Name: Nikunj Bhatti

Roll no.:19

M.A. Semester: 2

Enrolment No.: 14101005

Year: 2014-16

Paper no.: 7 (Literary Theory and Criticism)

Submitted to: Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Topic: Gerard Genette’s Narratology

Gerard Genette

• French Literary Theorist

• Associated in particular with

the structuralist movement.

• Adapted the concept of

bricolage from

• Roland Barthes and Claude

Levi-Strauss

What is Narratology ?

In order to understand

narratology’s contribution to

semiotics, it is important to

grasp the distinction between

its three fundamental entities:

story, narrative, and narration.

Important concept in Genette's narratology

• Narratology derived from-

• Narrative Discourse: An

Essay in Method

• In this work examples used

in it are from

• Proust’s Epic “In Search of

Lost Time”

Order

Frequency

DurationVoice

Mood

Five

aspects

Order

1)A murder occurs

2)Circumstances

3) Murderer is reveled to a detective

4) Murderer is caught

A story as follows:

Order

Arranged the

Chronological events run

like

• A1

• B2

• C3

Arranged in Text they

may run

• B1( discovery)

• A2( flashback)

• C3 (resolution)

36 China Town

CID Crime Patrol

Frequency

Event occur

Be narrated For Example:

Once Once(Singular) Today I went to the Department.

N times

Once(Iterative) I used to go to the Department.

Once Ntimes(Repetitive

)

Today I went to the Department. Today he went to the Department.

N times

N times(Multiple)

I used to go to the Department . He used to go the department .

I went to the department yesterday.

Duration

Separations between an event and it’s narration

Two elements are main in duration

1) A discourse time

2) Narrative time

Two main elements of duration

Short narrative Lengthy time

24 hours Five year passed

For example,

James Joyce’s novel Ulysses

For example,

Raj Kumar Hirani’s movie

3 Idiots

3 Idiots

Voice

Voice is concerned with two question

Who narrates? And from Where?

From Where ?

Intra-diegetic

Extra-

diegetic

Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in

White

Chocolate and Musafar

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the

D’Urberilles

Who narrates ?

Hetero -diegetic

Homo-diegetic

Homer’s The Odyssey

Mahabharat in Samay

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering

Heights

2 States

Is the narrator a character in the story?

Mood

• Mood is depended on the ‘Distance’ and ‘perspective’ of

the narrator, author and director.

Non focalized FocalizedInternally focalized

Externally Focalized

Narratives can be Four types

Ghajani Talash