Producing narrative maps with multidimensional scaling techniques

Abstract

In the study of narrative fiction, very little attention has been given to the author's "conceptual map" of the physical space which his characters inhabit. Discussions of pathetic fallacy (Brooks, 1972, 29-46) and extractions of biographical details on the author (cf. Rickard, 1956, 107-113) have almost defined the limit of interest in this area. A few exceptional works have discussed spatial representation in literature and its possible significance (Matore, 1962, 203-235; Lotman, 1965), but none have attempted to draw maps apart from the practitioners of the "literary guide-book" genre (cf. Lea, 1925, facing p. 314). Yet we all have private maps of the world in which we live, and some authors have gone so far as to present us with maps of the imaginary countries that they portray (Tolkein, Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom! spring to mind); even psychological maps are not unknown, witness Mlle de Scudery's Carte du Tendre. If we could create maps from narratives, there are two problems which could be addressed: the question of the relation between fictional maps and contemporary notions of geography and topography, and the more literary question of the function in the narrative of the representation of physical space. It has long been clear that there are useful analogies to be drawn between the highlighting techniques used in portraying the static moments in painting and lyric poetry (cf. Kroeber, 1975); it seems that equal insight might be obtained by analogies between the dynamic scenes of topography and narrative.