Narrative Figures Research Articles

España en el mundo globalizado: responsabilidades éticas y limites factuales del intelectual en El balneario (1986)

Within the framework of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's narrative production, El balneario (1986) is «a moral reflection on Spain's entry into Europe and its consequences» (Colmeiro, 2013: 16). In this novel, the author represents a literary sociography in which the official rhetoric -which represents the «Transición democrática» as a triumph of democratic values and national reconciliation- enters into dialogue with the standards of development required by other European democracies. The article sets out to analyse the narrative figuration of the intellectual that appears in the novel: it is through this specific social role that Vázquez Montalbán sets out to highlight the fracture between republican historical memory and the reality of capitalist post-modernity and, at the same time, to delve into the limits of the intellectual himself in terms of political and social impact.

The mass person and their speech roles of a simpleton, a buffoon, a mentor in the Russian prose of the 1920s

The scientific review deals with the understanding of the image of the mass person in the literature of the 1920s. The focus of our attention includes both the actual literary texts of the writers of this decade, as well as fundamentally important studies devoted to this problem. Historical-typological and comparative methods are chosen as leading research technologies. They allow us to study the subjective organization of prose works and create a scientific classification of the most representative phenomena in this field. Modern achievements in narrative theory are taken into account. It is widely known that in the revolutionary breakdown of the entire symbolic system of being the ratio of everydayness and non-everydayness has changed. The role of the public dimension increased, human life went out onto the street, the square, and there was a tilt towards the collectivist "we". An ordinary person found their voice and inevitably became, to some extent, a historical "figure". For writers, this person was of interest as a subject of consciousness and a subject of speech. The range of speech roles of the mass person is quite large. There is a simpleton, and a buffoon, and a joker, and a performer, and a cheat, and a singer, and a limited person, and a fool, and a teaching mentor, and a narrow-minded judge. A mass person represents himself/herself in texts in different ways: 1) in the individual lines assigned to him/her by the author, 2) in detailed monologues, and, finally, 3) in prose. In the latter case comically-colored and holistic forms of fantasy-narrative became extremely active: there was a demand for a narrator figure capable of replacing the traditional figure of an "omniscient" narrator close to the author. This narrator completely subordinates the narrative, and the phraseological point of view of the character who initiated the storytelling event begins to dominate the text. The scientific review deals with the works of M.M. Zoshchenko, P.S. Romanov, A.N. Tolstoy, V.Ya. Shishkov, M.Ya. Kozyrev, Y.L. Slezkin. At the same time, attention is paid to such opposite speech reflections of the mass person as a harmless buffoon who turns every thing and every being around themselves into a theater of life, and a severely instructive mentor, distinguished by speech aggression. All these examples show that the traditional "little person" (familiar from previous literature and becoming a "mass person" in new historical conditions and gaining the status of the initiator of storytelling) does not at the same time acquire proper personal development and reveals his or her stereotypicality and shallowness.

Perspektywa obserwatora i obserwowanego w prozie Zdzisława Beksińskiego

The subject of this article is to present the perspective of the observer and the observed in selected Opowiadania by Zdzisław Beksiński created between 1963 and 1965 (published posthumously). The writing attempts of one of the most important representatives of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Polish painting still remain a mystery to literature researchers. Beksinski fascinates with his writing, even though he is mainly associated with visual arts. The author of the article distinguishes this visuality in the stories in detail. The paper focuses primarily on the roles of the narrator, the protagonist and the relationship between them. The narrator figure used by Beksinski appears in two forms: the ‘externalised’ narrator and the ‘external’ narrator. It has been shown that the construction of individual protagonists is inspired by the 19th-century psychological prose, on the basis of which the author paid attention to the individuality of man.

Motion&Emotion: Moving Bodies, Touring Subjects

The paper explores the concept of ‘radical mobility’ as the historical result of accumulated diasporas in modern and post-modern culture, and as the distinctive lifestyle pattern of today’s transversal communities, both real and imagina-tive, that dwell along the paths designed by old and new glo-balisation. In this view, places and subjects imply a rethinking of the tropes of travel and tourism, whereby places resist the simplistic ‘non’ imagined by Marc Augé, though suffering the grip of consumption detected by Urry. The paper analyses the concept of ‘touring subjects’, i.e., regular movers that revive “nomadic” attitudes (Braidotti) and are attached to “tempo-rary identities” (Augé), entangled in constant but unpredicta-ble desires of consumption (Appadurai). Not yet totally nulli-fied in their ability to make sense, react, produce emotion and agency, ‘touring’ figures and voices are widely represented in literature and in the media, and can be found at the cross-roads of many crucial cultural and aesthetic stances, as well as in topical situations not devoid of moments of serious cri-sis, dramatic choices and even tragic events. Associated to authorial narrative figures caught up and lost in the puzzle of their multiperspective narrations, these subjects face para-doxical, unprecedented conditions in their being strongly ex-posed to multicultural, hyperreal complexities that go far be-yond the common post-modern rethorics, whose social and political potentiality is still to be imagined and acknowledged.

Narrative structure of Boris Zhytkov’s novel “Viktor Vavich”

The purpose of this article is to analyze the narrative structure of B. Zhytkov's novel «Viktor Vavіch» (1926-1931, published in 1999). The relevance of the study is due to the fact that narratological analysis is a promising area of modern philological science, but the narrative characteristics of B. Zhytkov's novel are almost never revealed in literary studies of the text. The author proposes to use the model of communicative instances and points of view of W. Schmid, to clarify the relationship between the narrative structure and the novel's problems, narrative factors of characterization, etc. It is proved that the novel is based on a complex polyperceptual composition, in which the narrator's colorful figure is almost not revealed, who remains as if outside the text, allowing his characters to present their worldview almost independently. The author examines the figure of the titular character Viktor Vavich and how his image is constructed by narrative means. It is proved that the structure of consciousness represented by Viktor Vavich is dual and incorporates both the hero's own consciousness and the imaginary image of the external other constructed by him, which subjects him to critical evaluation. This duality of self-perception is characteristic of several characters in the text, but only in the case of Vavich does it become a psychological dominant that ultimately destroys his personality and leads him to decline and death. It has been shown that despite the polyperceptual composition and the unidentified narrator, there is a monologic organizing principle in the text, which is manifested through the functioning of a rather uniform and stable motivic system that is realized through different perceptual instances. In this way, the text forms an imaginary dialogue between two instances: a monological intention that exists in the categories of its own ideology and a polyphony of consciousnesses that do not have a colored narrator figure to give them any ideological assessment.

Ground-plots of Invention: Poetics of the Material and Difficult Thinking in The Faerie Queene

This essay is concerned with allegory and thinking in The Faerie Queene. An enduring critical tradition interprets Spenser’s poem along oppositional lines—allegory/narrative, ideal/material—casting allegory as a violent form of classification and reification, intent on suppressing the contradictions on which it depends. With and against this tradition, I approach Spenser’s ‘continued allegory’ as a mode of narrative figuration that is characterized instead by the mutual conditioning and reciprocal interplay of its poles; a poetics of the material that is a poetics of mediation. I offer new readings of three well-known gardens—the Bower of Bliss, the Temple of Venus, and the Garden of Adonis—showing how they provide especially rich expressions of the entanglement of and movement between concept and experience. The first two facilitate sustained critiques of the unyielding abstractions so capably supplied by their martial visitors, who damagingly abjure the difficulties of thinking and experience. The third, the Garden of Adonis, exhibits and invites a different kind of thinking—both critical and speculative—in the form of arboreal “inclination.” Neither entirely abstract nor intuitive, “inclination” affords an uncertain, expectant, moving concept, which refuses the suppression of its constitutive contradictions (the violence with which we are so familiar), and evokes, instead, the hope for a possible solidarity between them. [N.R.]

Protocolos de uma ideia. Protokolle einer Idee

The contribution draws on experiences in the field of basic education and literacy, gained in the context of two organizations (maiz and das kollektiv, Linz, Austria) of migrant and refugee FLINTAS (WomenLesbiansInterTransAsexuals). Written during the implementation of a project of poetry-based approaches in basic education the text reflects by means of protocols a movement of searching for speech (especially when speaking about the learners). Since it unfolds from a dissonance with the self, the narrative is fragmentary and chronologically non-linear, consisting of short notes, called protocolos, which have been written down for months. It ranges between different languages and registers; it is sometimes poetic, metaphorical and opaque, sometimes factual, sometimes narrative, sometimes theoretical. It is kept in pencil because it is fragile, vulnerable, unstable, opaque, unfinishable. It can be erased at any time, or expanded, or changed. Writing as material and metaphor: skin of language. The article is partly an exercise in palimpsesting, understood as a counter-figure to monocausal discourses of authenticity. The main palimpsest in the text concerns the narrative figure, I-Paloma, which originates from a song by Luís Capucho and Rafael Julião: Balada da Paloma.

The Relationship and Development of Joseon Embroidery and Lu-Embroidery of Shandon : Focusing on Embroidered Dwelling by a Mountain Stream at the National Museum of Korea

This study aims to fill the gaps in the history of Korean embroidery by examining Luembroidery of Shandong, an area closely related to the Korean peninsula in history, geography, culture, and custom. Unlike Gu-embroidery of Jiangnan that gained renown in the late Ming dynasty, Lu-embroidery’s relations to Korea could be found from the ancient times, through medieval Yuan to the Qing period, and therefore has significance as historical documents. Needlework in Lu-embroidery style, made or brought to Korea in the late Joseon period represent the literary preferences of the ruling class at the time and also hold diverse information on localized embroidery in Joseon, including Ahn Joo-embroidery, closely associated with Shandong.</br>Kkonsa existed since the ancient times, but was eclipsed in popularity by p’unsa, used in painted embroidery in medieval period in East Asia. It regained dominance again during the Yuan dynasty. In the late Yuan period, Lu-embroidery reached another golden age as Shandong Lu-embroidery employed kkonsa, a type of twisted embroidery thread rather than p’unsa, a type of silk thread, and as new techniques of more diversity and refinedness were developed. Shandong Lu-embroidery is also called uiseonsu, meaning embroidery for clothes, as kkonsa was widely used as being suitable for more sturdy costumes. In Nopakchiplam, it is recorded that new types of embroidery threads were used in Joseon as well. Conclusively, this study compared the Lu embroidery style works at the National Museum of Korea and the works of Ming-Qing period, and examined how kkonsa were used in Joseon. The iconography and style of embroidered Lotus Pond and Waterfowl and narrative figure paintings, and the use of Joseon royal style two-strands Jeonggumsa, royal embroidery, folk embroidery and Ahn Joo-embroidery were all considered for more comprehensive understanding.

The Increase in the Commissioning of Paintings during the Late Joseon Period and Its Impact

The late Joseon period witnessed significant growth in the commissioning of paintings. This increased demand for paintings, which led to changes in the production and consumption of paintings, is evidenced by the increased number of painting inscriptions that specified the names of clients. Those painting inscriptions indicate that the client placed an order to the painter in person, via a broker, or through correspondence. They also reveal which pictorial subjects were particularly favored by clients. For instance, demand for paintings of true-view landscape of the client’s family hometown or of famous scenic places was particularly high among scholarofficials, and yet demand for conceptual landscape paintings still remained high. The portrait was emblematic of the genre of paintings that were to be commissioned first. Aspirations to take pleasure in Chinese literati culture were expressed in the consumption of narrative figure paintings. The subject of immortals, which symbolized the wish for longevity, and the subjects of flowers, plants, birds, and animals, which served as auspicious decoration, also gained currency as the basis of demand for painting broadened. The terms of commissioning paintings as formed in the late Joseon continuously shaped the painterly practice even after the fall of the Joseon, heralding the way paintings were distributed and consumed in modern Korea.

The linear structure of narrative figures in the Saint Francis Cycle: a linguistic analysis

ABSTRACT This study examines the linear order of the narrative figures that appear in the frescoes of the Cycle of Saint Francis in the Upper Church of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy (1288–1297). This linguistic analysis of the visual-pictorial modality explores the distribution of thematic and discourse roles as an authorly tool to express meaning. Findings include that the linear order of figures in the frescoes is patterned according to semantic principles and has been used here to convey particular relations, roles and other semantic information. Findings of this analysis can be fruitful both for the field of Art History and that of Linguistics, by offering insights into the potential application of linguistic patterning in narrative imagery, into the functions of artworks in this period, and how they combine their aesthetic, theological and communicative functions. The interdisciplinary methodology proposed here pioneers a new field of academic inquiry, for which future directives are provided.

The Resistible Rise of Isli-Crouch Upon-Thames: New Metropolitanism in New British Drama

The Resistible Rise of Isli-Crouch Upon-Thames:New Metropolitanism in New British Drama Graham Saunders (bio) In 2003, I attended a performance of Euan Rose and Laurie Hornsby's musical Wallop Mrs Cox at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Here I experienced something extraordinary. Set in the city's central market and shopping area known as the Bull Ring, Wallop Mrs Cox follows the life and times of Birmingham matriarch Emily Cox through a series of neo-epic scenes, taking us from the 1930s to the 1970s. The moment that had the most memorable effect came from words spoken by the narrator figure who suddenly announced: "1939: And Birmingham was at war." At the time I was struck both by how ridiculous the statement sounded and also admiration at the sentiments it expressed. Here was the city of Birmingham, UK, unapologetically putting itself at the epicenter of a national story. In fact, this air of exceptionalism became the watchword of the entire show, never more so than in the anthemic song Birmingham, with its rousing chorus "Birmingham / We're the city of a thousand trades / Forward in mind / Forward in heart / Every tomorrow is a brand new start/ In Birmingham/ Never pulling down the shades / We roll up our sleeves / Do what we can / Forward goes Birmingham."1 As someone with family roots in the city going back to the 1920s and who has lived there on and off for over fifteen years, I understood something of the rapturous response the song received from the audience who filled the 900-seat main auditorium. Yet, at the same time, it was highly unusual to witness a theatre that commemorated and celebrated its city in such an unequivocal manner. Wallop Mrs Cox was an unapologetic example of nostalgic popular theatre, and in part it fulfilled the remit for the sort of work that the [End Page 15] Birmingham Repertory Theatre was originally conceived to do in 1971: to serve a wide number of constituency audiences throughout the West Midlands. This meant that part of its work would inevitably seem parochial to audiences beyond the region. This issue is directly addressed in Trevor Griffiths' play Comedians (1975) in one scene when one of its aspirant comics, Gethin Price, expresses his admiration for the veteran Lancashire music hall comedian Frank Randall to the London-based agent Bert Challenor, who has come up to Manchester to see Price and the other comics perform. A former comic himself known as "the Cockney Character," Challenor had once played on the same bill as Randall.2 However, he is critical of his Lancastrian counterpart, pointing out that geography limited his comic appeal: Price: What was he [Frank Randall] like? Were he one of the best? Challenor: Best of his kind, I suppose. Price: How do you mean, of his kind? Challenor: He was local, wasn't he? South of Birmingham he was nothing.3 Unfortunately, Challenor's assessment of Randall seems to be one shared by artistic directors at several regional theatres in recent years. At the Birmingham Rep, for example, the nostalgic "Brummie" musical, as well as new writing with an emphasis on local concerns, have become much rarer occurrences. This article sets out to explore the fact that, alongside a decline in the kinds of new writing that placed localism at its center, since the 1990s it has become increasingly apparent that the tastes and preoccupations of London have steadily encroached to the point where they are now starting to dominate English playwriting culture.4 This, of course, is hardly a new observation. John Maynard Keynes, the chief figure responsible for setting up the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1945, had always envisaged that it would be "our business to make London a great artistic metropolis, a place to visit and to wonder at."5 And, as Olivia Turnbull has observed, Keynes' vision became the dominant policy adopted by the Arts Council whereby "artistic excellence was embodied primarily by London based professional companies."6 True, such Londoncentrism was at times curbed and modified, both through the setting up of regional arts boards and the building of theatres and arts centers across the country during the 1960s...

Metafiction Meets Migration: Art From the Archives in Rabee Jaber's Amerika

The subject of this article is Rabee Jaber’s novel Amerika (2009) recounting the migration of a group of Syro-Lebanese to the United States on the eve of the First World War. It demonstrates how metafictional techniques—ironic narrator figures, flashbacks, dream-like scenes—allow Jaber to address the fine, yet shifting, line between fiction and history in the accounts of Arab migrations to the Americas. The article explores the creative rewriting of an essential intertext for Jaber, Kafka’s Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) and asserts that the novel’s reflective uncertainty pervades both the way that a historical past can be represented and the way that the past is presented to a contemporary Lebanese audience. The article concludes by suggesting that the contrast between the two main characters, Martā Ḥaddād and Alī Jābir, is not only indicative of distinct kinds of migration, but, more abstractly, points to contrasting ideas about reading and writing the past.

Colon + Hyphen + Right Paren: At the Origins of Face Semiotics from Smileys to Memes

The article engages with the semiotics of “stylized faces” in online communication, focusing on “smileys.” It reconstructs the origins of both emoticons and emojis, outlining how they differ functionally (paralinguistic signs vs. narrative figures) and commenting on their pragmatics, with regard to the issue of literacy as related to generational fruition. A chronology is provided of the first tokens of smileys in written communication, both before and after the Internet. By relying upon the anthropology of the face dating back to prehistory, the issues of iconism and universality are discussed, supporting the view that there is a strong cultural, conventional component in face depiction, varying diachronically (emoticons versus emojis) and diatopically (emoticons versus kaomojis, i.e., Japanese emoticons). Emoticons and emojis are regarded as prominent examples of intermedia, working at the intersection of written word and image. Finally, stylized digital faces are set in the broader framework of Internet memes, thus discussing the dichotomy between structural memes (the focus is on the formula) and iconic memes (the focus is on the image and, thus, the face). Throughout the text, great care is devoted to the philology of sources, some of them being presented in this form for the first time.

Cities of Rivers, Mountains, and Serpents: Non-Human Territorialities in Jaime Saenz and José María Arguedas

In this article, I draw on Tupac Amaru Kamaq Taytanchisman (1962) by José María Arguedas and Imágenes paceñas (1979) by Jaime Saenz to illuminate the ways that serpents, rivers, and mountains bear upon the spatial organization of Lima and La Paz. I contend that for Saenz and Arguedas, entities such as the Amaru or the Illimani influence the production of non-human territorialities, reorganizing the structures of urban spaces and the lives of the citizens within them. Both texts make visible non-human territorialities through a process I call “territorial writing.” This kind of writing employs a variety of literary strategies (narrative time, characters, and figures) to visualize human and other-than-human vinculums as part of Andean cities. From this vantage point, “territorial writers” perceive urban geographies as territories in which different ethnic groups interact with powerful non-human entities or deities.

The Adoption and Development of the Gu’s Embroidery in Late-Joseon embroidery

This article uses the idioms of embroidery appreciation as depicted in narrative figure paintings in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, to examine the effects of Gu-style embroidery, which reached Korea during the late Joseon period, on the development of late Joseon embroidered pictures enjoyed by the royal court.<br/>The late Joseon period saw unprecedented developments in social, economic and cultural norms. Among these were friendly relations with Qing, allowing Koreans access to new imported culture including various regional Chinese embroidery styles. Gu embroidery became an early source of influence on change and production of embroidery in the royal court. By the 18th century, embroidered everyday items had spread into the private homes of aristocrats and commoners as part of a luxury trend. Expert producers created masterpieces specifically for viewing, which were collected for this purpose. Decorative embroidered screens were created featuring Taoist hermit and narrative figure paintings, driving artistic growth based on motifs of elegance and appreciation of luxury. Characteristics relating to Gu found in these works include: first, the filling of parts corresponding to Gu-style mixed embroidery and painting with long and short stitches and irregular long and short stitches; second, the development of a type of decorative stitching capable of the same elaborate expression as Gu; third, the replacement of untwisted thread, in which Gu style was used to achieve gradation, with twisted thread; fourth, the tracing of the outlines of all pictorial elements with outline stitch, unlike in Gu, emphasizing neatness; fifth, the use of contrasting complementary colors rather than intermediate colors; and sixth, the production of Taoist hermit paintings such as Banquet at Jade Pond and narrative figure paintings as screens. In sum, it can be said that this series of phenomena developed into a formal idiom in Joseon embroidery, which had become more highly renowned than that of China by the 19th century.

크리스토퍼 놀란의 Dunkirk에 나타난 상호연결의 양상: 플롯, 쇼트, 몽타주를 중심으로

In Dunkirk (2017), Nolan visualizes Operation Dynamo, one of the largest military evacuations performed in the early days of World War II. In filming this epic event, Nolan recognizes that “any kind of comprehensive view” is not achievable for “an event of this magnitude.” Nolan chooses to apply the perspective of history from below in a cinematic way by weaving fragmentary episodes of unknown characters rather than prominent figures in historical narratives. This paper analyzes how Nolan connects cinematic elements to deal with the escape of hundreds of thousands of Allied forces from Dunkirk based on Yuri Lotman’s film semiotics. Dunkirk’s plot structure features the opposition between selfishness and altruism within the Allied forces. Nolan’s live approach to filming, achieved by shots from a large-format camera in as realistic an environment as possible, aims at providing an immersive experience both to the actors and the audience. Finally, the montage related to Nolan’s sense of balance in the equal arrangement of the film’s three parts. Granting durative equivalence to the three significantly different events is not just a mechanical balance consideration but an active intervention to fairly show the contribution of all the operation’s participants. In Dunkirk, Nolan asks who the real agent of Churchill’s famous phrase “blood, toil, tears and sweat” was, and his answer is, in every field: the mole, the sea, and the air.

The transformation of order in narrative as discordant concord: Using Paul Ricoeur to explore narrative realism as part of social morphogenesis

AbstractSocial interaction as the middle phase of the morphogenetic sequence described by Margaret Archer presupposes that interpretative activities go on between individuals and collectivities. Novel meanings emerge in social interaction and spur the processes of structural elaboration. The hermeneutics of actors (or agents) should be part of the morphogenetic explanatory framework. Narratives as a distinctive species of interpretation will then become more susceptible to a mode of analysis based in realism. By adopting Paul Ricoeur's concept of narrative figuration (or threefold mimésis) for use in sociology, it is possible to embark on this task at the rudimentary level of intersubjective communication. The stories and anecdotes in which we describe episodes, events, and processes to others articulate and give order to our experience of time. When we are searching for concord in narratives to cope with discordant elements, we are participating in morphogenesis via the transformation of meaning. The complementary nature of Archer's and Ricoeur's conceptualisations provides an alternative to one‐sided social constructionist accounts of narrative

The Last Judgment before the Last

AbstractThroughout the nineteenth century, most historians preferred not to ask philosophical questions. In their writings, however, they indirectly engaged with problems about the character of the world-historical process, thus confronting what might be called penultimate questions. This article analyzes both the notions and the practices of historical work in Leopold Ranke's writings to consider how his spontaneous philosophy of history came to shape an entire discipline. It argues that Ranke crafted what I call historical figures from archival materials and that these served as equivalents to concepts in G. W. F. Hegel's philosophical world history. The writing of history has not yet escaped the logic of these narrative figures of historical argumentation.

Tracing the Royal, Romantic and Demonic Roots of the Nio Warrior Guardian

The Nio (or Kongo Rikishi 金剛力士) door guardian or dvarapala symbolic figures that guard the famed Todaiji Temple of Nara, trace an ancient history from primitive roots in the narrative figure of the Vajrapani, attendant of the Buddha Shakyamuni across Asia, and even further back. The origins of this figure remain relatively vaguely defined in comparison to the intrigue caused by contemporary and medieval applications of the figure, and this research clarifies some apparent historic connections evidenced through visual symbolism to connect the vajrapani to royalty through the vajra, through dvarapala positioning, associations with the vajra and other aesthetic traits. The study suggests a possible transformation from the channavira, a decorative chain associated with fertility, depicted in early versions of the vajrapani, with the evolved, inhuman musculature of the more modern Nio guardian figures. This study then branches from Grunwedel’s association of the vajrapani with Mara by positing a possible aesthetic connection between early depictions of Mara’s army (tempters through which the Buddha has to pass in order to achieve enlightenment) and the Nio through channavira symbolism, mudras, positioning and body postures of predominantly the Sanchi Stupa. The Nio figures, while seemingly outlying icons of Mahayana Buddhism, have found resounding significance in modern and historic martial societies and religious orders. Clarifying their branching ancestry from the earliest vajra bearers, along with their cultural and historic significance will inform a modern understanding of their symbolic value, and the cultural understandings of existential circumstances that they confer.

The Production of Narrative Figure Paintings of the Virtuous Gathering of Chen and Xun Family in the Late Chosŏn and Its Meaning

The Production of Narrative Figure Paintings of the Virtuous Gathering of Chen and Xun Family in the Late Chosŏn and Its Meaning