The Narrator in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Abstract

characters. He chooses an open-ended structure for his narrative. In this way, the characters' desire for freedom on the thematic level is supported by the narrator, whose choice of narratological techniques enables him to free the characters on the structural level. An analysis of the narrator's functions and organizational choices within the text will provide a closer view of the structural openness the narrator strives for, an openness that provides the characters with what could be called textual freedom. A narrator's directing function includes the use of what Genette terms the repeating prolepsis or advance notice, a narratological technique that fragments the narrative through temporal disorder (intermingling the present with the future). Advance notices refer in advance to an event that will be told in full in its place (73).3 Generally, the formula for advance notices is we will or one will see later. As Genette points out, their function lies in creating an expectation in the reader.4 Furthermore, organizing the narrative by means of advance notices positions the narrator in the role of director of the text. The narrator takes charge of the internal organization of the text by manipulating time through the chronological displace