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Narrative

Narrative in Film

Unlike most forms of narratives that are inherently language based (whether that be narratives presented in literature or orally), film narratives face additional challenges in creating a cohesive narrative. Whereas the general assumption in literary theory is that a narrator must be present in order to develop a narrative, as Schmid proposes; the act of an author writing his or her words in text is what communicates to the audience (in this case readers) the narrative of the text, and the author represents an act of narrative communication between the textual narrator and the narratee. This is in line with Fludernik's perspective on what's called cognitive narratology--which states that a literary text has the ability to manifest itself into an imagined, representational illusion that the reader will create for themselves, and can vary greatly from reader to reader. In other words, the scenarios of a literary text (referring to settings, frames, schemes, etc.) are going to be represented differently for each individual reader based on a multiplicity of factors, including the reader's own personal life experiences that allow them to comprehend the literary text in a distinct manner from anyone else.

narrative genre diagram

Film narrative does not have the luxury of having a textual narrator that guides its audience towards a formative narrative; nor does it have the ability to allow its audience to visually manifest the contents of its narrative in a unique fashion like literature does. Instead, film narratives utilize visual and auditory devices in substitution for a narrative subject; these devices include cinematography, editing, sound design (both diegetic and non-diegetic sound), as well as the arrangement and decisions on how and where the subjects are located onscreen--known as mise-en-scène. These cinematic devices, among others, contribute to the unique blend of visual and auditory storytelling that culminates to what Jose Landa refers to as a "visual narrative instance". And unlike narratives found in other performance arts such as plays and musicals, film narratives are not bound to a specific place and time, and are not limited by scene transitions in plays, which are restricted by set design and allotted time.

In literary theoretic approach, narrative is being narrowly defined as fiction-writing mode in which the narrator is communicating directly to the reader. Until the late 19th century, literary criticism as an academic exercise dealt solely with poetry (including epic poems like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, and poetic drama like Shakespeare). Most poems did not have a narrator distinct from the author.

But novels, lending a number of voices to several characters in addition to narrator's, created a possibility of narrator's views differing significantly from the author's views. With the rise of the novel in the 18th century, the concept of the narrator (as opposed to "author") made the question of narrator a prominent one for literary theory. It has been proposed that perspective and interpretive knowledge are the essential characteristics, while focalization and structure are lateral characteristics of the narrator.^{[according to whom?]}

The role of literary theory in narrative has been disputed; with some interpretations like Todorov's narrative model that views all narratives in a cyclical manner, and that each narrative is characterized by a three part structure that allows the narrative to progress. The beginning stage being an establishment of equilibrium--a state of non conflict, followed by a disruption to this state, caused by an external event, and lastly a restoration or a return to equilibrium--a conclusion that brings the narrative back to a similar space before the events of the narrative unfolded.

Other critiques of literary theory in narrative challenge the very role of literariness in narrative, as well as the role of narrative in literature. Meaning, narratives and their associated aesthetics, emotions, and values have the ability to operate without the presence of literature and vice versa. According to Didier Costa, the structural model used by Todorov and others is unfairly biased towards a Western interpretation of narrative, and that a more comprehensive and transformative model must be created in order to properly analyze narrative discourse in literature. Framing also plays a pivotal role in narrative structure; an analysis of the historical and cultural contexts present during the development of a narrative is needed in order to more accurately represent the role of narratology in societies that relied heavily on oral narratives.

Multiple narrators [edit]

Main article: Multiperspectivity

A writer may choose to let several narrators tell the story from different points of view. Then it is up to the reader to decide which narrator seems most reliable for each part of the story. It may refer to the style of the writer in which he/she expresses the paragraph written. See for instance the works of Louise Erdrich. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a prime example of the use of multiple narrators. Faulkner employs stream of consciousness to narrate the story from various perspectives.

In Indigenous American communities, narratives and storytelling are often told by a number of elders in the community. In this way, the stories are never static because they are shaped by the relationship between narrator and audience. Thus, each individual story may have countless variations. Narrators often incorporate minor changes in the story in order to tailor the story to different audiences.

The use of multiple narratives in a story is not simply a stylistic choice, but rather an interpretive one that offers insight into the development of a larger social identity and the impact that has on the overarching narrative, as explained by Lee Haring. Haring analyzes the use of framing in oral narratives, and how the usage of multiple perspectives provides the audience with a greater historical and cultural background of the narrative. She also argues that narratives (particularly myths and folktales) that implement multiple narrators deserves to be categorized as its own narrative genre, rather than simply a narrative device that is used solely to explain phenomena from different points of view.

Haring provides an example from the Arabic folktales of A Thousand and One Nights to illustrate how framing was used to loosely connect each story to the next, where each story was enclosed within the larger narrative. Additionally, Haring draws comparisons between Thousand and One Nights and the oral storytelling observed in parts of rural Ireland, islands of the Southwest Indian Ocean, and African cultures such as Madagascar.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the smith. "I'll fix your sword for you tomorrow, if you tell me a story while I'm doing it." The speaker was an Irish storyteller in 1935, framing one story in another (O'Sullivan 75, 264). The moment recalls the Thousand and One Nights , where the story of "The Envier and the Envied" is enclosed in the larger story told by the Second Kalandar (Burton 1 : 113-39), and many stories are enclosed in others."

In Mythology

The nature or existence of a formative narrative in many of the world's myths, folktales, and legends has been a topic of debate for many modern scholars; but the most common consensus among academics is that throughout most cultures, traditional mythologies and folklore tales are constructed and retold with a specific narrative purpose that serves to offer a society an understandable explanation of natural phenomenon--oftentimes absent of a verifiable author. These explanatory tales manifest themselves in various forms and serve different societal functions, including; life lessons individuals to learn from (i.e. the Ancient Greek tale of Icarus refusing to listen to his elders and flying too close to the sun), explain forces of nature or other natural phenomenon (i.e. the flood myth that spans cultures all over the world), and lastly to provide an understanding of our own human nature, as exemplified by the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Considering how mythologies have historically been transmitted and passed down through oral retellings, there is no qualitative or reliable method to precisely trace exactly where and when a tale originated; and since myths are rooted in a remote past, and are viewed as a factual account of happenings within the culture it originated from, the worldview present in many oral mythologies is from a cosmological perspective--one that is told from a voice that has no physical embodiment, and is passed down and modified from generation to generation. This cosmological worldview in myth is what provides all mythological narratives credence, and since they are easily communicated and modified through oral tradition amongst various cultures, they help solidify the cultural identity of a civilization and contribute to the notion of a collective human consciousness that continues to help shape our own understanding of the world.

Myth is often used in an overarching sense to describe a multitude of folklore genres, but there is a significance in distinguishing the various forms of folklore in order to properly determine what narratives constitute as mythological, as esteemed anthropologist Sir James Frazer suggests.Frazer contends that there are three primary categories of mythology (now more broadly considered categories of folklore): Myths, legends, and folktales, and that by definition, each genre pulls its narrative from a different ontological source, and therefore have different implications within a civilization. Frazer states:

"If these definitions be accepted, we may say that myth has its source in reason, legend in memory, and folk-tale in imagination; and that the three riper products of the human mind which correspond to these its crude creations are science, history, and romance."

Janet Bacon expanded upon Frazer's categorization in her 1921 publication--The Voyage of The Argonauts.

1. Myth -- According to Janet Bacon's 1921 publication, she states that, "Myth has an explanatory intention. It explains some natural phenomenon whose causes are not obvious, or some ritual practice whose origin has been forgotten." Bacon views myths as narratives that serve a practical societal function of providing a satisfactory explanation for many of humanity's greatest questions. Questions that address topics such as astronomical events, historical circumstances, environmental phenomena, and a range of human experiences including love, anger, greed, and isolation.
2. Legend -- Bacon aptly describes as such, "Legend, on the other hand, is true tradition founded on the fortunes of real people or on adventures at real places. Agamemnon, Lycurgus, Coriolanus, King Arthur, Saladin, are real people whose fame and the legends which spread it have become world-wide." Legends are mythical figures whose accomplishments and accolades live beyond their own mortality and transcend to the realm of myth by way of verbal communication through the ages. Like myth, they are rooted in the past, but unlike the sacred ephemeral space in which myths occur, legends are often individuals of human flesh that lived here on earth long ago, and are believed as fact. In American folklore, the tale of Davy Crocket or debatably Paul Bunyan can be considered legends--as they were real people who lived in our world, but through the years of regional folktales--have assumed a mythological quality.
3. Folktale -- Bacon classifies folktale as such, "Folk-tale, however, calls for no belief, being wholly the product of the imagination. In far distant ages some inventive story-teller was pleased to pass an idle hour "with stories told of many-a-feat."" What Bacon's definition assumes is that folktales do not possess the same underlying factualness that myths and legends tend to have. Folktales still hold a considerable cultural value, they are simply not regarded as true within a civilization. Bacon says, like myths, folktales are imagined and created by someone at some point, but differ in that folktales' primary purpose is to entertain; and that like legends, folktales may possess some element of truth in their original conception, but lack any form of credibility found in legends.

Narrative Structure in Mythology

In the absence of a known author or original narrator, myth narratives are oftentimes referred to as prose narratives. Prose narratives tend to be relatively linear regarding the time period they occur in, and are traditionally marked by its natural flow of speech as opposed to the rhythmic structure found in various forms of literature such as poetry and Haikus. The structure of prose narratives allows it to be easily understood by many--as the narrative generally starts at the beginning of the story, and ends when the protagonist has resolved the conflict. These kinds of narratives are generally accepted as true within society, and are told from a place of great reverence and sacredness. Myths are believed to occur in a remote past--one that is before the creation or establishment of the civilization they derive from, and are intended to provide an account for things such as our origins, natural phenomenon, as well as our own human nature. Thematically, myths seek to provide information about ourselves, and many are viewed as among some of the oldest forms of prose narratives, which grants traditional myths their fascinating and life defining characteristics that continue to be communicated today.

Another theory regarding the purpose and function of mythological narratives derives from 20th Century philologist Georges Dumézil and his formative theory of the "trifunctionalism" found in Indo-European mythologies. It should be noted that Dumèzil refers only to the myths found in Indo-European societies, but the primary assertion made by his theory is that Indo European life was structured around the notion of three distinct and necessary societal functions, and as a result, the various gods and goddesses in Indo European mythology assumed these functions as well. The three functions were organized by cultural significance--with the first function being the most grand and sacred. For Dumèzil, these functions were so vital, they manifested themselves in every aspect of life and were at the center of everyday life.

These "functions", as Dumèzil puts it, were an array of esoteric knowledge and wisdom that was reflected by the mythology. The first function being sovereignty--and was divided into two additional categories: magical and juridicial. As each function in Dumèzil's theory corresponded to a designated social class in the human realm; the first function was the highest, and was reserved for the status of kings and other royalty. In an interview with Alain Benoist, Dumèzil described magical sovereignty as such,

“[Magical Sovereignty] consists of the mysterious administration, the ‘magic’ of the universe, the general ordering of the cosmos. This is a ‘disquieting’ aspect, terrifying from certain perspectives. The other aspect is more reassuring, more oriented to the human world. It is the ‘juridical’ part of the sovereign function.”

This implies that gods of the first function are responsible for the overall structure and order of the universe, and those gods who possess juridicial sovereignty are more closely connected to the realm of humans and are responsible for the concept of justice and order. Dumèzil uses the pantheon of Norse gods as examples of these functions in his 1981 essay--he finds that the Norse gods Odin and Tyr reflect the different brands of sovereignty. Odin is the author of the cosmos, and possessor of infinite esoteric knowledge--going so far as to sacrifice his eye for the accumulation of more knowledge. While Tyr--seen as the "just god"--is more concerned with upholding justice, as illustrated by the epic myth of Tyr losing his hand in exchange for the monster Fenrir to cease his terrorization of the gods. What this tells us is that through these myths, concepts of universal wisdom and justice were able to be communicated to the Nordic people in the form of a mythological narrative.

The second function as described by Dumèzil is that of the proverbial hero, or champion. These myths functioned to convey the themes of heroism, strength, and bravery and were most often represented in both the human world and the mythological world by valiant warriors. While the gods of the second function were still revered in society, they did not possess the same infinite knowledge found in the first category. A Norse god that would fall under the second function would be Thor--god of thunder. Thor possessed great strength, and was often first into battle, as ordered by his father Odin. This second function reflects Indo-European cultures' high regard for the warrior class, and explains the belief in an afterlife that rewards a valiant death on the battlefield; for the Norse mythology, this is represented by Valhalla.

Lastly, Dumèzil's third function is comprised of gods that reflect the nature and values of the most common people in Indo-European life. These gods often presided over the realms of healing, prosperity, fertility, wealth, luxury, and youth--any kind of function that was easily related to by the common peasant farmer in a society. Just as a farmer would live and sustain themselves off their land, the gods of the third function were responsible for the prosperity of their crops, and were also in charge of other forms of everyday life that would never be observed by the status of kings and warriors, such as mischievousness and promiscuity. An example found in Norse mythology could be seen through the god Freyr -- a god who was closely connected to acts of debauchery and overindulging.

Dumèzil viewed his theory of trifunctionalism as distinct from other mythological theories because of the way the narratives of Indo-European mythology permeated into every aspect of life within these societies, to the point that the societal view of death shifted away from our primal perception that tells us to fear death, and instead death became seen as the penultimate act of heroism--by solidifying your position in the hall of the gods when you pass from this realm to the next. More interestingly, however, Dumèzil proposed that his theory stood at the foundation of the modern understanding of the Christian Trinity, citing that the three key deities of Odin, Thor, and Freyr were often depicted together in a trio--seen by many as an overarching representation of what would be known today as "divinity".

Cultural Impact

According to William Bascom,

• Haring, Lee. “Framing in Oral Narrative.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 18, no. 2, 2004, pp. 229–245. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41388710.
  • Framing of perspective in narratology; the example of the oral storytelling framing another story set in a different place & time in Thousand and One Nights
  • I'll tell you what I'll do," said the smith. "I'll fix your sword for you tomorrow, if you tell me a story while I'm doing it." The speaker was an Irish storyteller in 1935, framing one story in another (O'Sullivan 75, 264). The moment recalls the Thousand and One Nights , where the story of "The Envier and the Envied" is enclosed in the larger story told by the Second Kalandar (Burton 1 : 113-39), and many stories are enclosed in others."
• James Vertch and The Narrative Organization of Collective Memory
  • Impact of Russian folklore on the social identity of both soviet and post soviet collective memory
  • "For my purposes the value of Propp's ideas about narrative functions derives from his general line of reasoning rather than detailed claims about particular functions, claims that were developed in connection with Russian folk tales. Specifically, I am concerned with the notion that a generalized narrative form may underlie a range of narratives in a cultural tradition. This means that the focus in analyzing the narrative organization of collective memory changes from a list of specific narratives to an underlying pattern that is instantiated by each of several specific narratives."
• Keszei, András. “Memory and the Contemporary Relevance of the Past.” The Hungarian Historical Review, vol. 6, no. 4, 2017, pp. 804–824. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26374407.
  • as cultures continues to advance, the utility of a uniformed academic narrative (i.e. the "Allies beat the Axis powers, end of story", or, "the Bolshevik Revolution happened as a result of public distrust of the Russian Monarchy") become increasingly useless when we now have access to a wide array of memoirs, photos, film, poetry, etc. that permeate our collective memory of historical events on a much greater scale than what is spelled out on a textbook.
  • "The past is made into history – constructed into analysis, narrated into interpretation, fashioned into stories, made serviceable as assumptions and ideas, which are then released into public circulation – in many different ways, only some of which remain susceptible to the professional historian’s influence or control. Indeed, the legitimacy of the latter’s authority has arguably become far less secure and generally acknowledged than before. As images of the recent and more distant past teem ever more chaotically across the public sphere, emanating from all manner of sites of cultural production (for example from television, advertising, magazines, museums, cinema, exhibitions, reenactments), which only rarely include universities, then the academic historian’s particular voice easily becomes drowned out, a fate which the performative successes of a few celebrity exceptions tend only to confirm"
• Narratology in Postmodernist Literature (Elliot's Wasteland)
  • Postmodernist Literature marks a distinctive shift in narrative structure that both challenges and celebrates traditional narrative structures found in widely known mythologies.
  • "The poet must be very conscious of the main current [of art], which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art never changes."--Eliot
  • "for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a 'personality' to express but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality."--Eliot
    • both quotes refer to Eliot's view on a collective (un)consciousness that poetry (and art in general) is not a direct reflection of the thoughts and experiences of the poet, but rather the poet is a reflection of all the collectivized experiences and impressions that shape the human identity...it's the poets responsibility to separate the individual personality (that is, believing it is their own collectivized set of beliefs and experiences that make up their personality), from the medium of the art they intend to create. SO, Eliot is saying that the poet's personality should NOT be the driving force for the medium, but rather the poet should be able to realize that any and all of their impressions and experiences that help shape their personality come as a result of hundreds, if not thousands of years of cultural history and art, THEREFORE, Eliot would believe that the purpose of the poet should be to both accurately and objectively reflect not only the cultural happenings of their respective place in time, but also to serve as a sort of 'keeper of the flame' for the poets and artists of the past that helped shape, whether consciously or not, the work of the poet at that time. *giant exhale*
• Impact narratives have on us--John Rodden
  • didn't have time to really analyze this one, but it deals with how narratives can be used in a more manipulative or propagandized way, and the author takes an analytical look on George Orwell's 1984
• Gregory Bateson