Week 3 and 4: Prose

communication between real author and real reader

stands outside story world adresses implied audience 

part of the story adresses a homodiegetic audience or implied heterodiegetic reader 

- how is it being told? 

- what is being told? 

- narrator outside story

- omnicient

- can adress reader directly

- authoritative voice: passes moral judgement, objectivity 

- part of story as character 

- insight into events but not other characters minds 

- "expieriencing-I" vs. "narrating-I"

- "I as a witness" vs. "I as a protagonist" 

--> reliable exept for mental insability, memory lapses (syntax, repetitions) 

- no commentary 

- third person view of reflector characters

- internal perspective of reflector characters dominates 

- makes presence felt 

- provides commentary 

- adresses reader

- invisible

- neutral: gives information 

- outside the story world 

- inside the story world

- autodiegetic = narrator-protagonist 

- within characters feelings, emotions 

- only "outside" view of things (knows less, "camera eye" no insight in minds/feelings)

- no restrictions (knows more than characters)

- interpolated tales told by characters

- nested structure told from many different perspectives 

example: Wuthering Heights 

- compilation of different documents 

- duration: relationship between discourse time and story time 

• prolepsis = flashforward
• analepsis = flashback 
• digression = Einschub

refers to the literary representation of the physical spaces, time and socio-cultural contexts in which the narrative unfolds

- how are political, social & cultural ideologies inscribed in the setting of the narrative?

- how does the setting reflect or contrast with the inner state of mind of the characters?

- what is the symbolic function of setting? how does it reflect or enhance important concerns of the text? 

- going places: Journey Narratives

- monsters at the margins: defining selves and others 

- country and city 

implicit: indirect characterization 

explicit: direct characterization 

agent of text (human, animal, object) 

--> relations between individual characters 

• major vs. minor
• antagonist vs. protagonist 
• symmetries between characters and foil characters 
• social, political, class, gender, race generations to analyse 

- flat vs. round (complex + development --> suprise reader)

- static vs. dynamic (change)

- transparent vs. opaque (enter minds) 

- which characters are moved to the centre of the narratice? Why? 

- how does the character constellation reflect social & political context? 

- do characters carry symbolic meaning? 

- single-plot vs. multi-plot narrative 

- main vs. subplot 

- tightly plotted vs. episodic 

- open structure vs. closed structure (resolution & closure)

influential plots, that remained stable during centuries 

- quest, courtship, marriage, "Bildungsroman" 

- how does the plot unfolg? 

- ehat is the relationship between main plot and subplot? 

- does the plot of this narrative follow a well-known pattern?

highly self-reflexive fictional texts that reflect on the nature, production & techniques of fiction 

- narrator discusses crafting narrative

- breaks illusion of fiction --> anti-realist

- metalepsis:  heterodiegetic narrator appears in character's world