![]() Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. ![]() But we cannot take for granted its particular effect in the texts. Without it, the profound architecture of some of the most subtle and best stories cannot be understood. We do need to be able to distinguish between the reflector and the narrator, precisely because the short story will use either one to continue to bring the reader and author together in admiration of the distant spectacle. When we begin to examine specific stories, however, we see to the contrary that each of these compartments is susceptible to a wide variety of uses.ĤOnce our interest lies in the problems of the relationship between reader, author and characters - and we are primarily concerned with how the one regards the other - such mechanical, formal distinctions become secondary. That is, that by using both external focalization and heterodiegetic narration, one would achieve an “external” viewpoint of the narration and that by reverting to internal focalization and intradiegetic narration, one would automatically get an “internal” perspective on the narrative. The danger, of course, is to assume as Genette and the narratologists did after him, that each of these “compartments” implies a particular effect. This combination of narration and focalization provides neat divisions, with each “compartment” representing one particular technical example. 3 When the narrator is one of the characters, narration is said to be “intradiegetic” when he is exterior to it, “extradiegetic” when the reflector is one of the characters we have “internal focalization” “external” when he is not. Gérard Genette defined a complete “ grille” by combining the possibilities of “mode” (reflector) and “voice” (narrator). Lewin (Ithaca, NY: Corn (.)ģAlthough James’s distinction between narrator and reflector is necessary, it is not without danger, especially when - as in the works of the French New Critics - it is viewed as having automatic effects. ![]() 3 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans.But in classic short stories - even in James’s - it is one more variation on the common theme of distancing. In great novels, the reflector can be a powerful device to help the reader to enter the fictional world and to get nearer to the characters’ mental universe. He is one of the characters, but one privileged by the writer: he is the one who sees, and through whose eyes we see. The reflector does not tell the story - that is the role of the narrator. ![]() We will first spend some time on the concept of the “reflector”, as described by Henry James, to show its necessity, but also its dangers: structural distinctions are not enough, we have to take into account the whole context, the whole strategy of the text. In this chapter, the short story will once again show its versatility: it can distance the narrator from the reader, or equally it can create a real proximity to him, only to increase the distance from the other characters. The reader shares with the author the exhilaration of enjoying the spectacle of this distance. 1The classic short story makes use of the all participants in the narrative process - author, narrator and reader - to create the characteristic distance between reader and characters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |