NARRATIVE TEXTS: STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS

1. Introduction

2. The Story Level

2.1 Action
2.2 Characters
2.3 Setting

3. The Plot Level

3.1 The Narrative Point of View
3.2 Modes of Speech Presentation
3.3 Distribution of Time

4. Conclusion

5. Bibliography

• Jahn, Manfred. 2005. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. English

Department, University of Cologne

• Genette, Gérard. 1980 Narrative Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.

• Bal, Mieke. 1978. Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural
Studies. London: Routledge.

Fuente de Internet: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm#N3.3

1. INTRODUCTION

As a way of introduction, for the aim and scope of this presentation, it has been thought
appropriate to consider the narrative text from a structural point of view.

There are different ways of analyzing the characteristics of narratives. However, the
Russian formalists Tomachevski, Propp, Bal and the French Genette were the first to try
a definition from a structural viewpoint.

According to structuralism, a story is a sequence of events or actions (which are here

treated as synonyms).Events are grouped into episodes which, at the same time,
conform the whole story. The progression from a single event to a sequence of events,
to an episode and then to a story highlights the structuralist orientation of the
narratological approach.

Narratologies are concerned with all types of narratives, including literary and non-
literary, fictional and non-fictional and verbal and non-verbal. More specifically,
narratology involves from poems, jokes, riddles or fairy tales to operas, ballets, cartoons
and computer games.

However, the overarching difference is clearly that between fictional and non-fictional,
that is, the imaginary world and real world and real stories.

Ultimately, the roots of narratology go back to Plato’s and Aristotele’s distinction

between “mimesis” (imitation) and “diegesis” (narration).

Along the course of History, many linguists have offered their own analysis of
narratology. Here we will concentrate in the structuralist sequence of events
(Tomachevski), and the distinction between “Story” and “Plot”. The story is the actual
sequence of events as they would have occurred while the latter is the artistic
presentation of these events.

We will deal with the components of the story level and the parameters which are
essential for the plot connectivity, for the discourse.

2. THE STORY LEVEL

The label narrative is used to refer to all those literary genres in which the
author/encoder deals with factual and/or conceptual phenomena in time.

It is traditionally considered that the basic elements of narrative texts on the story level
are Action, Characters and Setting. Let’s proceed to analyse them and give their main
characteristics.
 2.1 Action

The term ‘Action’ refers to a sequence of acts and events, the sum of events
constituting a ‘story line’. An ‘action unit’ or narreme is a distinct point (or segment)
on the story line. ‘Story’ is the chronological sequence of events.

The main question concerning story structure is “What happens next?” It is important to
nota that narrative discourse does not necessarily have to present the story in a purely
chronological fashion.

Plot is the logical and causal structure of the story. The basic question concerning plot
structure is “Why does this happen?”

There are different ways of distributing plot connectivity. According to Tomachevski,

there are two different major structures in narrative texts: temporal-logical order and
spatial order.

a) The Temporal-logical order is the most common manner of organizing

events. The units of action are related in a progressive way, following a
chronological order. Our mind usually associates causality and temporality.
Every action unit is the causal consequence of something that happened
before.
The arrangement or syntax of narrative texts responds to the classical order
of the units of action, whose main stages are:
o Exposition: offers the information needed to understand the story.
o Complication: it is the catalyst that begins the major conflict.
o Climax: it is the turning point in the story that occurs when the characters
try to resolve the complication
o Resolution: the set of events that bring the story to a close.
b) Spatial order. This distribution of events has traditionally belonged to
poetry. However, since contemporary novel (Joyce and Faulkner) the story
loses importance and the disposition of the elements which make it possible
to tell the story become essential.
These ideas were encouraged by the fact that television and cinema seemed
to be replacing novels in their traditional function.

Other types of structures of organizing events have been created:

Alternate structure, in which the story is fragmented into different blocks which are
distributed alternately, not in succession (e.g. Manhattan Transfer).

Musical structure, in which the theme is repeated introducing variants (e.g. Alexandria
Quartet)

Perspective structure, which presents the same story through the filter of various
consciences. These visions can be complementary or contradictory (e.g. The sound and
the fury).
In narrative texts, beginnings and endings become essential. There are various ways of
starting or ending a story:

a) Point of attack is the event chosen to begin the primary action line. The opening
passage of a text is also called incipit. A story beginning “ab ovo” typically
begins with the birth of the protagonist and a state of equilibrium or non conflict.
For a beginning in “media res”, the point of attack is set near the climax of the
action. For a beginning “in ultima res” the point of attack occurs after the climax
and near the end. Modern short stories typically begin in media res.
b) Endings (closures) are the type of conclusions that end a text. Formally,
narratives conclude with an epilogue or scene. In traditional plot oriented texts,
the main conflict is usually resolved by means of marriages, death or other
morally or aesthetically satisfactory outcome producing a state of equilibrium.
Many modern texts, however, lack closure. The may be open-ended, simply
stop, conclude enigmatically, ambiguously or even present alternative endings.

2.2 Characters

Characterization analysis investigates the ways and means of creating the personality of
fictional characters. The basic analytical question is WHO (subject) defines WHOM
(object) as being WHAT (as having which properties).

According to Pfister’s tree diagram, characterization analysis focuses on three basic

parameters:

1. Narratorial Vs Figural. Depending on whether the characterizing subject is

the narrator or another character of the story.
2. Explicit Vs implicit. In explicit characterization, verbal statements define
the character with certain properties and traits, while in implicit characterization,
the character is defined through his style of speech, behaviour or attitudes and is
defined as the story unfolds.
3. Self-characterization (auto-characterization) Vs altero-characterization.
Depending on whether the characterizing subject characterizes himself/herself or
somebody else.

Pfister’s tree diagram

From a structural point of view, characters can be described as syntactic units, when
their function is determined by their relationships with other characters; semantic units,
when the character carries a meaning determined by the whole of the literary work; or
pragmatic units, when their function is determined by the relationship between the
character and the author or reader.

As regards the importance or prominence of the characters in the story, they can be:
• Central characters, which are the nucleous of the action.
• Marginal characters, closely related to the main characters, but not playing an
important role on the story
• Extras, whose function is to contribute to the creation of the setting.

Finally, according to novelist and critic E.M. Forster, depending on their composition,
characters may be “flat” or “rounded”:

• Flat characters can be simplified or reduced to a type or even a caricature.

They do not develop along the story. They are one dimensional figures with a
very restricted range of speech and action.
• Rounded characters, on the other hand, are three dimensional figures
characterized by many and often conflicting properties. They are not reducible
to a type and often develop in the course of action.

2.3 Setting

The literary space or setting can be defined as the environment which situates the
characters, the space where the characters move and live in.

Literary space in this sense is more than a stable place or setting. It includes from
landscapes or cities to climatic conditions.

The literary space or setting can be physical, psychological or social.

a) The physical setting as an important part of the story was discovered in

Romanticism (thelandscape). Before that it was just considered as the wrapping
of the story.
b) The psychological setting changes depending on the mood or the attitude of the
characters and therefore loses its neutrality and objectivity. This kind of setting
has been essential in the psychological novel of the XXth century.
c) The social setting is the space given by human relationships. In this kind of
setting, the characters previously defined as extras become very important, as
they directly define the setting of the story.

3. THE PLOT LEVEL

There are different ways to present a story. The transformation of the linguistic units
into the narrative discourse can be determined by certain parameters: the narrative point
of view, the modes of speech and the presentation and distribution of time. We can
create many different stories out of one single idea by different combinations of these
parameters.

3.1 The Narrative Point of View

Most of modern narratologists agree with Genette that the narrative analysis revolves
around two basic questions: “Who speaks” (the voice of the story, the narrator) and
“from whose point of view?”

Before analysing the different narratorial situations, it is essential to provide a brief

definition of the Narrator.

The narrator is the speaker or the voice of the narrative discourse. He/She is the
agent who establishes communicative contact with an addressee (the narratee), who
manages the exposition and decides what is to be told, how it is to be told and what is to
be left out.

An author who desires to write a narrative text can choose between three main narrative
situations:

a) A First person narrative is told by a narrator who is present as a character in

his/her story telling the events that he/she has experienced him/herself. Besides
the most common functional roles of “I as a protagonist” and “I as a witness”,
we can identify other four minor situations: “I as a co-protagonist”, “I as a minor
character”, “I as a witness-protagonist” and “I as an uninvolved eyewitness”.
b) An Authorial narrative is told by an omniscient narrator who does not appear
in the story as a character. An authorial narrator sees the story from an outsider’s
position, often a position of absolute authority that allows him/her to know
everything about the story’s world and its characters.
c) A Figural narrative presents the story’s events as seen through the eyes of a
third person “reflector” character. Often a figural narrative text presents a
distorted or restricted view of the events.

In addition to these three standard narrative situations, we may also mention other
peripheral categories:

d) We-narrative. The narrator presents the events from a collective point of view, a
group of collective internal focalizers.
e) You-narrative/second person narrative. The protagonist is referred to in the
second person.
f) Simultaneous narrative. The narrator presents a story which unfolds as it is
narrated.
g) Camera-eye narration. This is the purely external or behaviourist representation
of events. A text reads like a transcription of a recording made by a camera
 3.2 Modes of Speech Presentation

Modes or manners of speech presentation follow the traditional distinction between

“showing” and “telling”, which are correlated with “mimesis” and “diegesis”. They are
based on the degree of presence or overtness of the narrator in the story.

• “Showing” is a mimetic mode of presentation with little or no presence of

narratorial mediation. The reader is basically a witness to the events.
• “Telling” is a diegetic mode of presentation in which the narrator controls the
presentation of events, characterization and point of view arrangements.

There are two major narrative modes: scenic presentation and summary presentation:

• Scenic presentation is a showing mode which offers a continuous stream of

events. Its durational aspect is isochrony.
• Summary presentation is a telling mode in which the narrator condeses a
sequence of action events into a thematically focused an orderly account.
Durational aspect: speed-up.

As regards the style of discourse, we may distinguish between direct, free indirect and
indirect discourse:
a) Direct discourse is characterized by presenting a character’s words or thoughts placed
within quotation marks, as an attributive clause.
E.g. Mary said, “What on earth shall I do now”
b) Free indirect discourse is a representation of a character’s words or verbalized
thoughts which is (a) indirect in the sense that pronouns and tenses of the quoted
discourse are aligned with the structure of the narrative situation, and (b) free, to the
extent that the discourse quoted appears in the form of a non-subordinate clause.
E.g. What on earth should she do now?
c) Indirect discourse is a form of representing a character’s words or thought using
indirect speech and adjusting pronouns, tenses and time and place references.
E.g. She wondered what she should do.

3.3 Distribution of Time

There are two main narrative tenses: the narrative present and the narrative past.
Normally, a text’s use of tenses depends relates to and depends on the current point in
time of the narrator’s speech act. Naturally, the tense used in a character’s discourse
depends on the current point in time in the story’s action. Hence,

• discourse-NOW, the current point in time in discourse time: the narrator's

NOW.
• story-NOW, the current point in time in story time; usually, a character's NOW

Depending on the anteriority or posteriority relationship between Discourse-NOW and

Story-NOW, one can distinguish three major cases:
 1. Retrospective narration produces a past tense narrative whose events or actions
units have all happened in the past.
2. Concurrent narration produces a present tense narrative whose action takes place
at the same time as it is recounted (e.g. diaries, on-the-scene reporting)
3. Prospective narration produces a future tense narrative which recounts events
that have not yet occurred.

In relation to the order or chronology of the story, we have to mention:

a) Anachrony – a deviation from strict chronology in a story. The two main types
of anachrony are flashbacks or retrospections (the presentation of events that
have occurred before the current story-NOW) and flashforwards or anticipations
(the presentation of a future event before its proper time).
b) Achrony – a sequence of wholly temporally unordered events.

Finally, in order to assess a narrative passage’s speed or tempo, one compares story
time (the fictional time taken up by an action episode, or, more globally, by the whole
action) and discourse time (the time it takes an average reader to read a passage, or,
more globally, the whole text). The following major types of relationship occur:

a) In Isochronous presentation story time and discourse time are approximately

equal. This is normally the case in passages containing lots of dialogue.
b) I speed-up / acceleration, an episode’s discourse time is considerably shorter
than its story time. Speed-up typically characterizes a “summary” mode of
presentation.
c) In slow-down / deceleration, an episode’s discourse time is considerabli longer
than its story time. Slow-down is a rare phenomenon.
d) Elipsis / cut / omission. A stretch of story time shich is not textually represented
at all. The discourse halts, though time continues to pass in the story.
e) Pause. During a pause, discourse time elapses on description or comment while
story time stops and no action actually takes place.

4. CONCLUSION

As a conclusion we will merely point out some aspects that will summarize the
foregoing information.

We have given an introduction to the topic and we have presented the structuralist
approach to the narrative texts, which has been developed in the second and third
sections.

In the second section we have analyzed the story level and its three main elements:
action, characters and setting. The third section has been devoted to the plot level of
narratives and the analysis of the major parameters of plot connectivity, narrative point
of view, modes of speech presentation and distribution of time.
We will conclude with the idea that the structuralists seek to understand how the
recurrent elements, themes and parameters establish a set of universals that determine
the make up of a story.

The ultimate goal of this analysis is to move from the taxonomy of elements to the
understanding of how these elements are arranged in actual narratives texts, fictional
and non fictional.