Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (Callen)

Callen Shutters
September 20 and 27, 2004
Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative by Mieke Bal
University of Toronto Press, 1985
164 pages

1. This project is focused upon introducing readers to the field of narrative theory. Bal
breaks down storytelling into three categories, which also correspond to three chapters in
the text. These categories include Fabula: Elements, Story: Aspects, and Text: Words.
The project of chapter one is to introduce the idea of the ‘fabula’ and to break down the
story by the functionality of its parts. That is, Bal describes in detail how the narrative is
broken down into events, actors, actants, time, and location. Chapter two focuses upon
aspects of the story, including ordering, direction, possibilities, distance, and focalization.
Also, Bal discusses the use of narrative techniques such as span, anticipation, achrony,
rhythm, pause, frequency, predictability, and suspense. Within these subtopics, Bal gives
examples of texts that employ each of these methods of embellishing a narrative. The
final argument of this chapter is that “focalization is,…the most important, most
penetrating, and most subtle means of manipulation” (116). Focalization accounts for the
lens with which readers approach a narrative and considers the role of the reader in the
relation of a narrative. Chapter three focuses upon an in-depth study of the many issues
surrounding the distinct identities of the narrator and the author. Bal concludes her study
by describing the relationships between primary and embedded texts.

2. Within narrative theory and the models of narrativity, there is a homology. That is, “a
correspondence between the (linguistic) structure of the sentence and that of the whole
text composed of various sentences” (11). In addition to the linguistic homology, Bal
feels that there is also a structural homology “between the fabulas of narratives and real
fabulas,” or the fabulas of life (12). By breaking down a story into categories of events,
actors, actants, time, and location, these homologies emerge.

3. Chapter One Key Terms: Narratology: “the theory of narrative texts” (3)
Narrative Text: “a text in which an agent relates a narrative” (5)
Story: “a fabula that is presented in a certain manner” (5)
Fabula: “a series of logically and chronologically related events that are
caused or experienced by actors” (5)
Event: “the transition from one state to another state” (5)
Actors: “agents that perform actions (not necessarily human)” (5)
Act: “to cause of to experience an event” (5)

Chapter two key terms:

Aspects: a term that indicates that the story “does not consist of material
different from that of fabula, but that this material is looked at from a certain,
specific angle” (49)
Perspective: “the technical aspect, the placing of the point of view in a
specific agent” (50)
Point of View: “view from which the image of the fabula and the (fictitious)
world where it takes place are constructed” (50)
Chronological Order: “a theoretical construction, which we can make on the
basis of laws of everyday logic which govern common reality” (51)
Chronological Deviations or Anachronies: “differences between the
arrangement in the story and the chronology of the fabula” (53)
Media Res: “a conventional construction of a novel, in which the novel
begins by immersing the reader in the middle of the fabula” (53)
External Analepsis: a case in which “a retroversion (flashback) takes place
completely outside the time span of the primary fabula” (59)
Internal Analepsis: a retroversion which “takes place within the time span of
the primary fabula” (59)
Span: “the stretch of time covered by an anachrony,” can be complete or
incomplete (disconnected jumps in chronological fabula time) (61)
Achrony: “a deviation in time which cannot be analyzed any further,” an
instance where the “linearity of the fabula and the linearity of its presentation
to the reader no longer have any correspondence at all” (66)
*examples include a back reference, anticipation-within-retroversion,
retroversion-within-anticipation
Ellipsis: “an omission in the story of a section of the fabula” (71)
Iterative Presentation: “a whole series of identical events presented at once,”
the reverse of repetition (78)
Semantic Axis: “pairs of contrary meanings” (86)
*examples include large-small, rich-poor, man-woman, kind-unkind
Place: related to the physical, mathematically measurable shape of spatial
dimensions within the fictional sphere of the fabula” (93)
Space: “places seen in relationship to their perception,” places which are
linked to certain points of perception (93)
Focalization: the relationship between the vision and what is ‘seen,’
perceived” (100)
Focalizor: the subject of the focalization, the point from which the elements
are viewed (104)

Chapter Three Key Terms:

Narrator: “the linguistic subject, a function and not a person which expresses
itself in the language that contributes to the text” (119)
Implied Author: “the result of the investigation of the meaning of a text, and
not the source of that meaning,” “term used in order to discuss and analyse the
ideological moral stances of a narrative text without having to refer directly to
a biographical author” (119-120)

4. Structuralist. Bal describes elements “in their relation to each other, and not as isolated
units” (45). The “assumption is that fixed relations between classes of phenomena form
the basis of the narrative system of the fabula” (46). The approach relies upon a system of
classification. Other theorists expanded upon and referenced include Barthes, Hendricks,
Chatman, Bremond, Griemas, Souriau, Prince, Lotman, Genette, Hamon, Booth,
Uspenski, Lodge, Friedman, Rimmon-Kenan, and Lanswer.

5. Since the text is a basic introduction to the elements of narrative, the text did not
trigger substantial thought or analysis beyond the elements listed. Most importantly, it
pushed me to think of examples of or exceptions to the structure of the elements listed in
the text. Finally, the key terms used in the discourse of narratology will prove vital to the
comprehension of other theoretical texts on this topic.

6. The book offers a broad view of the history of narrative theory while also breaking
down the pieces of a narrative into easily navigable elements. Within these elements, one
can apply the investigation to any narrative. In this respect, Bal’s analysis seems timeless.

7. This text has provided me with a sound base of knowledge of narrative theory and the
many elements that go into storytelling.