Important concepts in Genette's narratology

This outline of Gennette's narratology is derived from Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. This book was drawn from his multi-volume work Figures I-III. The examples used in it are mainly drawn from Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time. This was to answer the criticism which had been used against previous forms of narratology, that they could deal only with the most simple stories, such as Propp's work in Morphology of the Folk Tale. If narratology could cope with Proust, this could no longer be said.

Below are the five main concepts used by Genette in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. They are primarily used to look at the syntax of narratives, rather than to perform an interpretation of them.

Order

Say a story is as follows: a suspicious corpse is found (event A), then circumstances of the murder are revealed (event B), then the murderer is caught (event C).

Arranged chronologically the events run B1, A2, C3.

This accounts for the 'obvious' effects the reader will recognise, such as flashback. It also deals with the structure of narratives on a more systematic basis, accounting for flash-forward, simultaneity, as well as possible, if rarely used effects. These disarrangements on the level of order are termed 'anachrony'.

Frequency

The separation between an event and its narration allows several possibilities.

An event can occur once and be narrated once (singular).
- 'Today I went to the shop.'
An event can occur n times and be narratred once (iterative).
- 'I used to go to the shop.'
An event can occur once and be narrated n times (repetitive).
- 'Today I went to the shop' + 'Today he went to the shop' etc.
An event can occur n times and be narrated n times (multiple).
- 'I used to go to the shop' + 'He used to go to the shop' + 'I went to the shop yesterday' etc.

Duration

The separation between an event and its narration means that there is discourse time and narrative time. These are the two main elements of duration.

"Five years passed", has a lengthy discourse time, five years, but a short narrative time (it only took a second to read).
James Joyce's novel Ulysses has a relatively short discourse time, twenty-four hours. Not many people, however, could read Ulysses in twenty-four hours. Thus it is safe to say it has a lengthy narrative time.

Mood

Mood is a tool which focuses on elements such as tense.

A novel written in the past-tense (such as Dickens' Great Expectations) generally implies that the events narrated are being done from a point where they have already occurred. Past-tense is the most frequent tense used in narrative works. Future tense is most often encountered in short bursts, such as 'dream sequences'.

Voice

Voice is concerned with who narrates, and from where. This can be split four ways.

Where the narration is from
- Intra-diegetic: inside the text. eg. Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White
- Extra-diegetic: outside the text. eg. Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles

How many narrators are there?
- Homo-diegetic: one narrator. eg. Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South
- Hetero-diegetic: many narrators. eg. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights