Narrative Discourse: Narrators and Narrative Positions (Narrative Theory, 6)

Jose Angel Garcia Landa

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2737052

Abstract

'Narrative Theory' is an online introduction to classical structuralist narratological analysis. The sixth section deals with the structural positioning of narrators with respect to the narrative act and the fictional world(s) contained by the narrative. Contents: 1. Author, narrator, and narrative person; 2. Kinds of narrative positions; 3. Intradiegetic narratives; 4. Crossing the Limits; 5. Narrative person.

Highlights

A narrative is often defined, as we have done here, as "the semiotic representation of a series of events." But there is another more restricted definition which is common: according to Bal, "a narrative text is a text in which an agent tells a story" (Narratology 119)
The real self of the author becomes to some extent irrelevant, and we understand the work in terms of his "official" self in the institution of literature, the image of the author which emanates from his works
We shall postpone this study until we introduce a further level of analysis, the narrative as literary work, in which a new textual subject, the implied author, is introduced

Summary

Narrative Discourse

There will be no more talk of authors: instead we find only the implied image of the author provided by the text This is no longer a flesh-and-blood person properly speaking, but a textual construct, which is called by the critics in a number of ways: dramatic speaker, lyrical subject (in the case of poetry), implied author, author, narrator. The real self of the author becomes to some extent irrelevant, and we understand the work in terms of his "official" self in the institution of literature, the image of the author which emanates from his works This fact does not rule out the simple phenomenon of narration through the mouth of a fictional character. We shall postpone this study until we introduce a further level of analysis, the narrative as literary work, in which a new textual subject, the implied author, is introduced. We see that Genette does not introduce this kind of considerations just as he does not introduce the concept of the implied author-Ða choice of limits which is legitimate for a particular essay, but too restrictive for narrative theory as a whole

Kinds of Narrative Positions

Intradiegetic narratives

Crossing the Limits

Narrative Person