Narrative Theory: Ultimate UGC NET Guide
Master structuralist narratology, postclassical approaches, and application to literary texts
Foundations of Narrative Theory
Narratology systematically studies how stories are constructed and interpreted, examining the mechanics of storytelling across cultures and historical periods. This interdisciplinary field combines literary theory, linguistics, and philosophy to analyze narrative structures.
The Narrative Communication Model (Expanded)
Real Author (Historical Person) → Implied Author (Textual Projection) → Narrator (Storytelling Voice) → Narratee (Implied Audience) → Implied Reader (Textual Construction) → Real Reader (Actual Interpreter)
This model, adapted from Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961), demonstrates how narrative meaning is mediated through multiple layers of communication. The implied author (a concept often debated in contemporary theory) represents the creative consciousness behind the text's organization, distinct from the actual writer's biographical self.
Fabula vs. Syuzhet (Russian Formalism)
Fabula: The raw chronological sequence of events as they "actually happened" in the story world. This represents the basic material of the narrative before artistic shaping.
Syuzhet: The artistic arrangement and presentation of those events in the actual narrative. This includes all manipulations of time, perspective, and emphasis that transform story into discourse.
Example: In Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, the fabula is the Compson family history, while the syuzhet is the fragmented, multi-perspectival presentation.
Diegesis vs. Mimesis (Ancient Roots)
Diegesis: From Greek "to recount," this refers to narration where events are mediated through a storyteller's voice ("The king spoke to his people"). Common in epic poetry and traditional third-person narration.
Mimesis: From Greek "to imitate," this presents events dramatically without narratorial mediation ("'I command you,' said the king"). Dominant in drama and showing-oriented modern fiction.
Example: Austen's narrator often shifts between diegetic summary ("Elizabeth refused him") and mimetic dialogue ("'I could not marry such a man,' she cried").
Story vs. Discourse (Chatman)
Story (What): The content plane of narrative - events, existents (characters, settings), and their abstract relations.
Discourse (How): The expression plane - the means by which story is communicated through medium-specific techniques.
Example: Shakespeare's Macbeth (story) exists independently of its particular staging or film adaptation (discourse).
Historical Development of Narrative Theory
| Period | Theorists | Key Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| Aristotle (4th BCE) | Poetics | First systematic analysis of plot (mythos) structure in tragedy |
| Russian Formalism (1920s) | Shklovsky, Propp | Fabula/syuzhet distinction; morphology of folktales |
| French Structuralism (1960s) | Barthes, Todorov, Genette | Systematic narratology; narrative grammar |
| Postclassical (1980s-) | Herman, Fludernik | Cognitive approaches; unnatural narratology |
Gérard Genette's Narrative Discourse (Deep Dive)
Genette's systematic framework in Narrative Discourse (1972) remains foundational for analyzing how temporal organization, perspective, and voice shape narrative meaning. His taxonomy enables precise description of narrative techniques across literary history.
1. Order (Temporal Structure)
The relationship between story chronology and narrative sequence:
- Analepsis (Flashback): Retrospection to earlier events. Can be:
- External: Before narrative's starting point (Pip's childhood in Great Expectations)
- Internal: Within established timeline (Marlow's digressions in Heart of Darkness)
- Mixed: Combining both temporal ranges
- Prolepsis (Flashforward): Anticipation of future events. Often creates dramatic irony:
- Classical: "Little did he know this would be their last meeting"
- Modernist: Woolf's anticipatory imagery in Mrs. Dalloway
2. Duration (Temporal Rhythm)
The pacing between story time and discourse time:
| Technique | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ellipsis | Omission of story time ("Years passed") | Chapter breaks in Victorian novels |
| Summary | Discourse time < story time | "The winter months were lonely" |
| Scene | Rough equivalence (dialogue scenes) | Dramatic chapters in Austen |
| Stretch | Discourse time > story time (slow motion) | Clarissa's memories in Woolf |
| Pause | Story time stops (description) | Balzac's setting details |
3. Frequency (Temporal Repetition)
How often events are narrated:
- Singulative: Once told, once happened (standard narration)
- Repetitive: Multiple tellings of one event (Rashomon effect)
- Iterative: One telling covers repeated events ("She would walk daily")
4. Mood (Perspective & Distance)
Genette's adaptation of focalization theory:
- Zero Focalization: Omniscient narration with godlike knowledge (Fielding, Dickens)
- Internal Focalization:
- Fixed: Single character's perspective (Joyce's Portrait)
- Variable: Shifts between characters (Victorian multiplot novels)
- Multiple: Same events from different views (Faulkner's As I Lay Dying)
- External Focalization: Camera-like objectivity, no access to thoughts (Hemingway's iceberg theory)
Free Indirect Discourse: Blending narrator's and character's voices ("What folly to have come! She should have refused.") - crucial in Austen, Flaubert, modernists.
5. Voice (Narrator's Position)
The narrator's relationship to the story world:
| Type | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Heterodiegetic | Narrator absent from story | Third-person omniscient narrators |
| Homodiegetic | Narrator as story participant | Ishmael in Moby-Dick |
| Autodiegetic | Narrator as protagonist | Pip in Great Expectations |
| Unreliable | Credibility compromised | Holden in Catcher in the Rye |
Postclassical Narratology (Contemporary Developments)
While structuralist narratology focused on universal narrative grammar, postclassical approaches emphasize contextualized interpretation, cognitive processes, and challenging conventional storytelling norms.
Cognitive Narratology (David Herman)
Examines how real-world cognitive processes shape narrative comprehension:
- Mental model construction during reading
- Embodied cognition in spatial narratives
- Theory of Mind for character understanding
Feminist Narratology (Susan Lanser)
Investigates gender politics in narrative forms:
- Authority of female narrators
- Gendered focalization patterns
- Resisting patriarchal narrative structures
Unnatural Narratology (Jan Alber)
Studies impossible storytelling scenarios that defy real-world logic:
- Dead narrators (Lincoln in the Bardo)
- Reverse chronology (Time's Arrow)
- Contradictory versions (If on a winter's night a traveler)
Roland Barthes' Narrative Codes (S/Z, 1970)
- Proairetic (Action Code): Sequences of actions creating suspense ("What happens next?") - chase scenes, romantic pursuit
- Hermeneutic (Enigma Code): Questions/mysteries driving narrative ("Who done it?") - detective fiction, gothic secrets
- Semantic (Connotative Code): Thematic meanings beyond literal - symbols, leitmotifs
- Symbolic (Antithetical Code): Deep structural oppositions (life/death, innocence/experience)
- Cultural (Referential Code): Shared knowledge systems - historical references, scientific concepts
Application: In Jane Eyre, the hermeneutic code operates through the mystery of Bertha Mason, while the cultural code engages Victorian gender norms.
Postcolonial Narratology
Examines how narrative forms encode colonial power dynamics and resistance:
- Counter-narratives: Challenging Eurocentric historiography (Rushdie's Midnight's Children)
- Hybrid narration: Blending oral and written traditions (Achebe's Things Fall Apart)
- Subaltern speech: Problematizing who gets narrative authority (Spivak's critique)
Digital Narratology
New media narrative forms challenging print conventions:
- Hypertext fiction (nonlinear reading paths)
- Interactive storytelling (reader becomes co-author)
- Transmedia narratives (storytelling across platforms)
UGC NET Preparation (Advanced Strategies)
Previous Year Questions Analysis
- 2022: "Compare Genette's and Barthes' approaches to narrative analysis" requires contrasting structural poetics (Genette) with semiotic codes (Barthes), noting how both inform textual interpretation.
- 2021: "How does free indirect discourse function in Jane Austen's novels?" demands specific examples (Elizabeth's judgments in Pride and Prejudice) showing irony and psychological depth.
- 2020: "Analyze the narrative structure of Midnight's Children using postcolonial narratology" expects discussion of hybrid narration, historiographic metafiction, and subcontinental storytelling traditions.
10-Mark Answer Blueprint
Question: "Narrative perspective shapes ideological interpretation." Discuss with examples from British and postcolonial fiction.
Introduction (1.5 marks): Define narrative perspective (focalization, voice) and its ideological implications. Reference Lanser's Fictions of Authority on narration as power.
Body (7 marks):
- Colonial Perspective (2 marks): Conrad's external focalization in Heart of Darkness rendering Africa as inscrutable other. Contrast with Achebe's internal focalization of Igbo life in Things Fall Apart.
- Gender Politics (2 marks): Male narration of female experience in Tess of the d'Urbervilles versus Woolf's fluid focalization in To the Lighthouse expressing female consciousness.
- Class Dynamics (2 marks): Dickens' omniscient narration exposing social inequities in Bleak House versus modernist subjective narration fragmenting class perspectives in Ulysses.
- Theoretical Synthesis (1 mark): Connect to Bakhtin's heteroglossia - narrative perspective as ideological battleground.
Conclusion (1.5 marks): Summarize how perspective constructs ideological frameworks. Note contemporary challenges to dominant perspectives in global literature.
MCQ Practice (Advanced Level)
Question 1
Which novel exemplifies Genette's "paralipsis" (withholding key narrative information)?
a) Emma (Jane Austen)
b) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Agatha Christie)
c) Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Answer: b) Christie's detective novel famously withholds the narrator's culpability.
Question 2
What narrative technique dominates this passage from Mrs. Dalloway: "For having lived in Westminster... how many years now? over twenty... she felt..."?
a) Stream of consciousness
b) Free indirect discourse
c) Internal monologue
Answer: b) Woolf's signature technique blending character thought with narrator's voice.
Question 3
Which theorist developed the concept of the "implied reader"?
a) Wayne Booth
b) Wolfgang Iser
c) Stanley Fish
Answer: b) Iser's reception theory distinguishes implied from actual readers.
Case Studies for Close Analysis
| Text | Narrative Features | Theoretical Approaches |
|---|---|---|
| Wuthering Heights | Embedded narration, temporal disjunction, unreliable narrators | Structuralist analysis of narrative levels; feminist reading of gendered narration |
| The God of Small Things | Nonlinear chronology, child focalization, linguistic innovation | Postcolonial narratology; cognitive approaches to traumatic narration |
| If on a winter's night a traveler | Second-person narration, disrupted reading experience | Unnatural narratology; postmodern textual theories |
Comparative Narrative Traditions
Understanding narrative theory requires examining non-Western storytelling traditions that challenge Eurocentric models:
Indian Narrative Traditions
- Frame narratives: Embedded storytelling in Panchatantra and Kathasaritsagara
- Cyclical time: Contrast with Western linearity in epics like Mahabharata
- Dhvani theory: Suggested meaning in Anandavardhana's aesthetic theory
African Oral Narratology
- Call-and-response patterns in storytelling performance
- Communal narration versus individual authorship
- Animist perspectives shaping narrative worldview
