Russian Formalism in Practice: A Narratological Reading of Joseph Conrad's Youth

Abstract

Conrad's shorter works of fiction are mostly ignored in the formalistic analysis of his critics. Therefore, in order to fill the gap in the literature associated with the narrative structure of Conrad's shorter works, the authors of this article consider in detail the ideas of Genette's narratology for Conrad's story "Youth, Narration". Narratology, the method used in this article, is a science of literature that originated in the works of Russian formalists and is engaged in the systematic study of narratives. The purpose of this science is to identify the basic structures and relationships involved in the creation of history and its meaning. To achieve this goal, the theorists of narratology have introduced and defined a number of language rules that separate all narratives written in all languages. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that in practice the narratological reading of the material is shown, and also shows how the authors apply these structural rules to their texts. Genette, a French narratologist, introduced five narrative categories in his book Narrative Discourse; these categories include Order, Duration, Frequency, Mood, and Voice. This article discusses Genette's narrative categories applied to Joseph Conrad's short story "Youth, Narrative" and identifies the structural nuances of this story in order to help readers in general and those who study literature, in particular, to touch upon a careful reading of Conrad's writing style.