Seminar 5

Types of narration
1. The author’s narrative;
2. Entrusted narrative;
3. The dialogue;
4. The interior speech: a) short in-sets of interior speech; b) inner monologue;
5. Represented speech:
1. inner RS;
2. uttered RS
6. Compositional forms:
1. Narrative proper (dynamic)
2. Description (static)
3. Argumentation (static)
Stylistic functions of the author’s narrative:
When the author organizes an effect of polyphony, but we, the readers, while
reading the text, identify various views with various personages, not attributing
them directly to the writer.
1. To unfold the plot;
2. To characterize personages;
3. To describe the time and place of actions;
4. To create images;
Entrusted narrative:
1. To make the narrative polyphonic, plausible.
To make writing more plausible, and to impress the reader with the effect of the
authenticity of the described events, the writer entrusts some fictitious character
with the task of story-telling. The writer himself thus hides behind the figure of the
narrator, presents all the events of the story from the latter's viewpoint and only
sporadically emerges in the narrative with his own considerations, which may
reinforce or contradict those expressed by the narrator. The structure of the
entrusted narrative is much more complicated than that of the author's narrative
proper, because instead of one commanding, organizing image of the author, we
have the hierarchy of the narrator's image looming above the narrator's image,
there stands the image of the author, the true and actual creator of it all.
“It was a marvelous day in late August and Wimsey’s soul purred within him as he
pushed the car along” (The author’s narrative)
“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their
neighborhoods” (Entrusted narrative)
There are 3 ways of reproducing a character's speech.
1) direct speech(a dialogue);
2) indirect speech (reported speech)
3) represented speech.
DIALOGUE or a conversation between characters (Uttered speech), the
personages express their minds. It is one of the most significant forms of the
personages’ self-characterization or indirect characterization, when the author
eliminates himself from the process.
 Henry, let’s try again!
 Try what? Living here? Speaking polite down to all the old men like you?
(Dialogue)
INTERIOR SPEECH OF THE PERSONAGE is widely used in contemporary
prose to allow the author to penetrate into the inner world of the character, to
witness his thoughts, ideas and views in the making.
Its main form is INTERIOR MONOLOGUE, a lengthy piece of the text dealing
with one main topic of the character’s thinking, his reminiscences of the past,
references to the presence and future.
“A star was shaking. A light was waking. Wind was quaking. The star was far. The
night, the light. The light was bright. A chant, a song, the slow dance of the little
things within him… Star night, earth, light… light… O lost!… a stone… a leaf… a
door… O ghost!… (Inner monologue).
SHORT IN-SETS OF INTERIOR SPEECH present immediate mental and
emotional reactions of the personage to the remark or action of other characters.
“Exercise, he thought, and no drinking at least a month. That’s what does it. The
drinking. Beer, martinis, have another. And the way your head felt in the morning”
(Short in-set of interior speech)
To portray the disjointed, purely associative manner of thinking, the authors resort
to stream- of- consciousness technique, popular in modern literature esp. in
modernism.
They are means of the personage’s speech characterization.
Represented speech. There is also a device which coveys to the reader the
unuttered or inner speech of the character, his thoughts and feelings. This device is
also termed represented speech. To distinguish between the two varieties of
represented speech we call the representation of the actual utterance through the
author's language “uttered represented speech”, and the representation of the
thoughts and feelings of the character unuttered or inner represented speech.
REPRESENTED (REPORTED) SPEECH is a peculiar blend of the viewpoints
and lg. spheres of both the author and the character. It serves:
1. To show either the mental reproduction of a once uttered remark
(Represented uttered speech) or
2. The character’s thinking (Represented inner speech). It is close to the
interior speech in essence, but differs from it in form:
 it is rendered in the 3rd person sg.,
 may have the author’s qualitative words, reflecting his viewpoint alongside
with the lg. idiosyncrasies of the character.
“Could she do anything for Mr. Freeland? No, thanks, she could not, only, did she
know where Mr. Freeland’s room was? (Uttered Represented speech).
NARRATIVE COMPOSITIONAL FORMS are:
NARRATIVE PROPER is a dynamic unfolding of the plot.
Narration relates to a series of events (real, biographical, imaginary).
The events may be real (historic, biographies, new stories), or imaginary (short
stories, novels); the action plays a central role in any narrative.
Description creates word pictures of objects, persons, scenes, events or situations.
It is static.
DESCRIPTION usually takes one of three forms: external, analytical, or
evocative.
An external description enables the reader to visualize and recognize the object
described.
External description commonly focuses on the shape and color of objects and on
their arrangement in space. Ex.: “Baby turtles in a turtle bowl are a puzzle in
geometric. They are as decorative as pansy petals, but they are also self- directed
building blocks, propping themselves on one another in different arrangement,
before upending the tower….” (H.L.)
Technical description enables the reader to understand the structure of an
object: “The panda’s “thumb” is not, anatomically, a finger at all. It is
constructed from a bone called the radical sesamoid, normally a small component
of the wrist.”(St. Jay Gould. The Panda’s Thumb).
Evocative description re-creates the impression made by an object, it appeals to
the eye and other senses: “The heat of summer was mellow and produced sweet
scents which lay in the air so damp and rich you could almost taste them.
Mornings smelled of purple wisteria, afternoons of the wild roses which tumbled
over stone fences, and evenings of honeysuckle…” (H.L.)
Argumentation (also static) – presents:
1. The author’s or the character’s reasoning,
2. Arguments, offering causes and effects of the personage’s behavior,
3. His or the author’s considerations about moral, ethical, ideological and other
issues.
It is a rational means of persuasion seeking to convince by appealing to the mind.
These compositional forms usually intermingle within the boundaries of the text or
the paragraph. Ex.: “Novelists write for countless reasons: for money, for fame, for
reviewers, for parents, for amusement.” (Argumentation)
“Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways
and his habits were regular. … His eyes were sharp and piercing save during
those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin hawk like nose gave
his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.”(C.D.) (Description).
“ In a very few minutes an ambulance came, the team was told all the nothing that
was known about the child and he was driven away, the ambulance bell ringing,
unnecessarily.”(W.Gl.) (Narration)
“VENI, VIDI, VICI”- CEASAR’S narration.