Teresa Bridgeman Thinking ahead: A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis Prolepsis, or flashback, in narrative as outlined by Genette in Narrative Dis- course can be conceived as “telling before time.”! This article explores issues which arise in relation to a particular type of prolepsis, the annonce or “advance notice” (Genette 73), when this is considered from the perspective of the anticipatory world-building practices of the reader. Prolepsis is usually discussed by narratolo- gists as the second, less common and slightly wayward member of a pair with analepsis and this article attempts to redress this imbalance, concentrating on the particular issues it raises in relation to text processing.” Annonces are almost always brief allusions. Those which are of interest here “refer in advance to an event that will be told in full in its place” (Genette 73).‘ They constitute an interesting case of prolepsis from the reader’s perspective as they re- quire the construction of a minimal and usually incomplete mental representation which the reader must hold in memory and be prepared to recall at a later point in the reading process. While this later point may occur relatively soon, allowing the ac- tions concerned to be integrated into a global linear plot model, this is not always the case. Not all prolepses are associated with speculation about the future course of events, as will be seen, but this is very often the case for the annonce. The reader's cognitive activities are not within the remit of what can be now considered to be classical narratological accounts of prolepsis by theorists such as Genette (67-79), Rimmon-Kenan (46-51), Bal (53-66), and Toolan (49-55), al- though the last two, in particular, consider a number of effects of prolepsis on the reader.’ When focus is switched more fully from the “telling before time” of nar- ration to “reading before time,” certain points of interest emerge, in particular the Teresa Bridgeman is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Bristol. She has written on the stylistics and pragmatics of narrative and is the author of Negotiating the New in the French Novel. She is ‘currently work Inge, with particular refe ng on cognitive axpects of reading contemporary French narratives, including bande dess~ nce to the construction of place and space. NARRATIVE, Vol. 13, No. 2 (May 2005) Copyright 2005 by The Ohio State University126 Teresa Bridgeman nature of the information provided, its susceptibility to the construction of mental representations, and how the reader stores the information in light of expectations concerning its recall. Cognitive work on discourse comprehension provides a usefull starting point from which to consider these issues (in particular, the empirical cogni- tive psychological work of van Dijk and Kintsch, Graesser, Millis and Zwaan, Zwaan and Radvansky, and the more linguistic and literary-based work of Emmott and Werth). However, as will emerge, most of these theorists are concerned more with the process of storage, retrieval and updating of existing representations than with the particular anticipatory processes relating to prolepsis. Of this work, Em- mott’s model of dynamic reading offers, in my view, the most fruitful framework for adaptation to the processing issues raised by prolepsis. The first section of this article provides a brief reminder of the key points of Genette’s discussion of prolepsis. I then propose a preliminary account of how pro- lepsis might be treated from a cognitive perspective, setting out the factors which contribute to the reader’s processing of an annonce. Examples are given of how these factors might interact in practice, drawing on novels by Balzac, Spark, and Proulx. The final section of the discussion turns to the particular case of Butor's Passing Time (L’Emploi du Temps) which, in flouting expectations relating to temporal se- quencing, proleptic patterns, and the construction of the fictional world, raises par- ticular questions concerning the ways in which readers respond to prolepsis. GENETTE’S STANDARD ACCOUNT OF PROLEPSIS. This section outlines briefly the main features of Genette’s account of prolepsis which will be of relevance to this article. It does not represent the subtleties of Genette’s account, instead providing a working summary as a reminder and starting point for discussion. I have tried to keep commentary to a minimum at this stage. In the standard models drawn from Genette, the essence of prolepsis lies in the mismatch between the order of the narrative and a notional chronological story.® Pro- lepsis occurs where an event is told earlier in the order of narrative than it would be if the strict chronological order of events of the story were followed. Genette’s category of the annonce would appear to be determined by its fune- tion as an anticipatory announcement, matching that of the analeptic recall (73). It is iscussed as the most typical form of repeating prolepsis, where information is nar- rated twice, both out of order and then in order. There are, however, cases of com- pleting annonces cited by Genette where the proleptic section constitutes the sole narration of the information (68).’ Clearly, the terms “repeating” and “completing” are less felicitous in describing prolepsis than they are for analepsis. To describe an annonce as repeating or completing a segment of narrative which has not yet been narrated is counter-intuitive. ‘The annonce is generally marked by its brevity, but this would seem to be a matter of practice only (“Repeating prolepses . .. scarcely occur except as brief allu- sions,” 73).° It is, however, differentiated from the amorce or mention because it makes explicit reference to the future, whereas mentions are “simple markersA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis. 127 without anticipation, even an allusive anticipation” whose significance can only be confirmed retroactively (75). Annonces may haye a short or long range which Genette measures in terms of the time of the story.’ The shortest range cited by Genette is between an annonce at the end of one chapter, followed by a full narration at the beginning of the next (74)."° Longer-range annonces may be internal or external. The former fall within the sequence of what Genette calls the récit premier (“Discours du récit" 106), or primary narrative.'' The latter extend beyond the end of the primary narrative as a sort of epilogue (68-9). Genette comments that the function of the former in Proust is to introduce temporary suspense in the reader, while the latter largely serve the purposes of cohesion between the different temporal reference frames of A la Recherche du temps perdu (74). As will be seen below, longer-range annonces can also function as devices to create suspense rather than cohesion. In his description of analepsis, Genette distinguishes hetween “partial analep- sis.” which offers an isolated segment of the story, and “complete analepsis.” where the analeptic narrative continues until a point where it joins the primary narrative se- quence (62). Unable to find an example of complete prolepsis, he suggests that all prolepses are of the partial type, but proposes that in theory a complete prolepsis would take us to the dénouement of the primary narrative (77). This pattern, and an alternative pattern of complete prolepsis will be seen in Butor’s Passing Time. REFERENCE TIMES AND ORIENTATION POINTS For Genette, the most important reference time for prolepsis is the story time. In the case of heterodiegetic narration, the temporal relationship between the time of narration and that of the story is not necessarily specified, whereas in homodiegetic narration the “now” of the narrator is assumed to be on a temporal continuum with the “then” of the narrator-as-protagonist. Because Proust is his main model, the time of writing is assumed to be after the completion of events of the story. This allows for the quality of atemporality of the remembering consciousness remarked on by Genette (70), invoking Auerbach’s “symbolic omnitemporality” (Auerbach 544). Because Genette takes the story as his primary frame, all references to the time frame of narration are by definition proleptic and external to this frame. Genette describes narrative time as “pseudo-time” as it does not effectively re- late directly to a notional time span in which writing occurs (34), Instead, it relates to the space of the text, its length, and, through this, to “the temporality of reading,” the time frame in which the text is processed by the reader (223n). As the location of this comment in a footnote indicates, this time frame does not concern Genette, although it will be of central interest in this article. In discussing temporal relationships and reference times, I shall use Reichen- bach’s model to designate different orientation points. The orientation points pro- posed by Reichenbach are as follows: $ (the “now” of the speaker), E (the “now” of the event) and R (the reference time from which before and after are projected) (288-90). In Reichenbach’s oral tense-based model, R time is usually S-now (and,128 Teresa Bridgeman by extension, hearer-now), By contrast, in written narrative, R time usually becomes a rolling moment linked to E time—it is the point which has been reached in the story so far, usually in the past in relation to $ time (see Fleischman 17-18, 127-31). In this article, focus will be on the reader (who as the hearer in Reichenbach’s model shares the reference frame of $-now). I therefore propose the orientation point P, to designate processing time by the reader. This will allow R time to be linked to reader-now where appropriate COGNITIVE THEORIES OF TEXT PROCESSING: MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SITUATION MODEL The cognitive study of literature is a wide and vigorous field of investigation, and investigates issues from conceptual metaphor to cognitive grammar (the com- panion volumes by Stockwell and Gavins and Steen offer an overview of these ap- proaches). However, much of this work does not directly consider the temporal dimensions of engagement with narrative texts. Because the cognitive issues relating to prolepsis are so profoundly linked to the sequenced processing of linear text as a means to construct a world representation, the areas of cognitive investigation which are most appropriate to a discussion of this topic are those which relate to text pro cessing and memory, and those which offer a theory of the construction, mainte- nance, and modification of mental representations of worlds over time. Current cognitive psychological theories of discourse comprehension suggest that readers and listeners produce multiple levels of discourse representation which are stored in memory. These levels may include the surface code (the language of the text), a propositional text-base (“explicit text propositions in a stripped-down form that pre serves meaning, but not the exact wording and syntax." Graesser, Millis and Zwaan 167), a situation model (“a representation of what the text is abou en, Rizzella, Albrecht and Halleran 1200), a representation of the pragmatic communicative con- text, and a representation of the text genre.'” As Graesser, Millis and Zwaan emphasize: “AII five of these levels contribute to the meaning representations that readers build during comprehension. Moreover, it is a profound understatement to say that these var~ jous levels interact with one another in complex ways that are not well understood” (167-68). The primary focus of my discussion of prolepsis is the situation model (or rather situation models). It will nevertheless become clear that we cannot build situa- tion models, whether of a particular episode or of the global text-world structure, with- out drawing on other levels of representation and that Graesser, Millis, and Zwaan’s comment on the complexity of interactions between levels is not an overstatement. A situation model is a multilayered structure which encodes key information re- lating to time, space, causality, intentionality, protagonists, and the relationships be- tween them (see Zwaan and Radvansky 167)."" It is an abstract construct, but it is also analogue “in the sense that it directly models the structure of the situation that it represents” (Radvansky and Zachs 176). Cognitive theorists suggest that as readers process texts they not only build local situation models which establish the immedi- ate situation at a given point in processing, but also build global models which willA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 129 integrate both local models and more abstract higher-level represent ing themes and the point of a text. These global models are revised and updated in a se ons concern= dynamic process of interaction with successive local models as reading progre: We could suggest that narratology’s story, or fabula, when it is conceived as a men- tal construction by the reader rather than as a pre-existing extra-textual set of events, is a type of global situation model (see Kefalenos 37). Theorists disagree on the details of how and where readers store information and under what circumstances this is retrieved from memory." For the purposes of this article, we may assume that certain information is encoded by readers in such a way as to be more easily available for recall at a future point in reading. It is likely that not all information is necessarily stored at the same level of representation, Al- though much information in a narrative text will be stored in situation models, it may also, where appropriate, be stored in propositional form or as mental images (Rad- vansky and Zachs 201-206). Higher-level information relating to global coherence may also be stored in more abstract representations which are still analogue struc lures (relating to plot-progression, for example). The selection of information to be stored in a situation model will depend on the individual reader's goals and experiences. There is a general tendency, though, to priv- ilege event-related information, and information related to the goals and motivation of protagonists (see Fletcher, Albrecht and Myers, and Lutz and Radvansky). The pos- sibilities are controlled, too, by the way in which the text foregrounds information."* Clearly, for a full-length novel, any global situation model would be so enor- mous and intricate that it would be hard to grasp or hold in memory as a single strue- ture, and it would seem logical that we organize our global models while reading a novel into smaller packets or networks of associated information. Such information might relate to particular situational dimensions, for example the intentions of a pro- tagonist or the layout of key landmarks ina town. The global model will also be di- vided into separate situation models demarcated by spatio-temporal shifts (Zwaan and Radvansky 175-76). Emmott’s work on “contextual frames” offers such a con- ceptual division of narrative into distinct episodes. Her frames are configured on the core parameters of time, space, and person (103). In addition to these basic relations, “frames can also be assumed to hold salient details about the situation (e.g. the pur- pose of the encounter) and must, for a short period at least, retain some details of the descriptions and events that have been recently referred to” (121). Emmott’s contex- tual frames are therefore particular types of situation model PROLEPSIS AND ANTICIPATION FROM A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE If we consider the act of reading, then, to involve the construction of mental representations of a world, where the reader builds, updates, and modifies local and global models of the fictional world in a dynamic process, then prolepsis has a particular function, in that it cues a piece of the puzzle which can be situated only provisionally in relation to the current state of the reader’s global world model. '°130 Teresa Bridgeman In Narrative Comprehension, Emmott develops the concept of contextual frames as basic text-specific configurations of time, place, person, and salient events. She demonstrates how, when we read a narrative, we monitor these frames, open them up, close them down, and recall them when cued to do so by the text (103-174). This enables us not only to track protagonists around the fictional world but also to identify different knowledge states, for example, at different stages in a protagonist's life (she calls these different states of a protagonist “enactors,” 180-94). For Emmott, these contextual frames are built of active working informa- tion which remains primed, even when elements of the frame are not in focus as a re- sult of direct reference in the text. Once a frame is closed down, it remains available in memory for recall. In this context, the proleptic annonce is an interesting case because it reverses the standard process described by Emmott in which a contextual frame is con- structed and held in memory, available for recall through a minimal number of cues. Instead, it requires the construction of a minimal and usually incomplete frame, which the reader expects to I at a future stage in reading, and stores in memory accordingly. In this respect, most prolepsis cannot be seen simply as a mir~ ror image of unanticipated analeptic frame recall. It involves anticipated recall. Although in Genette’s abstracted structural model, prolepsis appears to be the mirror image of analepsis. this can only be the case when it is detached from the tem- poral act of reading, We have already seen how the categorical equivalence of the two figures becomes uneasy when qualifying terms such as “completing” and “re- peating” are employed for prolepsis, however appropriate they may be to analepsis. Moreover, repeating prolepsis will always carry within it an analeptic effect, for the eventual narration of an event in its appropriate place in the story always involves re- call of the information already established by the annonc Viewed from the perspective of text processing, the non-equivalence of analep- sis and prolepsis becomes more obvious. In repeating analepsis, an existing contex- tual frame is reactivated and its constituent elements are sometimes elaborated or modified to produce a revised situation model. In completing analepsis, a new con- textual frame is introduced which the reader adds to his/her existing mental model of the sequence of frames which constitutes the story so far. Although this may also re- quire a revision of the reader's view of preceding events, it allows closure because the frame can be integrated to the existing model. By contrast, the chief feature of the proleptic frame is its provisional nature, its inbuilt “reactivatability”. For we cannot know, as readers, whether this prolepsis is repeating or completing, not having yet read the rest of the text, nor can we tell whether it is internal or external for the same reason (this is not to say that we do not make reasonable guesses, as will be dis- cussed below). The mental models relating to future action which are built in response to the explicit textual cues of prolepsis are part of a wider range of anticipatory and specu- lative activities by the reader."* From Kermode’s Sense of an Ending and Brooks's “anticipation of retrospection” (Brooks 23) to Eco’s “extensional operations” and “inferential walks” (31-2, 214-17), theorists discussing literary narratives suggest We to recA Cognitive Approach 10 Protepsis. 131 how far readers speculate on the future progress of the text.” And in the context of possible-world theory and reader-involvement, Ryan's concept of “tellability” em- braces the “strategic point” where the reader's expectations are manipulated (Possi- ble Worlds 153), while she defines temporal immersion as “the reader's desire for the knowledge that awaits her at the end of narrative time” (Narrative as Virtual Reality 140). Prolepsis can thus be seen as a particular case of anticipation. The difference between this general speculation and the anticipation of prolepsis lies in the explicit nature of the textual cue and the consequent ontological status of features of the frame built by the reader. Where the future is concerned, explicit proleptic informa- tion has a higher degree of ontological certainty than inferences constructed from textual implicatures, whether strong or weak.”” The explicit textual anachrony of the annonce, constituted by its departure from the prevailing reference time frame, also serves as a foregrounding device, flagging it as an invitation to speculate.! Not only does it positively invite predictive infer ences by cueing a future state of the narrative, there is a strong pragmatic implicature that it is important to know this information now, not later. THE TIME OF READING For Genette, prolepsis will predominantly take the story as its reference time, the orientation point R being “the moment in the story when the narrative was inter- rupted to make room for the anachrony” (48). However, our reading of prolepsis in- volves not only the identification of a mismatch between sequential orders, but also the projection of a future moment when the anticipated event will be told in its “proper” place in the sequence. In both cases, two temporal frames are involved, that of the story (E time) and that of reading (P time, remembering that, as Genette sug- gests, in this respect the time of the narrative is a pseudo-time, and is in fact a spatial measure of the potential time of reading). It should be noted, however, that in some narratives, S-now, the reference-time of the writing narrator, can also assume a fully temporalized character (in Beckett’s Molloy, for example, where future life, or half- life, as well as future writing, is anticipated). The reader's sense of his or her own fu- ture reading activities may be in abeyance where texts make few demands on hinvher and do not call for anticipations of future action. But where curiosity and suspense are aroused, there is always the potential for the awareness of our own cur- rent and future reading experience, of the progress of the text towards an end point. Awareness of the duration of our reading experience will be more acute where delay is.a feature of reading, and where expectations are not fulfilled as quickly as we an- ticipate, In such cases, the reader's own anticipated itinerary of reading is both ex- posed and upset. In the example discussed below, from Butor’s Passing Time, the proliferation of story reference frames will also lead to a focus on the order of the text and, in consequence, the time of reading. I would contend, however, that readers always monitor, at some level. projected reading times, otherwise such violations would not be felt as such.132 Teresa Bridgeman FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROCESSING OF PROLEPSIS In written fictional texts we can process annonces in relation to three main world levels, each involving different time-space coordinates. The level at which most annonces are processed is that which relates to the fictional world in which pro- tagonists move and interact. But, as in the case of Beckett, cited above, some an- nonces have the time-space of the narrator as their reference frame (this may or may not be contiguous with the first level, depending on whether the narrator is in- tradiegetic or extradiegetic), while others may (defying the fictional status of the text) refer to the discourse-world time-space environment of readers.”” Situation models can be constructed for any of these three levels, although their contents are likely to be sparse in the latter two cases How we process a given annonce will depend in part on the general knowledge schemas and scripts of action we bring to the text, including our knowledge of the pragmatic principles of interaction and of text genres. It will also depend on a num- ber of textual features which include: 1. The nature of the information in the annonce: a. specificity/abstraction: degree of detail, quantity, balance between asser- tion and implicature et b, world-building function:” does it contribute information on properties of the fictional world, on primary and secondary protagonists, their goals and motivations, on acting situations (states of affairs), on actions, or does it evaluate these in the wider context of the narrative? 2. The distribution of annonces within the text: a. range between annonce and target narrative. b, frequency: number of annonces for a given event (or vice versa). 3. The manner of presentation of the above information, including stylistic grounding devices, etc. Itis worth exploring a number of these areas in more detail. The examples given in this section are drawn from three novels: Balzac’s Cousin Bette, Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, Each of these novels has its own temporal protocols. In Balzac’s novel, analepsis functions mainly to fill in the previous lives of the protagonists, while the multiple plot lines require the manipula- tion of simultaneous primary narrative strands throughout. Prolepsis functions not only to generate suspense but also to reinforce the authority of the narrator. It is part of a wider range of metafictional devices in this novel which demonstrate that Balzac’s work does not always fit the post hoc naturalist realist paradigm so often ap- plied to it (Genette 67). Spark’s novel is constructed from three main temporal refer- ence frames and has the most complex structure in terms of disruptions to narrative order, producing a variety of effects which will be explored. Proulx’s novel is con- strained by its division into a succession of discrete narratives occurring along an torical continuum, linked only by the accordion of the title and the realist back-A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 133 drop of the social history of the United States in the twentieth century. Analepsis and prolepsis are frequent, providing protagonist information external to the primary nar- ratives which are generally limited to the time of ownership of the accordion by each protagonist. Here. prolepsis is more frequent than in Balzac, but it is not experienced as a temporal dislocation in the same way as in either Balzac or Spark’s novels. While it is possible to point out textual features objectively, judgments on reader responses are harder to make (this is why laboratory tests on reading are obliged to restrict the scope and materials of their investigations so greatly, seeming often to produce results which are intuitively self-evident). In the following discus- sion, my views on how readers will respond are based on introspection and are there- fore working examples of the sorts of speculations this reader makes. Although they are presented in the form of general probabilities of readerly behavior, they are not intended to be read as prescriptive.”* INFORMATION AND MENTAL MODELS In all texts, the specificity of mental models constructed by readers is not nee- essarily in an isomorphic relationship to the textual cues which produce these mod- els, as Dolezel and Herman have emphasized (Herman 66-69). In general, the mental model constructed by readers will always be more explicit than the textual cues from which it is derived, as Ryan proposes in her principle of minimal depar- ture, according to which we assume that the fictional world resembles our own un- less differences are specified (Possible Worlds 48-54). In the case of the annonce. the information cued is relatively sparse given its classification as brief allusion and it may be fleshed out ina number of ways by the reader on the basis of experi- ence. The contextual frame stored in memory by the reader, though, is unlikely to be as full as the local mental model which is built during the immediate processing of the annonce. How we build this will depend, in part, on what type of readers we are (not only our particular spectrum of knowledge but also the extent to which we visu- alize while reading, for example). But it does also depend on the information avail- able in the text. Brevity of reference and degree of detail are two factors which clearly dictate whether we can create a full situation model, but the type of information in an an- nonce can also strongly influence processing. This can be expressed in terms of the world-building functions suggested above. In some cases, a full situation model can be established from the explicit information in the annonce: “(Four years later this barrowman moved to St. Louis and started a successful macaroni factory, American Pasta, and died a thousandaire.)” (Proulx 40). In this case, the core elements of time, place, person, action, and outcome are all present. Alternatively, a more complex interaction between explicit information and im- plicatures can lead to a focus on the emotional state of a protagonist and a change in states of affairs (Herman, 55-60, following von Wright, calls these “acting situa- tions”): “And every year thereafter he petitioned to change the name of the town, sug- gesting in turn Snowball, Com, Paradise, Red Pear, Dew, Buggywhip and Brighteye.134 Teresa Bridgeman (Later his suggestions were bitter: Forget It, Roughtown, Hell, Wrong, Stink.)” (Proulx 77). Here, we infer a change in the acting situation on the basis of the emo- tional attitude of the protagonist, Loats, towards the town. The first lexical group of proposed names implies « positive attitude while the second, later, group is explicitly linked to a shift towards bitterness. We are left to wonder what shift in the acting sit- uation will produce this change in attitude. This example demonstrates that the situ- ation models we derive from an annonce do not necessarily correlate directly to the specific information in the text. The reader is under no obligation to build all the tex- tual propositions in an annonce into his/her final mental model of the situation but can operate selectively, combining textually explicit information and inferences. The ts of names are very unlikely to end up in any mental representation of the an nonce. And while we may well include a visualization of Loats traveling to and from the town in our current working model of the situation, it may be that all we store in memory is the change of Loats’s state from inferred happiness to explicit bitterness, and a further inference that the behavior of the townspeople has brought the change about. This is the information which is likely to affect our future reading of the text. ‘The above examples have provided sufficient information for the reader to con- struct a situation model of some sort. But the information in an aunonce may be so sparse that we cannot achieve this, even through inference: “And so the accordion player veered onto a fatal course” (Proulx 27). Here, all we know is that the outcome of some future action will be fatal. We are unable to build a minimal contextual frame for the fatal event or any representation of what this might be. as the text con- tains neither deictic world-builders nor function-advancing propositions. This type of suspense-inducing prolepsis instead cues a more abstract mental representation of the plot structure of the narrative which might be spatially mapped as a line which moves downwards towards death.” Although this resembles a general-knowledge script, it is nevertheless a specific model, representing the episodic structure of this particular narrative. As Ryan suggests, suspense rel ting to prolepsis induces an active and ongoing attempt to tie our knowledge of a future state of affairs to our reading of the current situation, what she describes as a focus of attention on “the prehistory of a certain state” (Narrative as Virtual 144). Our inability to model the exact circumstances of the fatal outcome in this example is part of this mechanism of anticipation, and the consequence is likely to be that we maintain our adumbrated representation of the “fatal course” in short-term memory as we process the subsequent text, seeking to map the local structures of action we encounter there to this pattern.” RANGE AND FREQUENCY: THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE TEXT. The distribution of annonces in the text can have significant effects on the reader. Such effects can be the result of the range between amonce and target narra- tive, but may also be the consequences of multiple proleptic references to a givenA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 135 episode (in his discussion of prolepsis under the heading of “order,” Genette briefly addresses issues of frequency in a discussion of iterative prolepsis, 72-73, but does not mention multiple prolepsis). From the reader’s perspective, range relates not only to the time frame of the story but also to the space of the text and, by extension, to the time of reading (P). Range clearly affects the reader’s ability to access quickly the details of an episode stored in memory and we may assume that longer range can be associated with a lower level of availability for recall and the decay of detailed in- formation. Where the range of an annonce is long, repeated proleptic references can be assumed to re-focus the reader's attention on the episode and in some cases to renew anticipation of the target narrative. ‘An example of multiple prolepsis is to be found in Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, relating to the death of Mary Macgregor. There are five annonces in all, ranging from an extended narration of the episode in the second annonce to minimal mention (the word “dead” in “dead Mary Macgregor,” 101).”* The first annonce sets up the patterns of association which will remain in place for the rest of the narrative: “Mary Macgregor, lumpy, with merely two eyes, a nose and a mouth like a snow- man, who Was later famous for being stupid and always to blame and who, at the age of twenty-three, lost her life in a hotel fire, ventured, ‘Golden.’ (13-14). Mary's stupidity has already been established in the current time frame (R2, girls aged ten) and her fame for it has been established in the time frame with which the text has opened (R1, girls aged sixteen). The new and striking proleptic information here is her death in a hotel fire at a point considerably in the future, after the girls have left school (R3). This information overshadows our current enactor for Mary, and had this been the only annonce, it might have been expected to color our reading of her boring stupidity throughout R2 and RI. Spark reinforces this effect, though, by pro- viding a detailed account of the fire in the second annonce, which occurs only a few pages after the first. Mary-now (RI and R2) is thus defined by Mary-later (R3). Any mention of her is likely to reactivate the frame of her death, although we are unlikely to retain all the details of this (such as the location of the hotel in Cumberland). Spark ensures, though, that we will retain the death scene as a situation model by repeating the image of Mary running backwards and forwards: “Back and forth along the corridors ran Mary Macgregor” (16); “Mary, who later, in that hotel fire, ran hither and thither” (34). This allows the frame to be easily reactivated later in the book. In a chemistry class Mary is frightened by magnesium flares and panics: “Mary Macgregor took fright and ran along . . . and ran back . . . Hither and thither she ran” (100). Here, the lexical overdetermination reactivates the situation model of the fire and allows us to perceive this episode as a proleptic acting-out of her death. Had we retained no situation model in memory, this would not have been so effec- tive, despite the lexical links. Most important to our global model of the novel, though, is the association be- tween the knowledge of her death and the guilt this will cause the other protagonists in R3 over their unkind treatment of her in R1 and R2. This is structured by the sub- sequent annonces. The third annonce recalls Mary’s death in a scene where Sandy (the main focalizer) is being unkind to her. The last two annonces are both embedded136 Teresa Bridgeman second-degree analepses in R3 prolepses where other protagonists look back with regret on their own behavior towards her in light of her death, The function of the multiple prolepses here is thus to cue a very specific link between Mary's present and future. READER EXPECTATIONS AND SPECULATIONS CONCERNING RECALL T have suggested that, as readers, we make judgments when we read an annonce concerning the likelihood that we will have to recall the frame (whether the prolep- sis is completing or repeating, internal or external), and the point at which we might need to do so (estimated range). Such judgments draw on many of the factors out- lined above. Those relating to range. for example, might include direct textual cues (“the next ), general knowledge schemas (school leaving ages), our knowledge of the patterns of the text so far (the regulation of temporal order and duration, whether there is a tendency to delay information), our knowledge of textual conven- tions (cliff-hanging prolepsis at the end of a chapter tends to be resolved in the sub- sequent chapter), of plot conventions (the default order of first meeting, complicating action, narrative peak, final outcome),” and of genre conventions (expect short- range suspense in adventure stories, long-range suspense in whodunits). It should be noted that while several of the measures for estimated range concern story time (tak- ing E as their reference time), others relate to the structure of the text (taking P as the reference time). How we store the information from a proleptic annonce, the extent to which we integrate it to situation models, and the degree to which we keep it available (by whatever means), will also depend on our estimation of its importance to the primar story sequence (or sequences) and its relevance to the goals and motivations of pro- tagonists. Where an eventual outcome can be deemed to be a major event in the life of a primary protagonist, it is likely to be retained in a form more susceptible to re- trieval than where it relates to a secondary protagonist. Equally, we may well make the assumption that information relating to secondary protagonists is likely to con- stitute a completing prolepsis, while information relating to the life of a primary pro- tagonist may be anticipated as a repeating prolepsis unless the information is relatively minor. Such questions of imminence and immanence (to borrow Kermode’s terms) are best demonstrated by the working of a few examples which will range from more simple to more complex instances. I begin with an example of completing prolepsis relating to a minor protago- nists” “(Decades later the great-grandson of this guard, intelligent and handsome, enrolled as a medical student; he served as a donor of sperm at the medical center's in vitro fertilization program and was the maker of more than seventy children reared by other men. He accepted no money for his contribution.)” (Proulx 65). Although we cannot predict definitively whether a prolepsis will be completing or repeating it is possible for this to be strongly cued by a text. Here, there are several indicatorsA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 137 that this is a completing prolepsis, external to the primary narrative. First, the subject of the proleptic section is not even a secondary protagonist, but the descendant of an incidental bit-part protagonist who, it can be assumed, will be permanently unbound from the text at the end of the current frame."' Second, the fact that the prolepsis, like that relating to the future macaroni baron, constitutes a full action sequence, includ- ing an outcome and a commentary on the action, suggests that its main function is to supply completing information, not to set up a future frame. This view is reinforced by the temporal range indicator “Decades later.” which suggests that the events may be external to the primary narrative. Given that the main protagonist in this narrative has already died, we assume that there is not much of it left to be told. Such a pro- lepsis allows narrative closure, and is unlikely to be held in memory. Instead, like many other prolepses in the book, it provides a sense of historical context and local color. have avoided describing this example as an annonce because it may well not qualify as such. It constitutes more than a brief allusion to future events (like the ex- tensive narrative of the events of the fire in Spark’s novel), and there is no sense that it provides advance notice of something to look out for.” Where prolepsis relates to the goals and motivations of the main protagonists and to the progression of a primary narrative, it is more likely that anticipation will be involved. A case of simple short-range prolepsis occurs in Cousin Berte as fol- lows: “The unfortunate man did not suspect that that very evening he was to find himself caught between the prospect of losing his happiness and the danger that the Personnel Director had warned him of, forced to choose between Madame Marneffe and his position” (Balzac 260-61). This passage is instantly recognizable as a stan- dard end-of-chapter cliffhanger relating to a primary protagonist.”' It not only creates strong suspense in the reader by narrowing the outcome of events to a choice be- tween two possibilities (Ryan comments that “the intensity of suspense is inversely proportional to the range of possibilities,” Narrative as Virtual 142), it also rein- forces the authority of the narrator by emphasizing the gap between narrator knowl- edge and protagonist knowledge. The short E-time range of “that very evening” reassures us that the outcome of Hulot’s choice will not be long in emerging. Short-range prolepsis can, however, be more complex: “The following day, those three existences so different from one another and all so truly wretched, the lives of a mother in despair, of the Mameffe couple, and of the hapless refugee, were all to be affected by Hortense’s naive passion, and by the singular events that were to be the outcome of the Baron’s ill-fated passion for Josépha” (Balzac 82). This an- nonce concems the main protagonists, their motivations and goals, engaging the in- terest of the reader, It offers a far wider range of possible outcomes, though, than did the previous example. While it indicates a change in situation, it does not state what this might be, nor does it specify the nature of the “singular events”, A number of in- ferences can nevertheless be made on the basis of the plot so far, while the position of the annonce at the end of a chapter marks it as another cliffhanger to be resolved in the subsequent chapter. The number of possible outcomes generated by the lack of specificity concern- ing events might be expected to diffuse the effect of suspense on the reader, but Balzac creates a processing problem here which reintroduces suspense, or at least138 Teresa Bridgeman reader frustration. The problem lies with the number of situational models which are primed by the annonce for reactivation in the subsequent chapter. It cues the re- trieval of information relating to Hortense and Wenceslas (the refugee), Hortense and her mother, Hulot and his wife (Hortense’s mother), Hulot and Madame Marn- effe (whom he is attracted to), and Hulot and Josépha. Behind these overt relation- ships there also lie Bette’s relationships with most of these protagonists, in particular her relationship with Wenceslas which is under threat from Hortense and is already primed and in focus, being the main topic of the current chapter (Chapter 17). Given that only one of these sub-plots can be related at a time, the priming of so many separate situation models in fact creates a glut of short-term memory retrieval cues for the reader. While suspense is immediately resolved in relation to the Hulot-Josépha relationship, the reader must wait longer for the others as these si- multaneous sections of the story are related one-by-one.® The last of these, the fate of the relationship between Bette and Wenceslas, currently in focus, will not be re- solved until Chapter 31. In generating a processing overload with respect to the mul- tiple situation models cued for recall, Balzac converts simple short-term suspense of a rather vague and general nature into a more complex, frustrated frenzy of unful- filled anticipation. Suspense and anticipation can be maintained at long-range, too, though: “The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife’s fanatical devotion confirmed her in her belief that gentleness and submissiveness were a woman's most powerful weapons. She was mistaken in this, Noble sentiments pushed to extremes produce results very like those of the worst vices” (Balzac 87). Directly concerned with the goals and motivations of a primary protagonist, this annonce again sets up a knowl- edge gap between narrator and protagonist. But in this instance. the reader’s antic pation of unhappy consequences for the marriage of Baron Hulot and his wife has a far longer range. While it does not allow the construction of a situation model for a particular moment, it provides a schematic but specific pattern of action and result for the novel in which Mme Hulot's devotion will not only fail to keep her husband at her side, but may well drive him away.” This is clearly likely to be a major aspect of the primary narrative, and as such leads the reader to anticipate recall, even though this may be after a considerable length of time (in fact the full workings of the pat- tern extend to the final chapters of the novel) This annonce operates at different levels of representation. Locally, it con tributes to our construction and evaluation of Madame Hulot’s character. More gen- erally, it has the plot implications relating to goals and outcomes outlined above, which operate at both the story level (what will happen) and the discourse level (as a warning not to expect a happy ending). Last, because it is presented as a general script relating to human behavior beyond the confines of the text, it has predictive force in relation to the discourse world. By presenting the general doxastic script of virtue rewarded as an erroneous local belief held by a protagonist, and by presenting the episodic plot structure of this novel as a general script, Balzac manages to invert the mimetic relationship between the book and the world. Under the guise of the world providing the pattern for the book, the book provides a pattern for the world.A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 139 POST-PROLEPTIC READING: CUES FOR RECALL AND ACTIVE READING In repeating prolepsis the proleptic frame can, of course, be expected to be re- activated by the target narrative. But, as has been suggested, proleptic frames can be reactivated by minimal textual cues along the way. Where long-range prolepsis is concerned, I would suggest that the reader's sensitivity to potential cues becomes greater as the predicted temporal frame of the target narrative draws closer (assum- ing, of course, that this can be specified). The function of the proleptic information may also change in the course of reading. This assumes that readers actively monitor the temporal progression of the text and match it to their expectations of the range of the annonce. In order to examine this process in relation to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, it necessary, first, to set out the expectations which may be formed by the reader con- cerning the end point of the primary narrative of the novel."” Expectations on range, as we have seen, are founded on sets of probabilities built from textual information and general knowledge. Thus, the unfinished opening frame of Spark’s novel in which the girls are sixteen (R1) leads us to assume that the primary narrative will continue to this point and at least shortly beyond it. The time span indicated by the title (which suggests that we will see Miss Brodie in her prime, not past it) and a pos- sible classification of the text genre as a school story will reinforce this view. We are therefore likely to consider the proleptic references from the most substantial time frame (R2, in which the girls are aged ten to sixteen) in different ways. Those relat- ing to later points in R2 and RI will be assumed to be internal repeating prolepses, falling within the school careers of the girls, while those relating to events after the girls have left school (R3) may well be assumed to be completing and external pro- lepses. The former are read as either reinforcements to the entity representations of the protagonists (“later famous for”) or as the means to foreground central issues in the primary story (the betrayal of Miss Brodie by Sandy). By contrast, prolepses re- lating to R3, which are both geographically varied and temporally scattered across two decades, can be generally assumed to function as naturalizing framing devices which enable protagonists to look back on the events of the primary narrative.” As such, they could be expected to be completing prolepses, unlikely to recur. The strength of this last assumption for me was such that I was surprised but nevertheless satisfied when I found that four of these frames, some of which are quite trivial, are repeated in the final pages of the novel. Against this background, the case of Sandy’s betrayal of Miss Brodie illustrates how projected range can influence the way we monitor for recall cues at different points in the text. Sandy is proleptically identified as the agent of Miss Brodie’s downfall approximately halfway through the novel. When we return to R2 after this annonce, though, we do not anticipate this event to be imminent, as the girls are still only eleven, and the opening frame has revealed to us that Miss Brodie is still at the school (albeit precariously) when they are sixteen. The most likely time frame for the betrayal is therefore between the age of sixteen and when the girls leave school.”140 Teresa Bridgeman With this event still safely distant, our foreknowledge is likely to lead instead to a focus of interest on Sandy’s character and motivations for the betrayal. The proleptic information is active in influencing our reading, but anticipation of the event itself is, not strong, Only once the text has indicated that the girls have reached the age of sixteen, entering the potential time frame for the betrayal, does our interest in the imminence of this event resurface. [ would suggest that we actively scan the text for cues to the betrayal from this point on. And as the target narrative fails to materialize within the anticipated range, occurring only after Sandy has left school, our sense of anticipa- tion increases. Suspense is enhanced because the episode is strongly primed at the beginning of the last chapter by references to attempts by the headmistress to bring about Miss Brodie’s dismissal. These are followed by a specific contextual frame which includes all the key elements of our situation model for the betrayal (Sandy and the headmistress, in the latter’s study, within the projected time range, 153-54). Although the betrayal does not occur on this occasion, the similarities between the situation models ensure that it is retained in active memory by the reader as an event still to come. Last, and importantly, the reader's awareness of how few pages are left to be read will reinforce the sense that the target narrative must be imminent (this fits with Ryan’s category of “metasuspense.” Narrative as Virtual 145). ‘The above examples have provided a sense of how prolepsis functions from a cognitive perspective. While none presents the processing difficulties associated with Butor's Passing Time, to be discussed in the next section, they nevertheless point towards key issues which will recur in the reading of Butor’s novel. PROLEPSIS IN BUTOR’S PASSING TIME This section of analysis considers the effects of one proleptic sequence in Butor's Passing Time. The sequence is exceptional in that nine annonces precede the full narration of the event they herald and the range from first annonce to final telling extends across nineteen of the twenty-five chapters. It provides an extreme example of issues that can arise in multiple prolepsis. especially where this is associated with the delay of the target narrative. The particular configuration of analeptic and prolep- tic sequences in Passing Time also allows us to see how such patterns can modify the reader’s basic expectations concerning the workings of prolepsis, revealing the im- portance of local textual protocols in our reading of it, Butor’s novel presents a particular challenge to world building from more than the temporal perspective. It is hard to distinguish between entities (other than pro- tagonists) and to establish spatial layouts. These features combine with the temporal complexities of the book to inhibit the construction of contextual frames. This is partly the consequence of the linguistic structure of the text where the repetition and manipulation of lexical collocations lead to a confusion of referents, while the labyrinthine syntax requires a conscious interpretive effort from the reader.” GivenA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis. 141 that the text is a novel, and a nouveau roman at that, such features are not entirely un- expected, but this is nevertheless an extreme case. In light of these complexities, Passing Time can be said to create a textual envi- ronment in which standard expectations relating to textual and narrative conventions need not be expected to be in foree.*! However, as I have suggested elsewhere, inno- vative texts cannot suspend all reading protocols at once if they are to be inter~ pretable (see Negotiating the New). Instead, they tend to weave a path between the old and new, allowing readers recognizable hooks on which to hang their interpreta- tions while proposing alternative conventions in some areas. However radical such alternatives may be, once they have been established, we still expect texts to follow them, or seek further justifications for their flouting. ‘The reader, by contrast, is under no obligation to make perfect sense and, as the complexities of the text increase, s/he may abandon the attempt to maintain a full global model of temporal and locative structures, leaving this task to the struggling narrator and justifying his/her disengagement through the higher-level rationale that the text represents a conflict between teleological meaning-making by the narrator and the labyrinthine influence of the town of Bleston. This can in turn be construed asa metaphor for the resistance of complex text to our coherence-building strategies However far the reader’s higher-level justifications for the abandonment of a global temporal model may extend, it is hard to eseape the lure of local promises of coher- ence, These may revive, at least for a time, the attempt to maintain and update a global temporal model. The proleptic series to be discussed here can be seen as such a local promis TEMPORAL SEQUENCES AND RELATIONSHIPS Butor’s novel can be described as polychronic, in that it is constructed from several time sequences which run in counterpoint to each other, rather than operating through a synchronic matching of story and narrative.” As such, its overall patterns fall into Genette’s category of complex anachrony (79-83), The general temporal patterns of Passing Time are set out in simplified form by Grant, whose diagram I have adapted slightly (31). a Part | " mL Vv v b May diary tune diary July diary August diary Sept diary e Oa Nov Dee > Jan Fob d June > July > Aug > Sept > © May — April — March = f [May —] June > July > 8 Aug =142 Teresa Bridgeman The early chapters of the novel encourage an initially simple view of the rela- tionship between a story time (c) beginning in October and the narrative time (b) be- ginning in May (in Genette’s terms, this constitutes a subsequent narrative with occasional simultaneous references to the reference time frame of writing, 217), but this is revised and becomes progressively more complex as the text progresses. This is the consequence of the sub-division of the event line into several individuated tem- poral reference sequences which, although they can all ultimately be configured as a single continuum, are flagged as detached and separate “chunks” of temporal experi- ence (a more complex version of the three reference times of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). Thus, in Part 2, a second story sequence (4) is introduced which is roughly contemporary with the narrative running from June to September and narrative time ceases to be Genette’s pseudo-time, becoming instead a temporally situated se- quence in its own right. In itself it functions according to the standard diary pattern in Which minimal time elapses between events and their narration, adding interpo- lated narrative to the subsequent and simultaneous patterns already in operation (Genette 217-18). It also constitutes a major prolepsis in relation to the initial se- quence beginning in October. It provides an example of Genette’s theoretical cate~ gory of complete prolepsis running to the dénouement of the novel (77). In Part 3, a third narrative sequence (e) is introduced which is notable in that it begins at the starting point of the narrative (b) and works backwards chronologically. It can be seen as proleptic in relation to the original story (c) and analeptic in relation to (d)."" In Part 4 (this process actually begins at the very end of the previous chapter), a new sequence (f} is introduced as the narrator rereads entries from his diary and adds de- tails and scenes omitted from his earlier narrative, This is effectively a double se- quence as it fills in episodes relating to both (c) and (d). It is analeptic in relation to (b), (c), and (d), with the consequent proleptic tangles. The extension of the analep- sis to the writing of the diary itself means that the time of reading and the reader's memory of this are more directly brought into the pattern, Last, in Part 5, a further strand (g) is added as the narrator traces back his August diary to try to discover clues relating to a failed relationship while continuing the other sequence Not all the sequences are given equal weighting, however, if this is measured by the textual space devoted to each. Moreover, a shift occurs as the novel progresses. In the early chapters the dominant narrative is (c), but the emphasis is transferred to (d) and (¢) in the later chapters, As a consequence, any attempt to cling to the origi- nal chronological order of the narrative as the guiding structure for reading is sub- jected to increasing interference, as references to this sequence become increasingly few and far between. This shift has particular effects on the processing of the prolep- tic sequence, discussed below. The reverse chronological sequence (e) is perhaps the most radical departure from standard narrative practice (resembling a reversed tone row in music), and will also be discussed further."* It should be underlined that these sequences are not hidden patterns to be teased cout by the reader, but are clearly flagged by the narrator, In particular, the reverse se- quence is accompanied by a lengthy explanation and justification (171). The general effect on the reader of the treatment of these narrative sequences is to increase atten- tion to temporal reference frames and patterns and to develop a flexible reading tec!A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis. 143 nique involving temporal switches within sections. The reader is required to monitor what E point has been reached in each frame, to identify the larger story sequence to which the frame belongs, and to recognize and recall these when shifts occur. In this, sihe is partly aided by the running headers which indicate the months dealt with on each page. It would be reasonable to suggest, moreover, that the presence of the run- ning headers encourages the reader to adopt this approach and heightens awareness of the temporal patterns in spatial terms. This process is not very different from the standard monitoring of multiple simultaneous subplots in many novels. Although, as Thave suggested, the configurative activities of the reader will ultimately include the construction of a single time line of some sort from October to September, this can only be achieved after the shorter time lines have been constituted, and it is they which serve as the primary reference frames against which to set anachronies in the dynamics of reading. Indeed, the loss of a singular reference sequence in this poly- chronic text makes the term “anachrony” a relative one—anachronies in relation to ‘one sequence may be “chronies” in relation to another as Genette demonstrates (79-85). But it also makes the idea of a primary sequence a relative one (see Bal 57-58 and Sternberg, “Telling II” 496 on this issue). It might appear, given the complexity of the temporal sequences in Passing Time, that to trace a single proleptic pattern is meaningless. But one of the effects of the sequence in question is to preserve a sense of “something still to be told” throughout the novel and I would like to explore this effect. The episode in question is the first meeting between the narrator (Revel) and Burton (another major protago- nist). The nine proleptic annonces of this event range from a mere brief mention to more extended narration which offers most of the core elements of the encounter (see Appendices | and 2). They are followed by a substantial narration of the en- counter, almost at the end of the novel (287-9), which confirms their status as re- peating annonces." TYPE AND DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION IF the nine annonces are considered briefly in order but out of context, it can be seen that by the third annonce most of the key elements of the scene are provided (participants, location, immediate cause and initiating action by Burton, see Appen- dix 2). The situation mode! can therefore include not only the core world-builders, but also function-advancing elements. We can build a fair representation of the episode and we are not really in suspense as to what will happen. Nevertheless, the status of the information alone, relating as it does to the primary protagonist and marked as a significant moment in his life relating to another major protagonist (we know by the second annonce that Burton is the author of a detective novel which has an important plot function), suggests that we should keep this information available for future recall. The later annonces recall and sometimes update this established cumulative frame (their recall function is especially important following the gap of six chapters between the third and fourth annonces). One of the consequences of this multiplication of annonces is that the reader’s situation model of the meeting is144 Teresa Bridgeman gradually expanded in the course of the novel, and is more substantial than might be the case in single prolepsis."” In terms of their distribution across the text (see Ap- pendix 3 column 3), the first three annonces maintain the reader's expectation that the meeting will occur relatively soon by repeatedly recalling the frame to ai memory. This expectation then falls into abeyance as other elements of the narrative take over (replaced, perhaps, by the anticipation of Revel’s first meeting with Rose), Reactivated by the fourth annonce, expectations of imminence, or at least a sense of the missing element as missing, are heightened by the clustering of references in Part jive TY, especially as new details are offered by the sixth and ninth annonces. By this point in reading, our interest has shifted from the story-level “what?” to the dis- course-level “when?” The extreme range involved in this pattern and the frequency of references are alone worthy of comment, but it is their combination with other features which lead to the particular interest of this proleptic sequence. FURTHER FACTORS IN THE GENERATION OF READER EXPECTATIONS Because this proleptic sequence relates to a first meeting, domain knowledge which influences the reader's expectations concerning the processes by which pro- tagonists are introduced in narrative is important. Such expectations depend on the basic temporal formats employed in a given text. Where the main narrative begins at a crisis point in the action (in medias res) we expect to encounter protagonists who have already met each other. In such cases, the narration of original meetings between those concerned can be expected to occur as analepses. On the other hand, Where the narrative protocol is to tell events in chronological order, whether those of a whole life or of a major episode, we expect to encounter protagonists in the order that the main focalizing protagonist(s) meet(s) them within those temporal spans." The protocol of the opening section of Passing Time is strongly that of the chronological narrative of a particular episode in a protagonist's life. The narrative opens with Revel’s arrival in Bleston, and we can therefore assume that all first meet- ings with the inhabitants of that city will be subsequent to this event on the time line of the story. Moreover, the narrator as S-now emphasizes the care he will take in nar- rating events as they unfolded in the past and according to his state of knowledge at the time they occurred, without the benefit of hindsight (40). These expectations of matching orders are fulfilled and reinforced by the introduction of the first two sig- nificant secondary protagonists in the novel, James Jenkins and Ann Bailey. First ref- erence to these protagonists and first meeting with them occur either simultaneously (James) or consecutively (Ann) (see Appendix 3).”” Both have occurred before the first textual reference to Burton, establishing a textual convention in which lite pro- cessing effort is required when new protagonists are introduced. In the description of the meeting with Ann, it is also established that the detailed description of first meet \gs is important to the narrator: “I must try to reconstruct that first meeting, the im- pression she made on me that day... ” (38).°”A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis. 145 By contrast, the introduction of Burton to the text is, from the outset, experi- enced as premature. He appears in the text indirectly, through a passing reference to the location of his house (Appendix 1, no. 0). Although it does not conform to the standard account of prolepsis, this reference is strongly felt by the reader to be before its appropriate time. By referring to the knowledge state of Revel as speaker-now, it transgresses the protocol he has established a few pages earlier that he will restrict the information in his text to the limits of his knowledge in past E time (this trans- gression is an example of Genette’s category of paralepsis, “taking up . . . and giving information that should be left aside.” 195)" We may reasonably assume that this reference will shortly be followed by further information on the Burtons, which will clarify who they are. We open up a future slot for Burton in our mental model of the fictional world and we assume that a first encounter with him will be narrated, fol- lowing the pattern established with James and Ann. The anticipated meeting with Burton does not immediately materialize, and the first explicit annonce (see Appendix |) occurs three chapters later, While the infor- mation contained in this first annonce is minimal, this event’s status as a significant moment in the narrative is underlined. It is doubly foregrounded, both as an “obvi- ously significant” incident which stands out against the “haze of those seven months,” and as a specified but delayed narrative goal (the narrator is so drawn to it that he is tempted to narrate it out of order)..? We are thus set up to anticipate a full narration of this meeting as a major scene and mark it as an episode to be not only re~ called but also anticipated. With regard to its range, within the story reference frame we anticipate that it will occur later than the current event-line R time (third week in October) and may well occur after the encounter with Rose which is mentioned before it (see Appendix 3 for the actual range of these annonces). With regard to the reference frame of the narrative, and therefore reading time, we assume that it must occur early enough for the subsequent story of Revel’s relationship with Burton to unfold. In our standard view of narrative order, first meetings come early in the proceedings, and do not ust- ally need to have long proleptic chains linking the first mention to the target narra- tive, This is in strong contrast with the example of multiple prolepsis from Spark's novel, discussed above, in which the protagonist's death could be anticipated to occur at a much later stage in the narrative. Our anticipation of an imminent first meeting with Burton is gradually eroded as the narrative progresses. This is partly the result of the departure of the text from the initial protocol matching the narrative to the story, first in the form of the inter- ference of the events of (d) and later through the introduction of new sequent These combine to weaken our sense of the teleological progress of (c). Nevertheless. Burton emerges as an important figure in the text and the events of (d) constitute a number of crisis points that directly concern him. The introduction of (d) serves therefore to downgrade (c), including the first meeting, to the status of a prehistory or back story for these important events where Burton is concerned, just as it does for Rose. The principle of chronological narration from the beginning is not entirely effaced, though, but overlaid, and a tension is created between the two protocol While we are prepared to focus on the revelations and accidents of the later146 Teresa Bridgeman sequence, especially as there are no annonces relating to the meeting during this part of the text, we nevertheless preserve our anticipation of the meeting with Burton as an important event in the first sequence, not only because it has been clearly flagged s significant, but also, now, because his importance as a major protagonist has been confirmed. With the introduction of the reverse sequence (e), our view of this meeting is re vised once again, and in a less comfortable way. For the development of Revel’s re- lationship with Burton is a major thread in this narrative, and the reverse order both frustrates any coherent mapping of the growth of this relationship and interferes with any sense of movement towards the crisis point at the beginning of (d) (end of May). In the context of this sequence it is hard to maintain a sense of the impact and anti ipation of the first meeting which is nevertheless clearly flagged as its initiating mo- ment (see Appendix 1, no. 4). Instead, it remains an uncomfortable gap to be filled. We do not lose our sense of its absence, rather, we lose our anticipation of any satis- faction in its eventual telling. FRAME RECALL AND SHARED CUES As has been suggested, above, the contextual frames we construct for proleptic episodes can be recalled from memory by cues in the text, In Butor’s novel, the cue- ing of the target narrative itself is problematic. In most narratives, quite minimal in- formation can trigger frame recall: “A mention of one element means that the others, being bound to it, can be re-primed automatically” (Emmott 152), But in this novel, the key contextual features of the encounter are shared with a number of other frames. The Oriental Bamboo is one of several restaurants (including two other Chi- nese restaurants with similar names and identical menus), and is the setting for ten different meals in the course of the novel, all of which are eaten at the same table (four of these are evoked in the co-text of the sixth annonce). The detective novel sits beside Revel on this table, but it also sits beside him on his worktable in the many descriptions of his room. In the seventh annonce it will also sit on the same restau- rant table, but beside Lucien. The consequence of this similarity between basic con- textual frame information is to complicate the standard system of frame recall described by Emmott, Whereas in many narratives the elements restaurant and book would be sufficient to cue the frame of the first meeting, in Passing Time they bring no such guarantee. While the repeated prolepsis requires the reader to continue to hold the episode in memory as one still to be reactivated, the similarity between its world-building features and those of other scenes can lead to a repeated false cueing of the meeting.”* Thus, although we no longer need the scene to fill in our plot knowledge, our sense of it asa missing piece is kept at the forefront of our minds both directly, through prolepsis, and indirectly. through the shared cues which al- ways have the potential to activate this frame, especially when Burton himself is pre- sent, provoking the hope that, at last, the target narrative has arrived (this resembles the false cueing of the betrayal in the closing pages of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). This suggests that once we have created a retrieval mechanism for a givenA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 147 situation model it is hard to deactivate it, even when our subsequent experience leads us to lose our sense of that model’s importance or imminence. The miscuing of the target narrative through the proliferation of locative infor- mation can be read as a textual enactment of the central battle of the novel in which the labyrinthine town blocks the teleological moves of the narrator. We can therefore justify our inability to identify a local situation model in terms of the higher-level symbolic model of the text. It is not any the less frustrating for this. TEMPORAL REFERENCE POINTS AND THE INTERFERENCE OF ORDERS OF NARRATION The reader's ability to pin down the exact position of the meeting on a calendar time line increases as the text progresses (see Appendices | and 2). Information on this, which can be inferred from the co-text (in the second annonce for example), is explicitly included in the annonces from the sixth onwards, which also includes the narrator's commitment to determine the date, discussed above, reinforcing the reader’s sense of inexorable progress towards the event. This information may be im- portant to the reader because of the problem with anticipated range outlined above, although its presentation in a plethora of other date-related information does nothing to foreground it. In this temporally non-standard text, it is the position of the month of February in the projected order of the narrative which is important to the reader. Following the sequential temporal narrative protocol of (c), the meeting with Burton should occur at about the middle of the novel, as we assume that this sequence will run from Oc- tober to May. Although the introduction of (d) slows the progress of reading by in- troducing the later events of June to September, it does nothing to shift this relative position (we assume that it will take longer for us to reach February, but that the amount of text following this point will also increase because of the addition of the narrative of the later months). However, the reverse sequence (e) requires a revision of the projected range of the prolepsis in terms of reading time (P) because the months of March to May are reallocated from (c) to (e)—if the months are evenly distributed, (c), currently in December, keeps December, January and February, while (e) takes over May, April and March in that order, In this pattern, February is now at the end of both (c) and (e). This repositioning of the meeting towards the end of the projected time lines of the novel is reinforced by its position in relation to the plot of (¢) which radically dis- locates the parallel relationship between story and narrative. In a lengthy metanarra- ¢ commentary by Revel on his intention to change the order of narration to fit the reverse order of discovery of some detective novels, he enumerates the key events of (e) in reverse order, citing the meeting with Burton as its beginning (165). “Out of order” takes on a different meaning here where, if S-now is the end of May, the “al- ready happened” of the story is the “still to come” of the narrative, not as an excep- tional anachrony, but within the standard order of the text. The range has been doubly projected as extending to the end of both (c) and (e). The “yet to come” of the148, Teresa Bridgeman first meeting is thereby pushed further away in our projected reading experience (P time), This both resolves uncertainty (will the next scene, at last, be the long-awaited scene? no) and increases frustration (why must we wait until the end of the book for a first meeting?). What is important here. though, is our anticipation of this meeting as an event still to be told, not through forgetful omission, but in its proper pla While our global situation model locates the meeting as the first event in the Burton series, our mental representation of the narrative sequence locates it much later. This reveals that our sense of what should come next is not always dictated by the chronological sequence of the story but may depend on alternative protocols es- tablished by a text concerning the relationship between story and narrative. The po- tential for orders other than that of a primary story to constitute the reference order against which we judge anachronies is usually masked by the default parallel pro- gression of the different orders, but here the final telling of the meeting is not read as being told out of order, for all that it is felt to be a missing piece. CONCLUSIONS When prolepsis is considered from a cognitive perspective, its role in the dy- namic and extended act of reading becomes the primary object of investigation. Where Genette’s account provides a detailed classification of the patterns of prolep- sis as they fit into the overall structure of the text, the approach I have adopted is bound to the mental activities of readers ay we read, and is therefore always marked by the reader’s temporal situatedness. As a consequence, the space of the text itself is reinstated as an important aspect of prolepsis, not so much in relation to the pseudo- time of writing, but in direct relation to the experience of reading. This article has proposed that we not only construct and anticipate elements of a global situation model relating to the story world, we also construct a mental representation of the current and future organization of the text, anticipating its potential effects on our own situation as readers. One of the consequences of this approach is that prolepsis no longer appears as the slightly mismatched mirror-image of analepsis (except in the case of completing prolepis relating to secondary protagonists which, like the equivalent form of analep- is, usually furnishes information which contributes to the protagonist's entity repre- sentation). To summarize, from the point of view of text processing, repeating analepsis involves frame recall and frame modification, offering an addition to, and possible adaptation of, an existing mental model. The processing activities required involve reinforcement or revision of an existing world model, not anticipation of a future event (completing analepsis may involve anticipation, but this occurs at the original point of ellipsis, if this is flagged, not at the point of analepsis). The rein- forcing recall of analepsis is thus quite different from the tiny piece of an as-yet un- known puzzle which we are handed in an annonce which relates to any significant plot strand. Even when the annonce provides detailed information concerning an eventual plot outcome, we have no solid mental framework in which to insert it, noA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 149 plot structure as yet which will lead us to this glimpsed concluding moment. And al- though the degree and type of information may vary, even the most explicit annonce can only be provisionally located on a future event-line, to be confirmed as the rest of the text is processed, Less explicit annonces may not even afford the reader sufficient information to construct a situation model, but they nevertheless signal that a slot should be opened up on the narrative time line. Where this occurs, we may provi sionally attach such information to our entity representation of a protagonist, to be integrated to our global plot model at a later stage in reading, or we may use it to cre- ate more abstract higher-level representations of the profile of the text. What emerges powerfully is that, from a cognitive perspective, the anticipation of repeating prolepsis is twofold. Anticipation is manifested textually by the an- nonce itself which anticipates a later stage in the story. But this textual anticipation sets up a further anticipation in the reader concerning the eventual narration of the event in question and this affects how the information is processed. While we may not be conscious of such speculations and strategies when texts conform to our pre- dictions, when these predictions go awry we become aware of them. As the discussion of range has demonstrated, the reader’s anticipation of a tar- get narrative concems both story time and the temporality of reading. The estimated point at which the event occurs in the story affects the point at which it is to be nar- rated in textual space. This in turn affects the point in processing at which the reader will be able to insert the information provided by the temporally isolated annonce imto his or her global model of the plot and assess its associated impact on the fic- tional world, I have suggested that our judgements concerning the probable range of proleptic annonces are founded on a combination of factors, some of which are text- specific, and some of which are cultural and experiential. The long and frustrating proleptic tease in Butor’s novel exploits such expectations to the full and in doing so reveals the degree to which we can still preserve a sense of, and desire for, pre- dlictable sequencing, even in the midst of an apparent labyrinth of temporal paths. As this and the other examples have shown, reading time is not simply “the number of hours spent turning the pages of a book” but instead becomes “ time,” as Fludernik puts it (120). This article has not set out to contradict or invalidate the structuralist narrato- logical view of prolepsis. Genette’s insights into the temporal structures of narrative are as valuable now as they were over thirty years ago, regardless of the partial na- ture of his approach and analysis. Instead, | have endeavored to show how a reader- centered view of prolepsis can be constructed in conjunction with and as an extension of Genette’s model. In order to achieve this it has been necessary to extend Emmott’s cognitive mode! of discourse comprehension to take account of the antici- patory moves in reading discussed in literary theory. The dynamic play between text, reader anticipation, and memory has been described in a preliminary fashion within this context, and the analysis of a range of examples, including a novel which could be seen as a structuralist critic's dream (or nightmare), has enabled me to tease out and discuss differences in emphasis and focus in the different approaches and to point towards my own cognitive understanding of the process of prolepsis.°* the experience of150 Teresa Bridgeman APPENDIX | Annonces Relating To Revel’s (Key information is in bold) t Meeting With Burton 0 The Burtons’ home (44) 1 Being constantly reminded of more recent and more obviously significant inci- dents (such as my meeting with Rose Bailey or with George Burton, or even my eventual discovery of the room in which [am writing today . . . ) which have begun to form solid clots amidst the haze of those seven months, I need real courage to by- pass them and resume my story where I had left off (48). 2 “A present from the author himself” (which was the very opposite of the truth, since it was to that second copy [the substitute copy I had unearthed, after months of searching, in a secondhand bookshop, 60], now lying on the lefthand corner of my table with my other documents, that I owe my acquaintance with George William Burton) (61). 3 we went up to the first floor of the Oriental Bamboo; we sat down at that table which has assumed for us a legendary significance, not only because in the open- ing pages of The Bleston Murder Barnaby Morton the detective meets Johnny Winn there on the eve of his death, but also because it was where George Burton, notic- ing the Green Penguin which I had just bought in a secondhand bookshop, spoke to me for the first time—that table next to the window on the right look- ing out on the Cathedral (84). 4 detective fiction, a topic which, to be sure, we had touched on long before, and which had underlain all our conversations since the beginning, since / it was to The Bleston Murder that George and I owed our first meeting (165-166). 5 Then after the usual chat about French cooking and laments about the various restaurants in the town, after a discussion of the Oriental Bamboo where George had met the pair of us, we worked our way round to the question (200). 6 at the same table close to the window overlooking the front of the Old Cathe- dral, watched by the same plump yellow-skinned waiter... wearing the same half-smile as on the occasion of that dinner in November with James . . . or that other dinner in June with Lucien . . . or that lunch-time in winter, the date of which I shall find if | go on hunting, when I had met George Burton for the first time, when he had spoken to me on noticing the copy of his book, the second- hand Penguin I had just bought, lying beside me; or that lunch last Saturday with Rose (210). 7 George Burton . . . burst out laughing as he saw on our tablecloth the copy of The Bleston Murder which I had brought for Lucien and which lay beside his plate as it had lain beside mine on that earlier occasion; he burst into a great sud- den shout of laughter. (210) 8 at the very table beside the window where one day last winter / I had made the acquaintance of George William Burton (222-3). 9 Ttold him as much as I knew—how I had met him in that very place about two months earlier, how he had come to sit at this table, how the conversation hadA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis 151 turned on a book I had laid beside me, The Bleston Murder by J. C. Hamilton, of which I had just bought a second-hand copy (223). * I shall go and see George once more, a couple of days before I leave, on Sunday, September 28"; and this will bring to a close the long dialogue that has gone on be- tween us since that moment in the coldest part of the year, at the heart of winter «+. that dialogue that started between us on Saturday, February 15"... .[FINAL TELLING ENSUES] (277). APPENDIX 2 Information Patterns Of Proleptic Reference To First Meeting With Burton The following table shows the pattern of given and new information in all references to Revel’s first encounter with Burton (new information is in bold). The final column * represents the final telling of the encounter in full. It does not list the new informa- tion given in this telling (except the specification of the date), instead it shows how much of the earlier information is repeated here. T T_ 34 7 6 7 ¥ 7 0528 06/02 O81 07721087 ONS ORS OSI OBTLD._ OMNI what (gen) where Oriental Bamboo x x x x xox where: table x x x xox when Date (x) x © @ & x x x x ox inferred only (after 3" (Feby (Feby (shorter (Winer Winter) (Winter) (mids Sat 18 from co-text Satin Oct) Mar) Mary will Feb) Feb) rediscover exact date) sehen Tunchiime x x © novel x xk x x novel on table x x xox event B sees novel x x wo event: B speaks 10 R x x x B sits down, x ox Band R tlk about novel x152 Teresa Bridgeman Ascan be seen from the table, only five of the nine references to the meeting contain new (bold) information. This shows how quickly a stable frame is established. The introduction of “novel on table” in column 6 does not in fact stabilize the frame fur ther because it is a world builder shared with other frames. The elaborative informa- tion on dates allows the frame to be slotted into a global calendar model. It is interesting to note that the discussion of the novel, which was central to earlier mod- els of the encounter, does not occur in the target narrative (x). This displays the char- acteristic noted by Genette in relation to repeating analepsis, where the later version of the episode casts a new light on it (58-60). APPENDIX 3 Dist ution Of First Meetings With Key Protagonists: Distribution of first reference to a protagonist (R), annonce of first meeting (A), and narration of first meeting (M). [S] signals first sighting in which Revel does not know who the protagonist is. For Rose I have also included the first time Revel discovers her existence in the story in a conversation with Ann (C). Numerals within the columns indicate position in the numerical sequence of diary entries in a given chap- ter (i). I should be pointed out that not all chapters or entries are the same length. Chapter James Ann Burton Rose Lucien Li 2 iii, RM 3 4 LRAGLM wR iiRA 5 iA Aiv. [S] nt iA 2 iA LRILA 3 4 LA 3 ic ut 3 iC 4 LA v.M 3 1 iv 2 AA 3 AA 4 3 vA vISI vA .M iii, MIS}a A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis ENDNOTES 1. From the Greek pro (forward) and lepsis (take) 2. Alll page references are to the English translation except where reference to the original is indicated, Bal (65) translates annonce as “announcement.” As neither translation captures all the nuances of the French, [retain the original term throughout 3. Cognitive psychologists dealing with temporal anomalies also display this focus on analepsis (see, for example, Zwaan, Madden, and Stanfield). Werth’s examples of time-zone shifts also involve flash- back not flashforward, although the future time zone is represented on his diagrams (217-21, 299), In full” is obviously a problematic concept, but may be tal to mean “more fully than the brief al~ lusion, 5. This is not to say that all structuralist accounts of reading ignore cognitive issues. Barthes, for exam- ple, takes account of the cognitive aetivity of the reader in his proairetic code, as does Culler in his concept of literary competence and view of genre as expectation (113-30, 136), 6. For the sake of simplicity adopt the terms story and narrative as translations of histoire and récit be use these are employed by the translator of Narrative Discourse. Although the validity of the cate- gories of story and discourse as an adequate framework to account For all the temporal relationships to be found in narrative texts has been questioned. for the purposes of this article they remain useful reference points (see Shen, Richardson, and Herman 212-13). 7. Completing prolepsis mostly appears to relate either to secondary protagonists oF to events not rele vant to the primary narrative. It will not be the main focus of investigation as this article is concerned with the anticipation of recall, but will nevertheless provide useful examples against which to set re peating annonces. 8. An example ofa longer repeating armonce in The Prine of Miss Jean Brodie will be discussed below. 9, Range is referred to as portée in “Discours du récit” (89) and translated in Narrative Discourse as “reach” (47-8), 10, asures range relation tothe story, this example is clearly measured in relation to the narrative, L1. Translated in Narrative Discourse as “inst narrative™ (68). 12. This five-level model is drawn from Graesser, Millis, and Zwaan, The first three levels are postulated in the influential work of van Dijk and Kintsch but their focus is on the text base, For a review of the role of situation models in language comprehension and memory, see Zwaan and Radvansky, both of whom are major contributors to the development of this model, 13, Although the term “Situation mode!” is from van Dijk and Kintsch, Jobnson-Laitd’s influential work con “mental models” underlies much work in this field 14, It has been demonstrated that short-term memory (STM) has very limited scope. Long-term memory (LTM) would therefore appear to be the repository for situation models. However, subjective experi- tence tells us that some information in LTM is more easily accessible than other information. This has heen explained in a number of ways. Resonance theory, promoted by memory-based theorists. sug- gests that cues resonate with matching concepts and propositions in LM (O'Brien, Rizzella, Al brecht, and Halleran 1201), Among constructionists, who assume that comprehension is based on an active “Search (or effort) after meaning” (Graesser, Singer, and Trabasso 371), Chafe proposes the concept of “semi-active” information (72), and Eriesson and Kintsch have propoved the category of Tong-term working memory (LTWM) to aceount for the rapid accessing of information by specialists, such as chess players. See Gerrig and Egidi for a summary of the differences between memory-based and constructionist views of comprehension154 Teresa Bridgeman 15. “Foregrounding” is used in more than one sense by theorists. Specialists of literature and stylistics tend to view grounding as a function of the text. Cognitive psychologists use “foregrounding’” to refer to the way in which readers store information in memory (Glenberg, Meyer, and Lindem 71-72). 1 shall generally follow the former but shall indicate where the latter use is appropriate. 16. Ohtsuka and Brewer (325) suggest that of all types of temporal disordering, prolepsis involves the most radical departure from a notional isomorphic correspondence between event structure and course structure, being the only one to violate all three of their principles of discourse organisation (immediate integration, consistency, and isomorphism). They therefore predict that it will be the most Uifficult for readers to process, a prediction confirmed by their test. 17. This analeptic effect is not at the level of story but of narrative. This inherent characteristic of repeat- ing prolepsis is to be distinguished from the complex effects of analepsis and prolepsis embedde each other, described by Genette as “complex anachronies” (79-83). 18. Sternberg has criticived the fact that Genette singles out the devices of analepsis and prolepsis for dis- cussion, while ignoring the wealth of other retroxpective and anticipatory devices in narratives, not to ‘mention the narrative treatment of simultancous story events (“Telling II” 495-96), 19. Empirical research on comprehension, which initially considered predictive inferences to have litle part to play in on-line text provessing, has gradually come to assign a greater role to them, recognis- ing their importance under certain conditions and in some text types. See Klin, Murray, Levine, and Guzmén, 20. While many inferences we make while reading are as ontologically secure as textually explicit propo- sitions, those which concern future events are founded on probability, not certainty. This can lead to interesting results. Most proleptic frames we build will be based on a combination of explicit textual information and inferences relating to that information. But there may be a temptation for the reader to mistakenly assume that the ontological guarantee relating to explicit information extends tothe in- ferences he or she has made, Should these inferences turn out to be incorrect, the effect will be the stronger for their erroneous inclusion under this guarantee, 21, Ina text such as Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, discussed below, the frequent use of prolepsis in relation to minor protagonists leads to the loss of this foregrounding function. Instead, such proleptic narra- tives generally serve to tie up unfinished ends. 22. Although the putative readership in such proleptic references is textually constructed and is consti- tuted by one or more fictional narratees, the situation model constructed by the reader concerns her own world. 23. The term “world-building” is taken from Werth, who (180-204) divides the elements of the text world into two categories: world-building elements, which are the fundamental and referential ele- ‘ments relating to time, place and entities, and function-advancing propositions, which compose “the foreground of the text, what it is actually ‘about’ ” (180). [ apply the term here to both sets of elements, 24, Luse the term “target narrative” to describe the eventual narrative of an event in its “proper” place in the story because it reflects the anticipatory projection of the future event in the reader's mind. 25. 11am aware that as an academic I am a more fully trained and attentive reader than most, but | consider the inferences 1 propose below to be available to most readers, 26, See Lakoff and Johnson on the bodily orientation of conceptual metaphors. 27. Alternatively, we might simply retain the proposition that the accordion maker will die in active memory, asking the question “does it happen now?” at every point in the narrative until he does so. 28. The second annonce can be said to constitute the “full” telling of the event, in strong contrast with the target narrative which is very brief. Although the target narrative retains its status, because itis told in ‘order, itis for all intents and purposes a brief analeptic recall of the second annonce. It may be that this second prolepsis should be excluded from the category of the annonce because of its detail and length.155 A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsi: 29. Story grammars propose altemative formulations. For example Stein and Glenn propose grammatical rules for storytelling, building on the work of Rumelhart, which include such categories as setting, ting event, response, plan, attempt, resolution, consequence and reaction (60). 30. Genettec lepses and prolepses which “deal with a story line different from the content (or con- tents) of the first narrative” heterodiegetic. Those, which deal with the primary story, are ho- modiegetic (50), He does not discuss heterodiegetic examples in either case. 31. Although the use of parentheses might also seem to indicate the subordinate nature of this prolepsis, Proulx demarcates almost all her prolepses in this way, including those which rela icant event in the lives of major protagonists, 32. This points to an underlying ambiguity about the limits of the annonce in Genette’s text. It is mostly repeating but it ean be completing. It is usually brief but not always. It is often internal but may be ex- temal, And so on. . Sadly, the Penguin translation, like some French editions, retains neither Balzac’s chapter divisions, nor the chapter headings which provide so much metafictional commentary and amusement for the reader. not to mention a strong structural framework. 34. These are cues in the cognitive psychologists’ sense of memory markers constructed by the reader. ‘See Ericsson and Kintsch (216). See Sternberg on the complexities of multilinear narratives (“Telling I” 941~42). 36. | shall not comment on the ambiguity of Balvac’s apparently categorical assertion. This use of the ‘maxim is similar to the metaphorized anticipations in Flaubert and Proust described by Genette (74). 37, Sternberg emphasises the importance of beginning and end points as parameters of delimitation in the temporal structure of texts (“Telling I" 931-33). 38. While providing some tantalising glimpses of the girls” future. In some cases this future may provoke considerable curiosity. The fact that Sandy has entered a nunnery, for example, interests us because her reasons for this may relate to her betrayal of Miss Brodie 39, Because the initial frame R1 is suspended at a point where Miss Brodie is preparing to fight the au- thorities in order to remain at the school, we may assume retroactively that this situation is the imme- diate consequence of the betrayal 40. It should be mentioned that the repetitions and complex syntax of the original French have been wa- tered down in the English translation, presumably in the interests of readability. As a consequence, the text loses some of its impact, gaining slightly in local cohesion to the detriment of global tellabil- ity in terms of the point it has to make about language and meaning. 41, Within the more limited context of the debate on infractions of narrative protocols relating to mood, described by him as “alterations.” Genette points out that freedom and inconsisteney may themselves ‘constitute a principle on which a text may be constructed. In Butor’s intricately designed and regu- lated text this is clearly not the case, but the prineiple that texts may ereate their own unconventional conventions remains valid. 42. Luse this term by analogy with the patterns of musical polyphony, where the score is constructed of multiple, clearly determined melodic strands. This differs from Herman's much broader applica- tion of the term, which extends to cases of “fuzzy temporality.” or temporal indeterminacy (212-14). 43. Adaptations are as follows. An initial column containing letters has been added to help identify the ‘ows in the course of the discussion. I describe the five major sections of the novel as Parts, not Chap ters, to distinguish them from the subsections marked by Arabic numerals which I classi ters. The narrative status of the sequences is indicated typographically (bold emporal frame of narrative, roman = temporal frames of story). italics156 Teresa Bridgeman 44, When considered in relation to (c), this sequence is in facta better candidate for the category of com plete prolepsis than (d) because it operates as a perfect mirror image of Genette’s category of com- plete analepsis. It leaves the R-time of (¢) to leap forward in time and then works backwards 10 meet the primary story again on 29 February (or it would, were it not for the ellipsis of this leap day in the narrative). Of course, Genette’s proposed instance is founded on the assumption that narrative time moves forward rather than backwards, making exact symmetry between analepsis and prolepsis cult (despite the assumption of this symmetry at other points in the discussion). It is nevertheless teresting that Butor, in radically reworking assumptions about the temporal structure of narrative, has ‘managed to convert a potential abstrac! template into a real text 45, Ohtsuka and Brewer suggest that such backward sequences. while they violate the principle of iso: morphism, conform to those of immediate integration (events are next to exch other in the model) and consistency (the direction of the chain remains the same). They suggest that they are easier to process than analepsis, embedded passages. or protepsis (324-5). Unfortunately, when combined with the structure of interealated multilinear sequences, the coherence of this orderly sequence is somewhat reduced, 46. This is not included in Appendix I because it is a relatively long passage whiel pertinent to the ri previous version although itis highly -ader’s experience of the novel and demonstrates an interesting pattern of revision of is not relevant to the issues discussed in this article. 47. ‘The anomaly constituted by the second annonce of Mary’s death in Spark's novel is explained by its function, fully integrating her future to her entity representation. 48. See Stemberg Expositional Modes for a book-length discussion of the temporal ordering of narrative in this context. 49, ‘The first meeting with James is narrated as one of the encounters the narrator makes on his first day at work. He is first referred to by another protagonist and then called to help Revel settle in (16). The meeting with Ann follows a slightly more extended but equally straightforward pattern, She iy re~ ferred to by another protagonist, and this is immediately followed by a short-range end-of-chapter an nonce (37). 50. By contrast, as Appendix 3 shows, the introduction of Rose and Lucien to the text is more problem- atic. Rose's case parallels that of Burton most closely. Affer two annonces which emphasize the im- portance of their first meeting (the second of these being that which is combined with the first Burton annonce), the interest of the meeting declines. This is partly because Rose appears extensively in (d), so further references to the mi ting in (c) (hwo minor eamnonces, a brief reference to her in converse tion, and the recollection of that reference) simply underline the degrce to which (c) has been over- taken by (d) and has become its back story. The disengagement of the reader's interest from this meeting is reinforced by the fact that the narrator has already distanced himself from Rose (“I delib rately neglect them now, I shun Rose,” 146) by the time we reach the taryet narrative. In addition to this waning interest, the shorter range of the prolepsis inevitably reduces our sense of it as a missing piece of the narrative: the delay can be seen as falling within acceptable limits, The case of Lucien is slightly different. First, we are altogether less interested in him than in Rose or Burton, as Revel’s re \ ised 10 mnship with him only impacts indirectly on the main lines of the plot when he becomes e Rose, Further, although the overall range from first annonce to target narrative is almost as long as for the Burton meeting, it isnot initially flagged as an important event, and only one intermediate an- nonce recalls itto the reader, Last, our experience of the treatment of the meetings with Rose and Bur- ton lead us to expect delay. As a result, the narration of the first meeting with Lucien, which occurs in the closing chapters ofthe novel, functions mainly as a cheeky coda from Butor, a demonstration that all loose ends can be tied up. 51. Italso transgresses protocols of politeness, in that its apparent orientation function is of no use to the reader who does not know the location of Burton's house. Uncompleted goal information relating to protagonists has been shown to have increased availability for recall (see Lutz and Radvansky 296), We may assume that this is also the case for uncompletedA Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis. 157 on relating to the narrator, even if the desire to narrate an episode is not quite the same jother a present goal inforn as the desire to buy one’s, 53. This is not to say that the reader cannot distinguish between the different episodes. They remain dis. crete situation models. The problem lies with the question of which model is being cued at any mo: ‘ment in the (ext given the similarities between the world-builders in the contextual frames. 54. Completing prolepsis may have more subtle functions, of course. For example, the single completing prolepsis in Hemingway's “In Another Country” offers the only glimpse of eseape from the grim world of the rest of the story, a fleeting window onto another, temporally and geographically distant, country. 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