Picturing the prophet: Focalization in the book of Jonah

Abstract

This article approaches the book of Jonah from a narratological perspective in an effort to understand the way in which the story is presented to a reading audience. This emphasis on the presentation of the text combined with an affirmation of the inadequacy of the concept of "point of view" leads to a consideration of focalization theory and focalization in the book of Jonah. The theoretical positions of Genette, Rimmon-Kenan and Sanders are applied to the book of Jonah with a resulting consideration of instances of perceptual, psychological, ideological, and embedded focalization. The author concludes that the book of Jonah is focalized in a bifurcated manner with an omniscient but ideologically uncommitted external focalizer, allowing for a free manipulation of time and space as well as a panoramic presentation of the psychological aspects of the narrative, and instances of embedded focalization, which provide a number of ideological perspectives. Ultimately, the reader is left to construct an interpretation of the text using these multiple ideological perspectives set in the context of the larger picture provided by the external focalizer.