby gain

richness

and

coherence)

the

former

true

and the latter

false?

In

the

same

way,

suppose

we

find

two

or

three

unimportant

contradictions

in

the

narra

tor's

discourse. Should

we

then conclude

that

he

or

she

is

not

trustworthy

or

should

we

simply speak

of

absentmindedness

or

trivial

miscalculations?

What



11/13

82

Gerald

Prince

ever

decisions

are

made, they will

no

doubt affect what the narrative

means

and,

though

narratologists

do

not

have

to

choose

(since

their

goal

is

not

to

determine

the

meaning

of

particular

texts),

they

must be

able nevertheless

to

indicate

in

their

models

that

narrative

meaning

sometimes

depends

on

such

decisions

(just

as

they

must

be able

to

indicate

that certain narrative

passages

can

function

as

iterative

or

singulative

narration,

as

free

indirect

or

narratized

discourse,

as

chro

nologically

or

causally governed).

In other

words,

they

must

be

able

to

make

room

for

(the

voice

of)

a

variable and

extratextual

determiner.3

As

my

quick

discussion

suggests,

narratology

can

and

must

be

cognizant

of

context. But

there remains

a

significant

distance

between the

exploration

of

con

textual features to understand what is "properly narrative" or to construct amodel

in which the

pragmatic

dimension

is

not

forgotten

and the

kind

of

"expansive"

narrative

poetics

that

Lanser,

for

instance,

calls

for.

In

"Toward

a

Feminist

Nar

ratology"

Lanser states that

narratology

ought

to

"study

narrative

in

relation

to

a

referential

context

that is

simultaneously linguistic,

literary,

historical,

biographi

cal,

social,

and

political"

(345). Similarly,

in

her

1992

book entitled

Fictions

of

Authority,

where

she

explores

how

women

writers

strive,

with

the

help

of

narra

tive

structures,

to create

fictions of

authority

while

exposing

them,

Lanser

states

that these

structures

should be

analyzed

in

terms

of

the

power

relations

"that

implicate

writer, reader,

and text"

(5).

Both

statements

are,

I

think,

more

relevant

to

(narratological)

criticism

than

to

narratology.

The latter

attempts

to

character

ize

the

ways

in

which all

and

only

narratives

are

configured

and make

sense

rather

than the

forms

or

meanings

of

specific

narratives in

specific

circumstances.

It

can

indicate

that narrative

configuration

or

signification

is

a

function

of

con

text.

It

cannot

specify

how

a

certain form

or

meaning

results

from

a

certain

context;

it

cannot

list

the

infinity

of

possible

contexts

or

exhaustively

describe

most

of

them;

it

cannot,

in

particular,

state

how

the

sex,

gender, height,

or

weight

of

a

producer

or

consumer,

a

writer

or

reader,

affects

the

production

or

processing

of narrative from

and

content.

Still,

statements

and

enterprises

like Lanser's

help

to

remind

us

that,

with

out

yielding

to

the

interpretive

temptation

(without

conflating

criticism

and

po

etics)

and without

renouncing

the

ideal

of

a

description

of narrative

and

its

pos

sibilities

that would

be

explicit,

systematic,

and

universal,

narratology

should

strive

for

more

self-awareness,

flexibility,

and attention

to

the

concrete.

It

is

on

this

condition

that

it will

perfect

the

fit between

its

models

and

the

texts

they

en

deavor

to

characterize

and that it will

find

a

place

in

a

generalized

semiotics.4

ENDNOTES

1. For

a

different version

of

this

discussion,

see

Gerald

Prince,

"Narratology,

Narrative

Criticism,

and

Gender."

2. This is

Margaret

Boden's

English

rendition

of "Mon

Dieu,

dit

la

Marquise, je

suis enceinte

et

ne

sais

pas

de

qui"

(299;

quoted

in

Ryan,

154).



12/13

Narratology

and

Context

83

3.

A

more

developed argument

is

presented

in

Gerald

Prince, "Narratology, Narrative,

and

Meaning."

4.

This

paper

was

presented

at

the

1994 International

Conference

on

Narrative

Literature

in

Van

couver,

B.C. At the

same

conference,

a

good

panel

discussion moderated

by Kathy

Mezei

and

Melba

Cuddy-Keane

raised the

question

"Why

a

Feminist

Narratology"

anew,

through

short

presentations

by

the

panelists,

Janet

Giltrow,

Susan

Stanford

Friedman,

and

Robyn

Warhol. The

discussion

tended

to

characterize the

pair

"formalist

narratology/feminist

narratology"

as

a

mem

ber of

a

series

including:

sentence/discourse, text/context,

totalizing/specifying,

formalizing/politi

cizing,

similarity/

difference,

construction/deconstruction,

sedentariness/nomadism (one

might

add

grammar/rhetoric,

form/force,

and

so

on).

As

for

the

speakers, they suggested

shifting

back and

forth

between

positions,

trying

to

combine

them,

or

trying

not

to

occupy

any

of them.

WORKS

CITED

Boden,

Margaret. Artificial

Intelligence

and Natural

Man. New

York: Basic

Books,

1977.

Chatman,

Seymour. Coming

to

Terms:

The Rhetoric

of

Narrative

in

Fiction and Film.

Ithaca: Cor

nell

Univ.

Press,

1990.

-.

Story

and

Discourse: Narrative

Structure

in Fiction

and

Film. Ithaca: Cornell

Univ.

Press,

1978.

Coste,

Didier.

Narrative

as

Communication.

Minneapolis:

Univ. of Minnesota

Press,

1989.

Diengott,

Nilli.

"Narratology

and

Feminism."

Style

22

(1988):

42-51.

Dolezel,

Lubomir.

"Truth

and

Authenticity

in

Narrative." Poetics

Today

1

(1980):

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Genette,

G?rard. Narrative

Discourse

Revisited.

Translated

by

Jane

E. Lewin.

Ithaca: Cornell Univ.

Press,

1988.

-.

Narrative Discourse:

An

Essay

in

Method.

Translated

by

Jane E.

Lewin.

Ithaca:

Cornell

Univ.

Press,

1980.

Lanser,

Susan

Sniader.

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of

Authority:

Women Writers

and

Narrative

Voice.

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Cornell

Univ.

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1992.

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zur

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zeptionsrelevanz

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Gerald

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Ryan,

Marie-Laure.

Possible

Worlds, Artificial Intelligence,

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Narrative

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Documents

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