Beyond the Grammar of Story, or How Can Children's Literature

Criticism Benefit from Narrative Theory?

Maria Nikolajeva
Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Volume 28, Number 1,
Spring 2003, pp. 5-16 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/chq.0.1702
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Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. I, 2003
Beyond the Grammar of Story, or How Can Children's
Literature Criticism Benefit from Narrative Theory?
by Maria Nikolajeva
Narrativity: The set of properties characterizing NAR-
RATIVE and distinguishing it from nonnarrative; the formal
and contextual features making a narrative more or less narra-
tive, as it were. (Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology)
The purpose of this essay is to show what analytical
tools narratology can give us to examine children's fic-
tion. Narrative theory is gradually becoming a hot topic
in children's literature research, of which the present is-
sue of the Quarterly is the best token.1 Yet compared to
other contemporary directions of inquiry, narrative theory
is still taking its very first steps within children's litera-
ture criticism.2 Furthermore, it has repeatedly been
pointed out that while children's literature scholars may
successfully borrow analytical tools from narratology for
a systematic investigation of the various levels of narra-
tive, we should be above all interested in a "children's-
literature-specific theory" (Hunt, "Narrative" 192). My
aim in this essay is thus twofold: to demonstrate the ad-
vantage of narratology as distinct from other critical di-
rections, and to pinpoint the ways narrative theory is par-
ticularly applicable in children's literature scholarship.
In what way is then a narratological approach dif-
ferent from conventional approaches to children's litera-
ture? To anticipate accusations of critical bias, I hurry to
point out that I am not using the word "conventional" in
a pejorative sense. I am also aware of the fallacy of offer-
ing a specific theory as a panacea, as is sometimes done,
for instance, with feminist criticism. Narrative theory is
not opposed to other critical theories; it is just one of many.
Yet for the sake of clarity, I will use juxtaposition as a
method of argumentation in this essay to illustrate the
distinctive features of narratological approach.
The decisive question for a literary historian is, for
instance, "What makes Alice in Wonderland an outstand-
ing children's book?" This question has been confronted
by many critics, who have examined the portrayal of the
child and the society (socio-historical approaches, child-
hood studies), the reflection of the author's actual life (bio-
graphical approach) or his psyche (psychoanalysis), the
displacement of myth (archetypal theory), the linguistic
acrobatics (literary stylistics), gender issues (feminist criti-
cism), the philosophical implications (phenomenology),
the impact on later authors (intertextuality), the reception
of the book by young and adult readers (reader-response
criticism), its fate in other countries (translation studies),
its dissemination through other media (cultural studies),
and so on. The question for a narra tologist is: "What makes
Alice in Wonderland a children's book?" This question has
given those who have cared to pose it at all a lot of head-
ache. We know by intuition that it is a children's book,
and it has throughout the years functioned as a children's
book, but it does not match any conventional definitions.
It is not uncommon to interrogate books that do not match
our preconceived opinions about children's literature.
Some critics say that Alice in Wonderland or Winnie-the-
Pooh are great books because they in actual fact are not
children's books (see
e.g., Shavit, Poetics;
"Double"). Such state-
ments are often made
without further reflec-
tions, based on as-
sumptions like "The
book is too difficult;
children don't under-
stand it." In doing so,
critics apply reader-
response ideas and
construct an abstract,
ideal picture of a
"child" who can or
cannot enjoy the par-
ticular book. They also
apply pedagogical cri-
teria and judge the
books on the basis of
their own opinions about pedagogical values (which may
be educational, moral, or ideological). Often critics also
trust what authors say about their books ("I write for chil-
dren" or "I do not write for children") or how publishers
and library services classify them. All these are arbitrary
criteria, which in addition change throughout history. The
narratological question "What characterizes a children's
book as a narrative, distinct from all other types of narra-
tive?" presupposes a totally different methodology.
Below I discuss some of the central issues of
children's-literature-specific narrative theory, posing ques-
tions that can be used as points of departure for exciting
studies. I will focus on the various aspects of children's
Cover of Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll,
illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (1999)
2003 Children's Literature Association
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
novels, such as plot structure, characterization, perspec-
tive, and temporality.
Aspects of narrativity
The central question of narrative theory is "how?"
as opposed to the "what?" of many other approaches
dominant in children's literature research because of its
close connection with pedagogy. The prevailing question
in a pedagogical approach is "What is a good children's
book?" (with subsequent discussions of the various im-
plications of "good"). The issues of form are often con-
sidered secondary as compared to ideology, social or moral
values, and educational objectives. Narratology is ex-
pressly not concerned with the major objects of investiga-
tion in children's literature research: social context, the
author's intentions, or the reader.
Some conventional questions about a literary text as
a whole may thus be: "What is the book about, superfi-
cially and on a deeper level? What are its messages and the
author's intentions? What ideology and values does it con-
vey? How is it perceived and interpreted by its primary
(children) and secondary (adult) audiences?" This is what
most studies of children's literature, both surveys and stud-
ies focused on individual authors and works, have so far
primarily been preoccupied with. Such approaches are fully
legitimate and can produce brilliant results. The questions
for a narratologist are "What constitutes a narrative?" and
"What elements is a narrative made of?" Contrary to com-
mon belief, the study object of narratology is thus
narrativity, and not the narrative as such. The concept of
narrativity implies the sum of all features in a narrative
that make it a narrative, including composition (plot, tem-
poral structure), characterization (narrative devices used
by writers to reveal a character), and perspective (voice and
point of view). All these elements are manifested in a
slightly-or occasionally profoundly-different manner in
children's literature as compared to general literature. One
of the essential characteristics of children's literature is the
cognitive gap between the adult writer and the child reader,
pinpointed through the widely accepted concepts of single,
double, and dual address (Wall). Furthermore, critics have
emphasized the importance of "embrace" (McGillis, "Em-
brace") or "engagement" (Wyile) of narration in children's
literature. These are just some examples of the questions
that a "children's-literature-specific" narratology can pose,
which also adds new dimensions to the discussions on the
nature of children's literature and its difference from all
other kinds of fiction.
Most scholars agree about the distinction between
the content of the narrative, or story, "what is being told,"
and its form, or discourse, "how it is told" (Chatman 31-
34; applied to children's literature Stephens 8-46). The
majority of studies in children's literature have concen-
trated on the story level, analyzing it from many different
angles. Concerning composition, the conventional ques-
tions are "What happens in the book? Who does what,
when, where, how and why?" These questions can be dealt
with by a variety of methods. We can examine how the
story reflects the time and society within which it was
written, investigate the author's overt or covert opinions,
or contemplate how the story is relevant for its readers.
Within children's literature research much discussion has
been concerned what subjects and themes are suitable or
not suitable for young readers.
One question narratologists ask is "What are the
constituents of a plot?" Early formalist and structuralist
studies, the forerunners of contemporary narratology,
were often focused on the grammar of story, its morphol-
ogy (classification of narrative elements), and its syntax
(rules for combining narrative elements into a meaning-
ful whole). Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale is
the best example. Since the structure of children's books
is generally more rigid than in modern, especially mod-
ernist and postmodernist literature, it may be fruitful to
start with surface structures, but we will not come fur-
ther than to a very general picture. Still, it is gratifying to
examine the basic structure of a children's novel, among
other things, in order to see how much children's fiction
has inherited from traditional narratives, such as folktales,
both in plot and in character gallery. At the same time we
can demonstrate how endlessly more complex a contem-
porary psychological children's novel is as compared to a
folktale. Scholars who believe that children's fiction is a
"simple" form have often studied formulaic and genre-
dependent stories with their recurrent patterns and stock
characters, thus ascribing children's fiction at large the
features only inherent to a limited fraction of it.
Formulaic fiction, such as adventure, crime, or hor-
ror, is especially suitable for structural studies.3 However,
in any narrative we can discern what events constitute a
plot and how they are related to each other. A recurrent
element in children's literature is the protagonist's physi-
cal dislocation, transportation to a new, unknown territory,
which allows the freedom to explore the world without
adult supervision. This element, corresponding to Propp's
initial function of "absence" in folktales, is a morphologi-
cal structure typical for children's literature. Syntactically,
it must necessarily appear in the beginning of the story.
This is a very primitive example of how the grammar of
narrative can be applied to children's literature.
According to a well-established view that goes back
to Aristotle, a story must have a beginning, middle, and
end. Most children's books follow this rule, and the plot is
built along the scheme: exposition-complication-climax-
solution. However, just as in modern adult novels, some
children's books, such as the Ramona series, deviate from
this order. Instead, they are "a slice of life" (Scholes and
Beyond the Grammar of the Story
Kellogg 13), a middle narrative, without a natural begin-
ning or end. This implies, paradoxically, that they display
a lower degree of narrativity, since they deviate from the
"normal" plot, for better or for worse. Like all other litera-
ture, children's literature is not a fixed body of texts, delin-
eated once and for allwhich is how some children's lit-
erature experts are trying to present it. The dfinitions of
fifty years ago no longer match the scope of children's sto-
ries written and published today. Thus, narratology helps
us to discern new ways of constructing plots, especially in
novels employing multiple narratives (see McCallum).
A question much discussed in connection with the
intrinsic features of children's literature is the happy end-
ing. Narrative analysis enables us to distinguish between
structural closure (a satisfactory round-up of the plot) and
psychological closure, bringing the protagonist's personal
conflicts into balance (see Kermode). Normally, in a
children's story, these coincide. When Pinocchio is turned
into a human boy, the plot, involving his achieving this
transformation, is concluded, and the protagonist's con-
flicts with the external enemies as well as with his own
self are solved. Peter Pan's victory over Hook is synchro-
nized with Wendy's accomplished quest for Self and her
readiness to go home. However, there may be a discrep-
ancy between the structural and psychological closure.
The arrival in their grandmother's house is a natural way
to finish the Tillerman children's journey in Homecoming;
however, it does not solve the main conflict of the story,
does not bring back the children's mother, and does not
necessarily promise an easy and happy future for the char-
acters. The superficial plot is concluded; the "human" plot
is left open-ended. The ironic title adds to the ambiguity
of the ending. Such closure can be called dissonant.
The consonant closure, or the conventional happy
endingwhich in most cases presupposes a combination
of structural and psychological closureis what many
scholars and teachers immediately associate with children's
literature and put forward as an essential requirement in a
good children's book. Folktales tend to have a happy end-
ing, expressed by the coda "lived happily ever after." Since
children's fiction borrows many of its structures from
folktales, most traditional children's books have a happy
ending, at least superficially: Dorothy returns home, the
White Witch is eliminated, the treasure is found, and so on.
In contemporary novels for children, we notice a deviation
from the obligatory happy ending, on a structural as well
as a psychological level. Instead of closure, implying round-
ing off the plot, a happy reunion of the protagonist and his
or her object of quest, or the victory over the antagonist,
we see a new opening, aperture.
Unlike a structural open ending, aperture does not
in the first place imply the possibility of further events
(providing an opportunity for a sequel), but an indeter-
minacy concerning both what has actually happened and
what might still happen (Morson 169-72). The ambigu-
ous ending of The Giver is a good example. Aperture is
thus an ending that allows an infinite bifurcation of inter-
pretations. In fact, aperture precludes a sequel, since de-
pending on the bifurcation we choose, the course of fur-
ther events would be radically different. Aperture stimu-
lates the readers' imagination in a way traditional closure
can never do. For instance, we are left in uncertainty as to
how Jess in Bridge to Terabithia can go on without Leslie or
the protagonist of The Great Gilly Hopkins without Mamie
Trotter. In any case, aperture seems a more natural end-
ing for a children's novel, since child characters are al-
ways left halfway in their maturation; they are by defini-
tion not fully developed as individuals. Yet paradoxically,
the happy ending is one of the foremost criteria in the
conventional definitions of children's literature, as well
as one of the most common prejudices about it. In Aristo-
telian poetics, a distinction is made between comic and
tragic plots, or plots with upwards and downwards move-
ment. In a comic plot, a character disempowered and op-
pressed in the beginning gains power and riches in the
end. In a tragic plot, a character in power is brought down,
either by fate (Oedipus) or his own actions (King Lear).
Traditionally, children's literature only makes use of comic,
upward plots; yet this is not an absolute rule. An in-depth
study of plots can therefore throw some light on exactly
how children's fiction is different from general fiction in
this particular respect. The most fruitful results would be
achieved when combining narratological and psychologi-
cal approaches, as does Peter Brooks in Reading for the Plot.
Characters and characterization
In speaking about literary characters, the traditional
questions are: "What do characters represent?" and "Who
or what are they?" An interpretation of a character can be
done from the text itself and not uncommonly from our
extra-textual experiences. We can discuss how boys and
girls, parents and teachers, immigrants and ethnic minori-
ties are portrayed in children's literature of any given
period. A vast majority of protagonists in children's lit-
erature are orphans, and we can speculate about histori-
cal, psychological, and even purely structural reasons for
this. We can also analyze concrete characters, such as Pippi
Longstocking, Anne of Green Gables, or Curious George.
We have a variety of tools for such analyses, treating char-
acters from a socio-historical viewpoint, as representatives
of their time and social group; or from a psychological,
even psychoanalytical viewpoint, as bearers of certain
psychological features; or from a biographical viewpoint,
as reflections of their authors' lives and opinions. The
gender aspect has become a significant point of depar-
ture. Attempts have been made to define certain charac-
ters as bearers of nationhood.
8
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
For a narratologist, the essential questions are "How
are characters constructed by authors?" and "How are they
revealed for readers?" Literary characters seem to be such
a self-evident part of fiction that very few studies are de-
voted to them.4 There may be several explanations of this
gap in scholarship. New Criticism has been hard on char-
acter, and postmodern views of art have taken the defama-
tion of character further still. The aesthetic of
postmodernism strongly interrogates the stability and unity
of the individual, thus claiming that literary characters as
psychological entities are impossible and unnecessary. The
fallacy of such critical directions in their attitude toward
character seems to be that they depart from a limited scope
of overtly modernistic or postmodernistic literary works
that indeed render characters insignificant; based on those,
the conclusion is drawn that characters are subordinate in
fiction at large. Already in the title Reading (Absent) Charac-
ter, Thomas Docherty declares his position in character
theory. However, despite the poststructural denigration of
characters, they are still central in fiction; we read fiction
because we are interested in human nature and human re-
lationships as revealed through fictive characters. In
children's literature, characters presumably provide the
main source of various subjectivities and thus a variety of
experiences. This is not to say that characters are more im-
portant in children's fiction than in general fiction; yet a
children's novel devoid of characters or employing "can-
celled" characters is hardly conceivable.
On the other hand, children's literature presents an
interesting illustration of one of the central questions emerg-
ing in connection with fictional stories, that is, the relation-
ship between plot and character. In classic poetics, charac-
ters are subordinate to actions and events, and they are not
supposed to possess any other traits than base or noble
(Aristotle). Today we put much higher demands on the lit-
erary characters' psychological and ethical dimensions. The
distinction between the novel of incident and the novel of
character, connected to Henry James (Art; Theory), can also
be described in terms of plot-oriented and character-ori-
ented narratives (Scholes and Kellogg 233-39; Todorov 66),
a juxtaposition frequently used in children's literature re-
search. The majority of children's books are action-oriented;
that is, they focus more on plot than on character and char-
acterization. Until recently, perhaps the middle of the twen-
tieth century, most children's books did not portray char-
acters with any other personality traits than good or evil.
Perry Nodelman, among others, goes so far as to maintain
action-orientation as one of the foremost aesthetic charac-
teristics of children's literature and the main source of the
pleasure in reading children's books (Pleasures 190; "Plea-
sure"). This may be partially true, yet this distinction would
exclude a large number of contemporary novels from the
domain of children's literature, while they certainly qualify
as such according to other criteria. Apparently novels such
as Anne of Green Gables, Harriet the Spy, Bridge to Terabithia,
The Great Gilly Hopkins, Carrie's War, Dear Mr. HensMw, or
The Planet of Junior Brown are not in the first place action-
oriented.
As the title of Harold Bloom's study Shakespeare: The
Invention of the Human clearly suggests, Bloom claims that
the psychological dimension in literary characters was
Shakespeare's invention. Since children's fiction, at least
as a separate literary system, is a relatively recent phenom-
enon in the history of literature, the psychological aspect
of literary character in children's fiction did not emerge on
a larger scale until the 1970s in the Western countries; in
many countries it has not appeared yet. Furthermore, since
children's literature has throughout history been exten-
sively used as an educational implement, the characters in
children's stories have been employed by authors as mouth-
pieces and bearers of certain ideas and opinions, as ex-
amples to follow or cautionary figures to learn from, rather
than as independent subjectivities. This inevitable educa-
tional aspect of children's fiction has seriously impeded a
development toward complex psychological characters,
even though we can find examples of these already in cer-
tain nineteenth-century children's texts.
A profound problem in dealing with literary charac-
ters is their ontological status: are we to treat them as real
people, with psychologically credible traits, or merely as
textual constructions? In narratology, a distinction is made
between two radically different approaches to characters:
mimetic and semiotic.5 With a mimetic approach, we view
characters as real people and ascribe them a background
and psychological traits that may not have any support in
the text. The semiotic approach treats characters, as all other
textual elements, merely as a number of words, without
any substance. The ontological question is highly relevant
for children's literature research, as there is a strong ten-
dency to treat and judge characters in children's books as if
they were real people. When schoolteachers ask questions
such as "With whom would you like to be friends in this
book?" they presuppose an understanding of characters as
real people. So do statements such as "If Tom Sawyer lived
today he would be an ecological activist, or a neofascist, or
a juvenile delinquent" or exam topics like "Describe a meet-
ing between Tom Sawyer and Holden Caulfield." Literary
characters do not exist outside their texts, and questions
that cannot find support in the text are pointless. In
narratology, this fallacy has been summed up in a marvel-
ous article title: "How many children had Lady Macbeth?"
(Knights). In children's literature we can just as carelessly
ask "Has Tom Sawyer had measles and how has this af-
fected his disposition?" or "Has Heidi been injured because
her mother did not nurse her?" I am now exaggerating to
underscore my argument, yet we should remember that
literary characters need not behave according to patterns
described in psychology textbooks. I find it fascinating that
Beyond the Grammar of the Story
we are never given any background facts about Alice, ex-
cept that she has a sister and a cat, and in the context of the
novel, it is quite fruitless to speculate what her life is like
before and after her adventures in Wonderland.
Instead, narratology offers a number of epistemologi-
cal questions, that is, questions about how we as readers
can understand characters we meet in books. For many
critics, the appeal of literature is exactly the fact that we
can more easily understand literary figures, homofictus, than
we can ever learn to understand real people, homo sapiens
(Forster 55f). Or, as Dorrit Cohn remarks, "[njarrative fic-
tion is the only literary genre, as well as the only kind of
narrative, in which the unspoken thoughts, feelings, per-
ceptions of a person other than the speaker can be por-
trayed" (7). However, it is only internal means of charac-
terization that allow the transparency of character that Cohn
refers to in her title Transparent Minds; external character-
ization leaves characters more or less opaque. Furthermore,
in children's literature, characters are usually less transpar-
ent than in the mainstream, because children's writers have
a tendency to employ external rather than internal charac-
terization. This is an interesting paradox. On the one hand,
children's literature is supposed to be simple and easy to
understand. We can then expect writers to use narrative
devices that would enable readers to come closer to char-
acters and understand them better. But on the other hand,
such devices are the most complex and therefore occur only
sparsely in children's literature.
External description is the simplest device as readers
get a direct portrait of the character: Pippi has red hair and
a nose like a small potato. Illustrations in children's books
contribute to our immediate perception of characters. They
can both complement textual descriptions or wholly sub-
stitute for them. Otherwise writers are free to give us many
details about the characters' looks or omit them altogether.
Being an authorial narrative form, external description is
tangibly didactic. In The Secret Garden, the protagonist Mary
Lennox is described as pale, thin, yellow-skinned, and very
plain in the beginning of the book, while toward the end,
she is presented as having gained weight, rosy cheeks, and
shiny hair. Thus, the psychological evolution of the char-
acter is emphasized, if not fully supplanted by a physical
improvement, apparently for the sake of being more com-
prehensible to young readers.
Narrative statements are frequently used in children's
fiction to comment on a variety of characteristics, such as
the character's external appearance (pretty, ugly, tall, fat),
social position (rich, poor), intelligence (clever, stupid), ac-
tions (brave), attitudes (greedy), manners (well-behaved,
kind), and finally on the character's temporary feelings
(cold, hungry, tired) or state of mind (agitated, frightened,
glad). They can refer to a permanent, inherent quality (brave
or clever by nature) or to a concrete action or reaction (brave
or clever in a particular situation). Like descriptions, nar-
rative statements are didactic; they manipulate readers to-
ward a certain interpretation of character. For instance, the
text says explicitly that Pippi's companions Tommy and
Annika are nice and well-behaved children. Mary in The
Secret Garden is promptly introduced as unattractive and
disagreeable and is then repeatedly characterized as lazy
and spoiled. There is not much left for the reader to do
than accept these statements.
Characters' actions present them in a more indirect
way. For instance, Pippi repeatedly treats her friends to nice
food and gives them presents. We understand that she is
generous. Repetition of actions can thus emphasize char-
acter traits. Mary's solipsistic behavior in the beginning of
the novel is contrasted to her empathie involvement toward
the end. Once again, external traits are used to illustrate
the internal changes. Reactions to events can also reveal
character properties: Pippi reacts strongly when she en-
counters injustice and violence. She does not hesitate to
save two small children from a fire. The narrator can com-
ment on the character's actions and reactions or allow read-
ers to draw their own conclusions. When the narrator ex-
plains and comments too much, we usually say that the
book is overtly didactic. This is definitely the case in The
Secret Garden, where the author seems not to trust the read-
ers to have detected the profound physical, emotional, and
moral changes in her characters Mary and Colin based on
their behavior, but spells them out at some length. Charac-
terization by actions is external and hence authorial; how-
ever, the readers are free to interpret the actions and reac-
tions according to their own understanding. Is Tom Saw-
yer clever or naughty when he cheats other boys into white-
washing the fence for him? How does coming to his own
funeral characterize him: is he clever, cynical, silly, or
thoughtless? Is Anne Shirley stupid or wicked when she
gives Diana wine to drink or does she simply not know
better? Do characters have intentions behind their actions,
do they act on impulse, or do things merely "happen" to
them? Are the actions in which characters are involved or-
dinary or extraordinary? For obvious reasons we are more
interested in the characters' extraordinary actions, since
these go beyond our everyday experience and allow us to
adopt a subjectivity that we lack in real life. Defamiliar-
ization, or estrangement, is a powerful characterization
device, one which allows authors to put their characters
into situations that are unfamiliar and therefore exciting
for readers. This device is widely exploited in fantasy, a
genre that enjoys a significantly higher status in children's
fiction as compared to the mainstream.
Characters' relationships with other characters tell
us a lot about their personalities. Do they have many
friends? What are their relationships with parents and
other adults, with siblings and other peers? Here, greater
freedom of interpretation is allowed. Yet we must bear in
mind that certain relationships are dependent on the plot
10
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
rather than on character traits. Parents who ignore their
children are not necessarily evil. Their physical or emo-
tional absence may be the prerequisite for the protagonist's
maturation. Thus, we should not accuse Gilly Hopkins's
mother of abandoning her child, since this abandonment
is the very premise of the narrative. It can, however, be a
problem for unsophisticated readers to make such an as-
sessment; in many cases, they will judge absent or negli-
gent parents as "bad," thus ascribing them a mimetic
rather than a semiotic function. Here, narratological tools
that pinpoint this distinction are not only helpful for un-
derstanding the characterization device itself, but also its
specific significance in children's fiction.
One of the common means of characterization that I
find highly problematic in children's fiction is direct
speech. One would assume that it is simple and explicit,
since characters' direct speech presents them immediately,
through what they say as well as through how they say it.
Yet in children's fiction, direct speech is far more often
used to carry the plot than as a characterization device.
Further, we must once again pay attention to the didactic
issues manifest in the relationship between direct speech
and narration. Narrator's comments and reported speech
manipulate the reader to interpret the characters' utter-
ances in a certain way. Assuming that the narrative au-
thority is an adult, we may notice that even when a child
character is given a voice through direct speech, there is
normally an adult voice accompanying it and adjusting it
to guide the reader toward "correct" understanding. Al-
though direct speech may seem a device that presents
characters in the most immediate manner, there is usu-
ally a narrative agency nearby to amend whatever im-
pression we as readers might get. Even a specific speech
verb, an adverb, or any additional comment will manipu-
late our understanding of the character.
Mental representation is the most sophisticated char-
acterization device. It allows us to penetrate the charac-
ters' mind. This device is uncommon in classic children's
novels, but it is all the more important in books by Michelle
Magorian, Nina Bawden, Katherine Paterson, Virginia
Hamilton, or Patricia MacLachlan. In books by these writ-
ers, the reader is allowed to take part in the innermost
thoughts and mental states of characters. Characters be-
come fully transparent, in a way that real people can never
be. On the other hand, even the most complex character
can never be as multidimensional as a real living person.
The fact that mental representation is uncommon in
children's literature depends on its implied readers. We
need certain life experiences to be able to interpret char-
acters' thoughts, and still more their unarticulated emo-
tions, such as fear, anxiety, longing, or joy. Of course, a
writer can simply say "He was anxious" or "She was
scared," but the words "anxious" and "scared" are very
simple labels for complex and contradictory mental states.
Not even a long description can necessarily convey all
the shades of a person's feelings.
Narratology discerns a number of artistic devices to
depict inner life or consciousness, including direct speech
and thought, reported speech and thought, interior mono-
logue, free indirect discourse, simultaneous and retrospec-
tive self-narration, and psychonarration.6 In all these forms,
the main dilemma for a children's writer is to keep the bal-
ance between the two incompatible thrusts: to retain au-
thorial control and to convey an authentic portrait of a
young person's mental state. The most indirect forms, such
as free indirect discourse and psychonarration, are often
used to manipulate readers, to create an illusion that the
text reflects a character's mind, while it is in fact a narrator's
comments about a character's mind. The specific feature
of children's literature is that the narrative voice most of-
ten is that of an adult, while the character is a child. The
difference in cognitive level between the two demands a
delicate balance. The best contemporary children's writers
manage to keep this balance, but it is chiefly through de-
tailed narratological analysis that we can assess the result.
The wide palette of characterization devices and its
evolution in children's fiction is closely connected to the
movement from hero to character, from vehicles of certain
actions necessary for the plot toward a fully developed
psychological portrait (see Nikolajeva, Rhetoric 26-48;
"Changing"). The use of characterization devices is also
genre-dependent: we are less likely to discover thorough
characterization in formulaic fiction. When children's lit-
erature at large is accused of poor characterization, critics
often gather their examples from Enid BIyton or Roald Dahl,
where characters are seldom meant to be anything else than
flat and static. Turning instead to authors such as Paterson
or Hamilton, we see a wide scope of complex characteriza-
tion devices comparable with the most sophisticated gen-
eral fiction.
Perspective
Mental representation also brings about the ques-
tion of narrative perspective. Of all narratological ques-
tions, this one has been discussed most. Conventional re-
search is content with the question, "Who is telling the
story?" The answer is usually simple and unambiguous.
Narratology examines instead how the narrative is ma-
nipulated through an interaction of the author's, the
narrator's, the character's, and the reader's points of view.7
The conventional way of treating narrative perspec-
tive is to state that the story is either told in the third per-
son, with an omniscient perspective, or in the first person.
It is theoretically possible to have second-person perspec-
tive in a story. Narratology views second-person narra-
tives as highly unusual and experimental. There is, how-
ever, a well-known example in children's literature, the
Beyond the Grammar of the Story

first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin, who is

the narratee, but also a character in the story, is referred to
in second person, as "you": "you said," "you went," and
so on. This form should not be confused with the common
direct address or invocation of the reader, for instance,
when, in the same chapter, the narrator says: ".. .here [Pooh]
is at the bottom and ready to be introduced to you." This
"you" is not Christopher Robin, since there is obviously no
sense in his being introduced to his own toy; the "you" is
the implied reader of the story, somebody outside the nar-
rative. Second-person narration is, however, extremely
unusual (it is dropped in the subsequent chapters of Winnie-
the-Pooh), as are other experimental forms, such as first per-
son plural (referring to a group of characters as "we" with-
out revealing the actual source of utterance, as in The Story
of the Treasure Seekers). We can therefore be satisfied with
the distinction between personal (first-person) and imper-
sonal (third-person) narration.
Narratology offers us significantly more precise tools
to examine perspective than conventional text analysis.
To begin with, we must discern between the narrative
voice we hear and the point of view, that is, through whose
eyes we see the events (the result of the confusion is the
frequent statements in student papers such as "The story
is told through the eyes of... "). The voice and the point of
view do not necessarily coincide, and in children's litera-
ture they seldom coincide, since the narrative voice be-
longs to an adult while the point of view is that of a child.
Narratology forces us to differentiate who speaks (the
narrator), who sees (the focalizing character, focalizer) and
who is seen (the focalized character, focalizee). The latter
distinction is crucial: a character may stand in the focus
of the narrative, yet not necessarily serve as a focalizer. In
children's literature this is decisive for the creation of sub-
jectivity, since the subject position offered by the text is
most often governed by the textual point of view. It is
usually difficult for child readers (or any unsophisticated
readers) to liberate themselves from the subjectivity im-
posed on them by the text; therefore the choice of narra-
tive perspective in children's fiction is in many respects
more important than in general fiction. Barbara Wall ex-
amines in The Narrator's Voice various types of narrators:
didactic, authoritative, detached, and empathie. Yet Wall
overlooks the fact that all these voices can be combined
with a range of points of view, external and internal, lit-
eral and transferred, fixed and variable.
Let us, however, first take a closer look at the narra-
tive voice: who speaks. An essential question is the dis-
tance between the narrator and the narrative. Irrespec-
tive of whether the narrator is covert or refers to himself
in the first person, he (I am using the masculine pronoun
for convenience's sake, without any implications) can ei-
ther tell the story in retrospect, after the events, or more
or less simultaneously, as the events unfold. Even an adult
personal narrator telling about his own childhood (Jim in
Treasure Island) has a distance to the narrated events and
can restructure them, and comment on his own actions
from a vaster life experience (as is often the case in adult
novels describing the protagonist's childhood, such as Jane
Eyre). The difference between personal and impersonal
narration is in this case less important than the distance
between the narrator and the story.
As far as the narrator's presence in the narrative is
concerned, the narrator can also be a character, even the
main character in his own story, which in itself presents a
dilemma ("Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my
own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody
else, these pages must show"). Without going into detail,
I would like to point out the complexity of the question of
narrative voice, which goes far beyond the simple divi-
sion between personal and impersonal narration. There
is a broad continuum between the detached witness-nar-
rator and a self-reflectiveand in children's literature of-
ten solipsisticpersonal narrator: "autodiegetic" in
Genette's terminology (Genette 245; see further Lanser,
The Narrative Act). The former, for instance, Cassie in Roll
of Thunder, Hear My Cry, mainly registers the external
events around her; the latter, like Sal in Walk Two Moons,
is focused on her own emotions.
The picture becomes still more complicated when we
add the point of view; that is, when we not only examine
who speaks, but also who sees. The concept of the point of
view is used in narratology both in a literal and transferred
sense. When we share a child character's point of view, it is
mostly the literal perspective: we see what the child sees.
The transferred point of view, that is, the child's under-
standing of what she sees, the child's thoughts and opin-
ions, can be problematic. Can an adult writer render a
child's state of mind without sounding false? Narratologists
often use Henry James' What Maisie Knew as a unique ex-
ample of a description of a child's naive and innocent per-
ception. In this novel, we share both Maisie's literal and
transferred points of view. Adult readers can presumably
liberate themselves from the imposed point of view of the
text and understand that things are not really like Maisie
sees them. Since narratologists seldom know anything
about children's literature, they have no idea that this sup-
posedly unique device is a rule rather than an exception in
children's books, ranging from Curious George and Ramona
the Pest to The Giver and Bridge to Terabithia. On the other
hand, young readers are mostly just as naive and inexperi-
enced as the child protagonists. The interaction of the vari-
ous points of view becomes extremely intricate. Harriet the
Spy is a good example of a children's novel in which read-
ers are supposed to see through the protagonist's imma-
ture perception; however, I am not sure that they always
do. A very young child will be as confused as Pooh discov-
ering that the character has been following his own tracks.
12
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
Close readings of children's novels may in many cases re-
veal that the author is indeed using a double (or at best,
dual) address while seemingly the events are presented
from a child's perspective.
The concept of focalization helps us to examine the
relationship between the narrator and the character or char-
acters through whose eyes and minds we perceive the
events. Once again: since the narrator in a children's book
is most often an adult, while the character is a child, if writ-
ers want to create an illusion of an authentic child perspec-
tive, they must pretend that the narrator does not know or
understand more than the focalizing character. In this case,
too, the difference between personal and impersonal nar-
ration is of less importance. In internal focalization, we take
part of the character's thoughts and feelings in the same
way as in a personal narrative, and sometimes even better.
It can work better because a personal narrator who is a
child telling the story more or less as it unfolds, in simulta-
neous personal narration, lacks both verbal and cognitive
skills to articulate his emotions. An adult narrative agency
focalizing young characters can verbalize their thoughts
and feelings for them. I find it indicative of the potential of
this form that Paterson prefers impersonal narration in
depicting her characters' internal lives.
However, children's literature does have its limita-
tions, dependent on its implied readers. Not even every
adult reader is capable of and will enjoy reading Ulysses or
Finnegans Wake, and an attempt to directly convey a child's
flow of thoughts in a children's book would probably re-
sult in an artistic failure. Just as children in real life need
adults in order to survive, it is part of the poetics of
children's literature to use an adult narrative agency to pro-
vide young readers with at least some guidance. When this
convention is abandoned, then either we are not dealing
with children's literature any more, or it is indeed an artis-
tic failure. It would feel alien for me to propagate for a re-
turn to a conventional, authoritative narrative voice. Yet
narratological studies of perspective in children's literature
reveal how writers manage to achieve something that
narratologists have judged as impossible: a rendering of a
naive perspective without losing psychological depth or
verbal richness. I have mentioned in several previous stud-
ies that many narratologists make use of the same example:
Benjy in The Sound and the Fury (Booth 152; Scholes and
Kellogg 200; Cohn 250ff; Rimmon-Kenan 100). If they read
some children's books, they would not lack examples. I
have, for instance, shown how ironic and nonironic narra-
tion works in the children's novels by MacLachlan and
Paterson (Nikolajeva "The Child"; "The Art").
Temporality
Finally, let us have a look at temporality. The usual
question concerning time in fiction is "When does the ac-
tion take place?" At best, it can also be "How long does
the story take?" The narratological question is "How are
the temporal structures of the discourse organized in re-
lation to the temporal structures of the story?" Paul
Ricouer was among the first to draw our attention to the
decisive difference between story time and narrative time,
which is closely intertwined with the question of perspec-
tive. In Genette's analytical model, temporality holds the
central place and is discussed together with such aspects
as mood and voice. The three components of temporal-
ityorder (in which events are narrated in relation to the
story), duration (how narrative time relates to story time),
and frequency (how many times an event is narrated in
relation to how many times it happens in the story)ac-
quire a special significance in children's literature.
Many adult novels start in medias res and then retrack
to give some background information about the events al-
ready narrated. Most classical children's novels present
events chronologically, the way they happened. This struc-
ture is considered suitable for children, because especially
very young children may have problems reconstructing the
actual flow of events unless they are rendered chronologi-
cally. It is also believed that children need very clear causal
relations in a narrative. Theoretically, there may exist narra-
tives that indeed present events exactly as they have hap-
pened. But even though a narrative basically follows the plot,
there are always small deviations. For instance, first we learn
that Anne Shirley is going to live with Matthew and Marilla,
and then we learn what happened to her before. In contem-
porary children's and especially young adult fiction, it has
also become common (not to say banal) to make use of re-
peated and intricate flashbacks, interplay of different tem-
poral levels, and other complex temporal patterns. Walk Two
Moons is a prominent but far from unique example.
For analyzing temporal patterns in contemporary
children's novels, we need relevant terminology, which
narratology provides for us (see Genette 33-160). We can
observe some interesting differences between temporal
structures in children's fiction as compared to the main-
stream. Genette remarks that prolepses, or flashforwards,
are rare in literature outside myth and religious prophe-
cies (which is not quite true; one contemporary main-
stream author fond of prolepses is John Irving). In
children's literature, prolepses are common, taking the
form of "as we soon shall see" or "as I learned already the
next day" in which the reader is encouraged to pay atten-
tion to a certain event that may turn out to be important
later. A prolepsis can also determine the narrative situa-
tion, creating a distance between the narrator and the nar-
rative: "In after years when the pain had gone out of their
recollection, Emily thought they were the most precious
of her memories" (Emily of New Moon 19); or "Years after-
wards, when he was an old man, Digory said he had never
in all his life known a woman so beautiful" (The Magician's
Beyond the Grammar of the Story
13
Nephew 48-49). Again such observations tell us something
about the nature of children's fiction.
Concerning duration, we can maintain that the plot
of a children's book cannot take many years, as is the case
of David Copperfield or Great Expectations, which follow
their characters from early childhood into adulthood. Such
a long plot would lie beyond a young reader's compre-
hension. The beginning of Mansfield Park is not unlike
some famous children's books, such as Heidi or Anne of
Green Gables: a poor girl comes to stay with relatives or
foster parents. However, while Mansfield Park immediately
presents a gap of five years in Fanny Price's life, until she
is grown up and marriageable and therefore can partici-
pate in the adult issues, half of Anne of Green Gables de-
picts Anne's first weeks in her new home, whereby each
event is described in detail, since it is important for the
young protagonist. Thereafter, the plot is accelerated, and
the speed of the story is varied; some episodes are de-
scribed minutely, while long periods can be dismissed in
just one sentence: "A year has passed." Speed and dura-
tion in a children's book are essential aesthetic elements.
In Ulysses, the story takes merely one day: time is stretched,
since the novel depicts characters in a critical moment of
their lives. It has become more common for children's
books to have short duration, as compared to classic books
such as Anne of Green Gables or Heidi, which take several
years. By studying duration we notice some overall
changes in the aesthetics of children's literature. It is ap-
parently more important for today's authors to catch a
turning point in a young person's life than to follow him
or her during many years. As in many other aspects, The
Catcher in the Rye set the short duration pattern for later
novels. We would, however, not notice such changes in
children's literature with conventional methods.
Duration is an important narrative element since it
denotes the rhythm or tempo of the text. Most often, story
time in fiction is longer than discourse time. Yet by means
of descriptions, deviations, and comments, by narrating
the same event several times, by telling about events tak-
ing place simultaneously at different places, discourse
time can be expanded to twice the story time or more. It is
very common in adult fiction, but as yet rare in children's
books. In early children's fiction, it was more common to
have narrative summaries, especially in domestic fiction
that often covers a large time span (besides Anne of Green
Gables, we can recall Little Women or What Katy Did). Mod-
ern children's novels usually have a much shorter time
span, sometimes just a few days or even hours, therefore
there are fewer summaries and more detailed scenes. Ac-
cording to many narratologists, this observation is true
about fiction in general: the abstraction of classical litera-
ture (summary) is contrasted to the expressivity of mod-
ern literature (scene). The dominance of scene over sum-
mary can be regarded as a quality criterion.
There are a number of preconceived opinions about
which temporal pattern is best for children. It has often
been stated that children prefer dialogue to description
a statement also found in fiction ("what is the use of a
book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversa-
tions?") If we use narratological terminology for the five
patterns of duration (scene, summary, pause, ellipse, and
stretch), such statements mean that scenes dominate over
summaries and descriptive pauses are avoided. To a cer-
tain degree it is true, for various reasons. The younger the
implied audience, the truer it is. Writers may sense intu-
itively what is confirmed by psychological studies, that
the young child lives "here and now," that details are
important, and so on. Children's fiction tries to reflect
children's perception of events.
Descriptive pauses slow down the plot. In a plot-
oriented narrative, where all events lead toward the cli-
max in a rising tempo, a pause would be disturbing. Young
readers tend to skip descriptions in order to arrive more
quickly at dramatic events. On the other hand, in a char-
acter-oriented narrative, a long description of a character's
thoughts and feelings is not only well-motivated, but can
be a decisive element of the plot. Ellipses are common in
episodic narrative, where they can be explicit ("Annika
woke up early next morning") or implicit ("It soon be-
came known throughout the little town..."). "Soon" can
here be several weeks; it is, however, unusual to have el-
lipses covering a time span of many years. To fill a gap of
several weeks is easy for young readers; in Pippi's case,
the ellipsis is probably filled with all the exciting games
that the readers can imagine taking place in Villa
Villekulla. To fill a gap of several years is very difficult for
a young child, whose experience of time is limited. Stretch
is often used to describe dramatic, emotionally-charged
episodes, for instance, the sailing accident in Aidan
Chambers's Dance on My Grave.
Finally, concerning frequency, while Genette claims
that the iterative (telling once about recurrent events) is
unique for Marcel Proust (Genette 116ff), it seems to be a
very common device in children's fiction, acquiring a spe-
cial significance, since the iterative reflects a child's per-
ception of time as cyclical, non-linear, where recurrent
events and routinesChristmas, summer holidays, birth-
daysemphasize the eternal cycle rather than the linear
flow of time. The ending of The House at Pooh Corner evokes
a sense of eternity by stressing the recurrent action: "Wher-
ever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way,
in that enchanted place on top of the Forest a little boy
and his Bear will always be playing." The ending of the
third Pippi volume has the same significance: "She will
always be there." It is not only the global perception of
time that makes children's writers use the iterative. A
child's life is apparentlyor is perceived by the child to be
more regular and regulated than an adult's life, therefore
14
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
Cover detail from Do You Know Pippi
Longstocking? by Astrid Lingren with
pictures by Ingrid Nyman (1999)
recurrent patterns
are of greater sig-
nificance, which is
reflected in the
stories. The itera-
tive does not de-
scribe an event
that is happening
or has happened,
but an event that
happens all over
again. Some lan-
guages have spe-
cial grammatical
tenses for this phe-
nomenon. Otherwise, the iterative can be indicated by
such words as "often," "sometimes," "several times," "ev-
ery Sunday," "during summers," and so on (see
Nikolajeva, From Mythic 31-35).
The intricate temporal patterns are still unusual in
children's novels, and the elaborate narratological termi-
nology may feel superfluous. However, there is a general
tendency in contemporary children's fiction toward com-
plexity and sophistication, which includes complex tem-
porality (see Nikolajeva, Children's Literature; "Exit").
Narratological approaches can help us in assessing this
growing complexity.
Conclusion: Toward new horizons!
Every new theoretical direction is only legitimate if
it allows us to disclose such dimensions in literary texts
that we would not be able to discover with other meth-
ods. We have recently seen how children's literature re-
search has reached new depth as it has borrowed analyti-
cal tools from two separate, but in some respects similar,
areas: the feminist and the postcolonial criticism. Both di-
rections have taught us to read literary texts from the point
of view of a marginalized social group. Children in our
society are also marginalized and oppressed. With tools
from feminist and postcolonial theories, we have learned
to discern between conservative and subversive elements
in children's books, classic as well as modern. This has
far-reaching consequences for our field, as we are now
viewing children's novels in terms of "power and repres-
sion" (Trites) rather than "a promise of happiness" (Inglis).
In its turn, narrative theory has given us tools to
analyze in detail how texts are constructed, on a
macrolevel as well as a microlevel, and to understand why
certain devices work well in children's books while oth-
ers do not. It has also facilitated a historical comparison,
which pinpoints not only changes in themes and values,
but also the profound changes in the aesthetic form of
children's literature.
It would seem that the structure of stories has been
studied thoroughly, both with conventional methods and
with the assistance of more advanced theories. It would
perhaps further appear that with the emergence of
postmodern literature, plots as textual elements have more
or less lost their significance and thus their interest for a
scholar of literature. Yet studies such as Peter Brooks' Read-
ing for the Plot and some others clearly show that plots, as
well as characters, have survived poststructural denigra-
tion, and also that there are many exciting methods left
for discussing the structure of literary works. Brooks com-
bines a structural approach with a psychoanalytical one
and thus goes beyond the plot surface to investigate the
interdependence of plot and intention, and not least, the
way characters function in the plot. The weakness of early
structural studies was that they examined text composi-
tion as such, without connection to other text components.
By expanding the study of narrative to such elements as
temporality and perspective we can considerably increase
our understanding of the ways literary texts are made.
The three volumes of Paul Ricoeur's Time and Narrative
especially open some new horizons. These aspects may
be of little value when we are dealing with simple,
straightforward narratives of traditional children's litera-
ture, but are indispensable as soon as we set off to explore
more complex, contemporary children's novels with mul-
tiple plots and narrative levels. Some recent studies of
children's literature have focused on the role of language
(Stephens, McCallum), or the manipulation of the read-
ers' interpretative strategies by means of intertextuality
and metafictive expectations (Stephens and McCallum).
This direction seems extremely promising. From the ex-
amination of structural elements we can proceed to pos-
ing questions of exactly how narrative elements work as
bearers of psychological qualities, social values, and ide-
ology. By combining purely narratological studies with
other theories and methods we may disclose the mutual
dependence of form and content, which structuralism and
narratology traditionally neglect.
Last but not least, we can return to the question of
the specifics of children's literature as an art form. Susan
Lanser (Fictions) represents a new direction of inquiry
operating on the crossroads between narrative theory and
feminist theory, which she herself has labeled "feminist
narratology." Its objective is to investigate the interdepen-
dence of gender and narrative structure in a literary work.
Just as children's literature criticism at large has gathered
a number of valuable analytical tools from feminist theory,
we may be witnessing the emergence of "children's-lit-
erature-specific" narratology. Perhaps eventually we will
be able to answer the tantalizing question of exactly what
makes Alice in Wonderland a great children's book.
Beyond the Grammar of the Story
15
NOTES
1. See, for instance, Hunt, "Narrative," "Necessary Misreadings";
McGillis, "The Embrace"; Wall; Golden; Otten; Goodenough;
McCallum; Cadden; Wyile; Nikolajeva, "Imprints," Rhetoric.
There are also two earlier special issues of professional journals
devoted to narrative theory and children's literature, Studies in
the Literary Imagination 18.2 (1985) and Children's Literature Asso-
ciation Quarterly 15.2 (Summer 1990).
2. I deliberately exclude the vast and well-developed area of
reader-response studies, even though they naturally are closely
connected with narratology, especially in the examinations of
the implied reader. See Benton; Chambers; Hunt, Criticism 65-
99; McGillis, Nimble 177-200; Stephens 47-83.
3. See, for example, Umberto Eco's famous essay on the struc-
ture of the James Bond novels, or John G. Cawelty's study of
formulaic fiction. In children's literature research, formal meth-
ods have been applied, for instance, to The Tale of Peter Rabbit
(Neumeyer) or the Harry Potter books (Zipes 176f). See also
McGillis, Nimble 27-48,129-51.
4. Among the more profound theoretical studies of literary char-
acters are Harvey; Hochman; Doherty; Petruso. In children's lit-
erature research, this question has never been thoroughly theo-
rized, except for my own book The Rhetoric of Character in
Children's Literature (which is of course why I felt compelled to
write it). For an overview of character theories, see 3-25.
5. The terms used to describe the approaches include open vs.
closed (Chatman), mimetic vs. semiotic (Rimmon-Kenan), mi-
metic vs. non-mimetic (Docherty), or mimetic vs. thematic
(Phelan). In my examination of character, I use the terms mi-
metic and semiotic approaches (Rhetoric 7-24).
6. Most studies of mental representation in literature take their
departure in speech act theory (Austin; Searle; Pratt). Dorrit
Cohn's Transparent Minds provides perhaps the best and most
systematic overview of the various modes of mental represen-
tation. See further Hamburger; Banfield; Fludernik. On the spe-
cific functions of these forms in children's fiction see Nikolajeva,
Rhetoric 241-67; "Imprints."
7. The various aspects of narrative perspective, including voice
and point of view, have been investigated in most standard
works on narrative; see Booth; Genette; Chatman; Rimmon-
Kenan; Lanser; Bakhtin; BaI. For the most recent developments
in the field see Chatman and van Peer.
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Maria Nikolajeva is a professor of comparative literature at
Stockholm University, Sweden, where she teaches children's lit-
erature and literary theory. She is the author and editor of nu-
merous booL on children's literature, the most recent of which
is The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature (2002).