Tzvetan Todorovs Narratology

2003/10/7

Outline

General Questions Narratology and Todorov The Structure of Narrative Examples

General Questions
What are the possible basic structures of narratives? What are the functions in getting the basic structures? And the possible limitations?

Structuralist Narratology

Narratology the science of narrative; popularized in 1970s. Contemporary narratology includes comparative narratolgy, theories of authorship, enunciation, action, story and narration, reception, self-referentiality and intertextuality. Applied narratology: psychoanalysis, gender studies, reader-response, ideological critique.

Narratology
Social contexts,

History

cultural conventions
5. semiologoist, marxists

3. Point-of-view

authors

narrator

narrative
4. readerresponse

reader

Literary Traditions

2. Russian formalists

Formal analytic frameworks

(literary, linguistic, interdisciplinary)

Martin 29

Structuralist Narratology: Major Theorists

Levi Strauss four terms (2 sets of binaries) V. Propp 7 spheres of actions (Villain, hero, false hero, sought-for person, etc.) and 31 functions out of Russain fairy tales T. Todorov focuses more on syntax; Greimas focuses on semantics (actants Subject/Object, Sender/Receiver, Helper/Opponent, and 3 structurescontractual, performative, disjunctive) Claude Bremond -- virtuality (a situation opening a possibility); actualization or nonactualization of the possibility; achievement or nonachievement. Roland Barthes 5 different codes (S/Z). etc.

Structuralist Narratology: Possible Criticisim

Reductive; too static and unable to characterize the very engine that drives a narrative forward to its end, the very dynamics that dictate its shape. Ignore context depends on how it is used; The possibility of a coherent narratology, one that successfully integrates the study of the what and the way, has been put into question by poststructuralist theorists and critics invoking the so-called double logic of narrative (e.g. story and discourse, event and meaning).
(Ref. http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory /narratology.html )

T. Todorov

3 aspects of the narrative: semantic, syntactic and verbal (Todorovs focus is more on syntax.) Grammar of narrative sentence structure with the following basic units: 1. Propositions and sequences//sentences and paragraphs 2. parts of speech characters as nouns; their attributes as adjectives, actions as verbs.

T. Todorov: Structural Analsys of Narrative

Outline 1. Structural approach to literature defined; 2. Exemplified by his analysis of plot in Decameron; 3. The nature of narrative and the principles of its analysis.

I. Structural approach to literature defined

Theoretic but not descriptive, logical but not spatial. (2099) Different from both Marxism (external, an abstract structure out side of the work) and New Criticism (internal). Structuralism its object is the literary discourse rather than works of literature, literature that is virtual rather than real. (2100). New Criticism (description)articulates a paraphrase; Structuralist (poetics) lit. works abstract literary properties

I. Structural approach further compared with modernist views

1)

2)

3)

Henry James p. 2101 -- disagrees with 1) isolating a texts dialogue, description for analysis; 2) disregarding the novel as a living thing, all one and continuous. Ts responses A theoretical concept (e.g. temperature) does not need to exist in a pure state; The fact that we find them (blood, muscle, etc) together does not prevent us from distinguishing them.) Subjectivity is inevitable in studies of humanities (or social science) but we can limit it.

II. Decameron
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

From some stories he finds Plot unit shown as a clause; Characters as proper nouns; with adjectives; three actions as verbs violate, punish, avoid; Actions with different statuses (e.g. negation) Modality legends imperative, fairy tale optative, a wish; perception Relations between clauses (e.g. causal, temporal, spatial); common sequence of a group of stories (punishment avoided)

II. Decameron (2)

8. further analysis: a. more concrete analysis of syntax -- each clause can be written as an entire sequence; b. thematic study: study the concrete actions; c. rhetoric study: examines the verbal medium

II. Decameron (3)

His goal not knowledge of Decameron but an understanding of literature and plot. 1) avoid punishment: From equilibrium to a new equilibrium. 2) conversion The story illustrates the superiority of the individual over the social, or nature over culture.

III. Conclusion
Literature and poetics (2106) Ambiguity in moving back and forth between the two poles: auto-reference and its object

II. Grammar of Decameron

e.g. 3 adjectives states, interior properties and exterior conditions (status) 3 verbs to modify a situation, to transgress, and to punish. (3 modesindicative, predictive and obligatory, 3 relations between propositions, 3 sequences) Ambiguity at both the levels of proposition and sequence. Boccaccio a defender of free enterprise and even, . . . , of nascent capitalism.

T. Todorov: Grammar of Decameron e.g.

Peronellas story (of hiding her lover in a barrel) X commits a misdeed X modifies the situation X is not punished.

T. Todorov: another example

Given by Robert Scholes X A+ (XA) opt X Xa XA X = Boy A = Love, to be loved by someone A = to seek love, to woo Opt X = Boy (X) wishes (opt) - = negation of attributes: -A lack love

T. Todorov: another example

Given by Robert Scholes XA + XB X-C + YaX + (X-A+X-B XC) predX (XbY)predX+XA! (XB+X-C)!imp X Eveline, Y Frank, Aa Dubliner, BCelibate, Chappyrespected, secure, a to offer an elopement; b-to accept elopement -- negative of attribute, not negative of verb pred predicts or expects, imp is implied by discourse

T. Todorov: Questions for Discussion

1.

2.

What could be the advantages of scientific and abstract descriptions? Can we use Todorovs method on a novel such as Heart of Darkness? Or a story from The Dubliners? A Hollywood film, The Titanic?

Possible Attempts

Chinese-American uses of traditional legends (e.g. Fox, Tang-Ao) to re-write canonical history as initial causes for disequilibrium; later confirmed to bring up a new equilibrium; How/where modification of situation is possible.

The Heart of Darkness: no equilibrium, or in the final sympathy between Kurtz and Marlow. The Titanic: transgression obstacles (human and natural) a new equilibrium in spiritual love and death. The Working Girl: transgression by the women (first the boss and the secretary), mutual punishment, modification by the man.

T. Todorov: critique

Jonathan Cullers critique in Structuralist Poetics

Modification can be done without the use of ruse or deception. -- anything which modifies a situation will receive the same structural description. Todorov has not considered what facts his theory is supposed to account for and so has not considered the adequacy of the implicit groupings which it establishes (217) Another example the sentence The man out of the last house passed on his way home can be excluded from any account of the plot -since it has no consequences. (Barthes kernels + satellites)

T. Todorov: critique (2)

Seymour Chatmans Story and Discourse

p. 92 to transfer Propps and Todorovs method to any narrative macrostructure whatsoever is questionable. Most do not have the necessary overarching recurrences. The worlds of modern fiction and cinema are not two-valued, black and white, as are the Russian tales and the Decameron. P. 93 Whatever success Scholes achieves in his analysis of Eveline depends on his knowledge of the overriding thematic framework of the Dubliners. Why a Dubliner instead of an Irishwoman or a European or a female? Why celibate instead of poor. . .?