Gerard Genette: Narrative Discourse

[Readings] (02.20.09, 2:16 pm)

Genette introduces several important concepts in his work. The point of view in a

work is a combination of both mood and voice, which have generally been
convoluted in other works of analysis. Mood is whose point of view does the
narrative take, while voice is who the narrator is, which are two different
questions. Mood leads to a kind of focalization, meaning how the narrative is
focused. A narrative may be focused internally, through a character, but it may
also be focused externally, onto a character. Genette spends much time on
examining the iterative, which is the network of means by which the plot is
interwoven with the narrative. The iterative is analyzed in terms of order,
duration, and frequency, which suggest an almost musical theory. In addition,
Genette finds in Proust a system of variations and deviations from conventional
systems of point of view, leading to anomalous systems of polymodality, where a
narrative moment may reveal both information limited by a point of view, and
information beyond it. Sentences like “I watched George reach into his briefcase
for something while he thought about whether he might have lamb for dinner
that evening” (taken from the foreword, p. 12-13), confuse the seemingly
ordinary relationship between perspective, mimesis, and diagesis.

Introduction
The analysis of narrative discourse is the analysis of the relationships of the story
elements, notably between story, narrative, and narrating. These are the
different senses conjured by the word narrative, but they are functionally
distinct. Genette’s starting point is the categories of tense, aspect, and mood,
which were originally defined by Todorov. These are all traits of narrative verbs
that relate to time. Tense is the relationship between the time of the story and
the time of the discourse; aspect is the way in which the story is perceived by
the narrator; and mood is the type of discourse used by the narrator.

Mood
This is a discussion of mood in narrative. Mood is borrowed from the grammatical
term, indicating the sense of whether a verb is indicative, subjunctive,
imperative, and so on. Genette suggests that normally narrative is seen as only
working on the indicative level, but there is more to it than that. At the surface,
mood is the distinction between showing versus telling, but the issue is really the
matter of distance andperspective. These are a matter of who orients the
narrative and whose point of view is taken. There are four kinds of these: (p.
186)
 1. Narrator is a character in the story, internal analysis of events: Main character
tells the story.
2. Narrator is a character in the story, outside observation of events: Minor
character tells the main character’s story.
3. Narrator is not a character in the story, internal analysis of events: Analytic or
omniscient author tells the story.
4. Narrator is not a character in the story, outside observation of events: Author
tells story as observer.

These define the space of focalization. The next chapter covers voice, which is
the identity and subjectivity of the narrator within the story world.

3.1 NARRATIVE MOOD

Distance:

There are three degrees of narrative distance used in this fable, making the narrator seem at times very involved
in his narrative, and at times completely absent. These variations add diversity to the act of narrating. Some
examples follow:

Narratized speech (narrator is -distant):

Lines 1-3: The expression "Her wish" implies that a character involved in the narrative act is speaking.

Transposed speech, free indirect style (narrator is + - distant):

Lines 22-23: The expression "farewell" reveals the character's words.

Reported speech (narrator is + distant):

Lines 12-21: The phrase "said she" and the quotation marks indicate that the narrator is reporting the character's
speech verbatim.

The functions of the narrator:

Besides the narrative function, which is built into any narrative, this fable manifests three important functions:
the communication function, the testimonial function and the ideological function. All three of these can be seen in
lines 28-43. While the narrator certifies the truth of the events by presenting this story as a well-known farce (lines
28-29), he ends his narrative by addressing questions directly to the narratee (lines 30-34) and moralizing (lines
30-44).

The effect of this distancing and involvement on the part of the narrator is to bring out and intensify diegesisas the
narrative mood, the idea being that all narratives should be considered as fictional acts of language, rather than
as perfect imitations of reality (mimesis).

Source: http://www.signosemio.com/Genette/a_narratologie.asp