Narrative Tension Research Articles

SPEAKING BODIES, VISIBLE VOICES: NARRATIVE TENSION IN COPPOLA’S APOCALYPSE NOW: REDUX (2001)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now: Redux (2001), a 2001 re-release of his 1979 Vietnam War epic, sparked significant discussions among both academic scholars and mainstream media. The extended version, which features almost an hour-long addition of new scenes, challenged the question of the film’s continued relevance within the evolving Hollywood industry. While the original version may have highlighted the horror and dehumanization of the Vietnam War, it was also criticized for depicting women as one-dimensional sexual objects and effectively silencing their voices. However, by utilizing Verstraten’s notion of filmic narrative, Mulvey’s visual pleasure, and Stark’s narrative voicelessness, this research aims to show how narrative tension is displayed in Apocalypse Now: Redux and how it highlights the representation of the female characters’ subjectivity. We argue that the Redux version offers a notable difference from the stereotypical portrayal of women in war film. By incorporating the newly added scenes, Apocalypse Now: Redux provides the female characters with more agency and individuality, allowing them to move beyond the limitation of being mere decorations.

Exploring cultural landscape narratives to understand challenges for collaboration and their implications for governance

ABSTRACT Ongoing land use change, including both land abandonment and agricultural intensification and expansion, not only present a threat for biodiversity and ecosystem health but also for the persistence of cultural landscapes. However, farmland abandonment and the resulting loss of traditional cultural landscapes is an under-researched topic in the literature. Our work in a transdisciplinary action research project in the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve suggested that challenges to preserve the cultural landscape are rooted in diverging landscape understandings and future aspirations. Dealing with and integrating different perceptions and viewpoints is a key challenge in landscape governance. Narratives as storylines about a topic or an issue have a structural and temporal dimension and can help understand land-use conflicts and different viewpoints. We adopted a social constructivist perspective on landscape to engage with meanings and perceptions (including values) that constitute landscape to diverse stakeholders. To understand these differences in meaning, we drew on Q-methodology and conducted 38 interviews with key stakeholders. We elicited three co-existing and partly overlapping landscape narratives. These differ with regard to meanings of the term cultural landscape, including how stakeholders characterise the landscape, how they appreciate it, and what they perceive as threats. We show how such differences in meanings and values attributed to the landscape translate to different problem framings and future aspirations and thus present a barrier for collaborative management and governance. We highlight how participatory vision development could help address narrative tensions and argue that a more integrative perspective would better include cultural aspects.

Analysis of Lighting Arrangement in the Film "Buried" (2010) by Director Rodrigo Cortez

This study examines the use of innovative lighting in Rodrigo Cortez's film "Buried," focusing on its impact on narrative storytelling within a single-location setting. The limited lighting arrangement is key to the film's uniqueness, effectively portraying narrative tension and the protagonist's psychological journey in a creative and technical manner. Using a qualitative approach, the research analyzes each shot to identify key lighting transitions and thematic motifs. It dissects the film's visual strategies, particularly how Cortez manipulates light to convey the protagonist's psychological state and the passage of time in a confined space. The study aims to understand the effects of lighting arrangement on the film's visual mood and its implications for contemporary cinematography, as well as the psychological effects of lighting in film on viewers' perception and emotions. It also seeks to enhance the experience of claustrophobia using lighting as a narrative device to complement the tense atmosphere in the film's scenes. The results contribute to a broader discourse on cinematography's role in shaping film narrative structures, especially in creating deep visual narratives without relying on extensive settings or special effects. This analysis provides insights into the effectiveness of minimalist lighting in low-budget film making with high constraints.

Coal and Fuel Alternatives in the Novels of Jules Verne

Abstract: This article analyzes the function of coal in a selection of novels by Jules Verne. Certain novels in the Voyages extraordinaires series depict successful, if utopian, coal-based electrical technologies as well as an efficiently run global travel and trade system powered by coal; other works in the series, however, engage contemporary nineteenth-century discourses about future coal scarcity. Still others deploy a lack of coal to create narrative tension before an alternative energy source—walrus oil, wood, geothermal energy—arrives as a temporary fix. These literary approaches to coal in Verne's narratives testify to both the possibilities and anxieties surrounding fuel in the late nineteenth century and show that if Verne is cognizant of debates about impending coal shortages, he ultimately reinforces the promises—and delusions—of a nascent fossil fuel economy.

Interpreting the Temporal Ideas in Das Kapital and Their Contemporary Implications

In contemporary society, technological advancements have continuously enhanced social productivity. However, the progress of capital logic and the forceful competition mechanisms have imposed a severe sense of time urgency on individuals. Simultaneously, within limited leisure time, people find themselves ensnared in the consumption trap constructed by capital. Time has gradually lost its orderly rhythm and narrative tension, atomizing into scattered points without any inherent support. Once connected to nature and human essence, time has now undergone a complete rupture from these factors under the reshaping influence of capital, becoming the chain that firmly locks workers within the framework of capital production. Drawing on the rational aspects of both old materialist and idealist perspectives on time, Marx revolutionarily linked time to practice and material production activities, bringing about a transformative shift in temporal thinking. In Das Kapital utilizing time as a crucial key, he exposes the true nature of the bourgeoisie and calls upon the proletariat to embrace class consciousness, undertake their historical mission, and strive for a communist society where free time universally prevails. A thorough examination of Marx’s temporal ideas in Das Kapital and their integration with contemporary realities can provide valuable guidance for overcoming the temporal challenges faced by modern society.

Crímenes, risas y tensión: consideraciones sobre el humor en pódcasts brasileños de true crime

This work reflects on humorous elements present in audio accounts of real crimes. With this objective, we identified a set of rhetorical and expressive procedures related to humor in the podcasts Modus Operandi and Café com Crime, which characterize these accounts both in verbal and in specifically sound aspects. Based on this, we present contributions to the theory of true crime, which describes typical narrative codes of the genre, and we observe an effort by these podcasts to balance narrative tension and comedy. We also see the possibility of subverting the concept of comic relief to give way to strategies of dramatic safeguarding with the function of setting limits to laughter withinthis genre. Finally, we raise possible paths for the ethical debates.

Honeyland : entre recueillement et recueil : « chaque atome de silence est la chance d’un fruit mûr »

The splendid film Honeyland (2020) is labelled as a documentary but, through its controlled aesthetic effects and the creation of an internal narrative tension, it constructs a dramaturgy to finally deliver what we will call a passion: that of Hatidze, exceptional traditional beekeeper who lives alone in a harsh and desolate land, outside civilization and time, in a world of silence: silence, a mute agreement with the universe, is the mark of the excellence of all activity which works in pure interiority and it is indeed thus, in the harmony of souls, that she lives her relationship with (wild or domesticated) bees, which alone provide musical accompaniment. Driven by a pagan mysticism, respectful of nature and its miraculous gifts, she practices beekeeping as a pantheist ritual. The noisy and destructive arrival of a traveling Turkish family turns her life and her immutable program of action upside down. A poignant story about the end of a world, the film closes, around a shared honeycomb, with a wordless exchange between Hatidze and his dog that resembles an inner prayer.

모방담에 나타난 서사 확장 패턴의 의미

Imitation tales are often understood as stories that effectively emphasize encouraging goodness and punishing evil. However, considering the narrative structure of folktales, it is not natural to place narratives that encourage goodness and punish evil side by side. In tales such as The Goblin's Bat and The Lumpy Old Man, there is no problem with the work’s composition, even if there is no distinction between good and evil. This shows that there is a layer of contextual understanding that is fundamental to the narrative, separate from the layer of understanding of good and evil in imitation tales. This work demonstrates that imitating actions with a simple cause-and-effect logic without properly understanding the context is foolish.
 The contextual understanding layer is closely linked to the narrative expansion pattern of imitation tales. In imitation tales, the pattern of behavior imitation is composed of simple repetitions of narratives, which provide an insufficient driving force for narrative expansion. To compensate for this, characters are assigned good or evil traits to increase narrative tension. However, the narrative fall, which the ending shows, is actively utilized. In doing so, imitation tales compensate for the lack of a narrative drive and induce laughter through the narrative resonance created by an unexpected ending. This is a characteristic feature of imitation tales, which dramatically enhances their narrative completeness.
 Through this process, imitation tales raise the dialectical awareness of context. It is important to understand that the result of an action can vary according to contextual factors such as character, course of action, place, and time. This implies the need to acknowledge the contextual limitations of unexpected luck and always consider the context. Imitation tales are works that delightfully reveal the dialectical process of understanding context through narrative expansion.

Spooky concepts and urban studies: Conceptual metaphor, narrative tension and explanatory power

From the metaphor-soaked concepts of Dracula urbanism, the Vampire index, Frankenstein urbanism and zombie neoliberalism to the idea of a vampire property-holding class, conceptual metaphors are a repeating theme in urban studies. Once you are alert to their presence, conceptual metaphors seem to be everywhere, operating as key literary devices, productive interpretive tactics and critical discursive manoeuvres in the field. And if it is true that metaphor is an important conceptual device in urban studies, then the field's use of conceptual metaphor deserves our critical attention. Taking Wilson and Wyly's Dracula urbanism as a prompt, this commentary offers some speculative reflections on conceptual metaphor in urban studies, before commenting on Dracula urbanism as a concept directly. The discussion is organised around the narrative tension, explanatory power and discursive playfulness that conceptual metaphor affords in urban studies. I argue the power of conceptual metaphor comes into play at the level of analytical acuity. A good conceptual metaphor has an explanatory power that moves our understanding of an urban process, issue, etc. forward. It opens new conceptual vistas, or it brings into focus new conceptual stakes, or it paths the way for new types of empirical investigation in the field. Put simply, a good conceptual metaphor allows for a good theoretical intervention. It has productive explanatory power; it takes urban scholars somewhere beyond their initial excitement about a fancy new name for a concept. A spooky conceptual metaphor must be analytically powerful, otherwise it's just Halloween; an empty signifier dressed up as Frankenstein for a night, trick or treating for citations and attention.

Where Is Communication Breaking Down? Narrative Tensions in Obesity-in-Pregnancy Clinical Encounters [ID: 1377560

INTRODUCTION: Health care professionals (HCPs) often view obesity in pregnancy as a condition associated with numerous adverse clinical outcomes and procedural difficulties. In contrast, patients characterize their challenges encountered because of stigma, their desire for a normal pregnancy, and may feel weight is overemphasized. The study's objective was to explore stories of patients and HCPs in tandem, in order to understand communication challenges within obesity-in-pregnancy clinical encounters. METHODS: Employing narrative inquiry, we conducted in-depth interviews with 16 patients and 19 HCPs. Stigma theory informed our research approach. Dialogical narrative analysis of interview transcripts was conducted. RESULTS: We identified five narrative tensions that contributed to communication challenges during clinical encounters. The first three tensions related to contrasting views on obesity: 1) obesity as a detriment to health versus acceptance of obesity; 2) a result of personal choice versus a result of uncontrollable circumstances; and 3) a regular pregnancy versus a high-risk diagnosis. Two further tensions related to characterizations of communication within the clinical encounter: 4) typical and problem-free versus a tremendously difficult clinical encounter; and 5) talking openly about obesity versus sidestepping the topic. How participants positioned themselves relative to prevailing societal discourses regarding obesity and being a “good” HCP/patient influenced these tensions. CONCLUSION: This study identified five narrative tensions and revealed specific areas where communication in the obesity-in-pregnancy clinical encounter is vulnerable to breaking down, accounting for the complexities in this interactive space. These findings can inform clinical practice and education and may be applicable to other clinical contexts.

Kumlbúa þáttr, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland

<i>Kumlbúa þáttr</i>, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland

Integration of addiction recovery and professional identities for counselor trainees

AbstractCounselor trainees in recovery from substance use often have a foundational recovery identity; they also develop a professional counselor identity through their training. This study utilized narrative inquiry to explore the integration of professional identity and recovery identity. Resonant threads and narrative tensions emerged from the storied experiences of participants.

Jocelyn Brooke’s The Image of a Drawn Sword: A Paradoxical Narrative of Dislocation

This essay seeks to understand the unsettling effects of Jocelyn Brooke’s novel, The Image of a Drawn Sword (1950), on its audience. Abandoning his characteristic semi-autobiographical mode, Brooke opted for heterodiegetic narration to explore the mental, perceptual and communicative dislocations experienced by Reynard the protagonist, a few years after WWII. Paradoxically, this narrative of dislocation presents a smooth surface and exploits the rhetorical force of internal focalisation, chronological telling and building up of narrative tension to place the reader in a cognitive and emotional situation mirroring the protagonist’s. As Reynard emerges into an Army camp near his village in Kent, diegetic uncertainties increase while transtextual tectonics destabilise the reader’s expectations and jeopardise aesthetic and ethical positioning in relation to the text. Though focused on individual dislocations, the novel also undermines the pastoral ideal by locating the camp and impending military action in the heart of rural Kent, and revealing the militarisation of the English countryside.

The Muslim genome: postcolonial nation-building through genomics in Pakistan

National genome projects are often celebrated as assertions of genomic sovereignty, with limited critique of their potential as instruments of biopolitical control and extraction by the state. This paper extends analyses of genomics and nationalism by examining how genomics is mobilized in service of an authoritarian nation-state and ideology in Pakistan. Since independence, Pakistan has sought to unify and centralize the state under a militarized project of Islamic nationalism. I demonstrate how the Pakistani genome was scientifically characterized along key contours of statist ideology to naturalize an imagined religious-nationalist-genetic community. Further, I discuss how genomics attempted to resolve two major tensions in statist narratives: the nation’s immense ethnocultural diversity under a homogenous national identity, and a territorial disjuncture between its geographical “homeland” and ideological “heartland”. Thus, I situate Pakistan’s genomics effort in the history of ideological collaboration between state and intellectual elites, and challenge the inherently emancipatory assumptions of national genomics initiatives.

"Is a Nation to Be Sold like the Skin of a Beaver!": James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie and the Dilemma of Countersovereignty

James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking series is often characterized as a literary staging ground, on which Cooper deploys, tests, and evaluates various political principles and representative figures. The Prairie, set on what Charles Adams refers to as the "blank slate" of the newly purchased Louisiana Territories, is exemplary of this sort of function, as demonstrated through the conflicting modes of proprietorship and legal authority represented by Ishmael Bush, Mahtoree, and Duncan Uncas Middleton. Yet while in most recent scholarship what is staged in the Leatherstocking novels is either an arrangement of competing political theories or the duality of settler identity formation, this essay argues that The Prairie engages a more foundational, and explicitly geopolitical, concern. The fundamental tension of the novel, between its historically deterministic opening and closing and its highly convoluted and contested middle, is suggestive of a powerful anxiety, exacerbated by the Louisiana Purchase, over the basis of American sovereignty as it takes shape in response to Indigenous forms of territoriality. Read this way, the depiction of conflicting modes of property law, framed by the novel's narrative tension, appear as symptoms of the dilemma of what Manu Karuka has termed countersovereignty, made apparent as the Bush family are forced to acknowledge that the "empty empire" of the Louisiana Territories is not so empty after all.

MEANS OF CREATING NARRATIVE TENSION AT THE LEVEL OF CHARACTERS IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE HORROR LITERATURE (BASED ON THE NOVELS OF STEPHEN KING

MEANS OF CREATING NARRATIVE TENSION AT THE LEVEL OF CHARACTERS IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE HORROR LITERATURE (BASED ON THE NOVELS OF STEPHEN KING

Will she or won’t she? The ambivalence of female musicianship in two paintings by Bernardino Licinio (1489–1565)

Abstract This article examines the depiction of sexual propo­sition, the corruption of female virtue and the ambivalent allurements of secular music in a pair of 16th-century Concert paintings by the Venetian artist Bernardino Licinio. It argues that Licinio’s multi-figure concerts, centred on the music-making of young women, both parody and invert the classical elegiac theme of the pauper amans, the impoverished poet-lover who condemns the power of wealth and bestows poetry instead of gold on his beloved, only to be rejected due to her vanity and materialism. The pauper amans theme appears in several 16th-century Venetian strambotti and early madrigals, which are decidedly satiric in tone. In his paintings, Licinio reverses the familiar roles of poet and beloved, and the refined music of the virtuous-seeming young woman is challenged by the dissonant sound of her older male admirer shaking a purse full of coins or by his bold physical advances, which impede her playing. The dissonant and crude gesture of offering her coin payment equates the young woman’s art of music with her sexuality. It alleges not only her corruptibility and low status as a piece of merchandise for sale, but also debases the spiritually elevating art of music, with its noble and abstract figurations of love. The motif of the shaken purse with its ‘music of gold’ first appears in the Venetian dialect comedy La buelsca (c.1514), and is repeated in a series of later songs and poems centred on the subject of the grasping, mercenary prostitute in the 1520s and 30s. Licinio’s paintings play with such popular literary and musical themes but ultimately prefer visual ambiguity and unresolved narrative tension to their frankness and specificity.

The Burner, the Default, and the Communicative Ethnographer: adapting ethnographic personae at Burning Man

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the heuristic practice of bifurcating the narrator in Chamber Theatre adaptations of literature offers the performance ethnographer a strategy for identifying narrative tensions in ethnographic writing. I review arguments establishing the literary fictional nature of ethnographic writing and the subsequent use of metafiction by scholars to address the concerns brought about by “the crisis of representation.” I identify invention, convention, and recognition as narrative perspectives at Burning Man that are useful to performance ethnographers navigating the tension between chaos and legibility.

An Analysis of Narrative Language used in Film and Television Commentary Videos: Evidence from Bilibili.com

With the advent of the new media era, audiences are no longer satisfied with watching film and television works but with output and sharing their views through We-media platforms. At the same time, the fragmented communication mode brought by the new media era makes the audience demand to obtain the substantive content of the film in a short time. Thus, film and television commentary videos came into being. This paper chooses the most representative video we media platform - Bilibili. From the perspective of narrative language, this paper analyzes the picture, sound, and text language of video commentary. Through the extensive use of case analysis and literature analysis, this paper concludes that, in terms of picture language, video commentary vloggers will re-edit the original film of film and television works according to their understanding and the narrative logic of the video so that the original movie will play an auxiliary role in the narrative. In addition, some bloggers elevate narrative tension by inserting material other than the original film. Regarding text language, film and television commentary videos have labeled role definition, highly summarized plot, and subjective theme summary.

루이스 그래식 기본의 『스코틀랜드 서』

This essay aims at two academic goals by analyzing Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s A Scots Quair. First, a study of Scottish literature, especially the Scottish Renaissance during the early twentieth century, will help to rethink England-oriented studies of British literature in South Korea and to widen the horizon of studying twentieth-century English literature and modernism. It is only recently that scholars began to appreciate how the primary writers associated with the Scottish Renaissance resisted regressive nationalism or idyllic regionalism. Although the Scottish Renaissance rarely received critical attention in South Korea, it had arisen to reestablish Scottish identity within the ever more complex relationship with the British Empire after the First World War and thus offers an invaluable position to investigate the inner contradictions of British literature. Second, this essay’s study of Gibbon’s masterpiece will focus on its ecological imagination and the ways in which it helps to design more inclusive and just social relations. The protagonist Chris’s ecological attitude and imagination allow her a critical stance toward a series of humanistic beliefs that seek to remodel humanity on their ideals; however, the novel never compromises its realistic recognition of grueling social conditions at the time in Scotland which made it difficult for her vision to be actualized. This powerful ecological imagination combined with the uncompromising historical consciousness creates a narrative tension in this magnum opus and helps to maximize its artistic greatness.