Arthur Asa Berger-Narratives in Popular Culture, Media, and Everyday Life-SAGE Publications, Inc (1996)
Arthur Asa Berger-Narratives in Popular Culture, Media, and Everyday Life-SAGE Publications, Inc (1996)
Arthur Asa Berger-Narratives in Popular Culture, Media, and Everyday Life-SAGE Publications, Inc (1996)
in
Popular Culture,
Media,
and
Everyday Life
NARRATIVES
in
Popular Culture,
Media,
and
Everyday Life
SAGE Publications
International Educational and Professional Publisher
Thousand Oaks London New Delhi
96-25182
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Candace Harman
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Nature of Narratives
Speculations About Humpty Dumpty
What Is a Narrative?
The Differences Between Narratives
and Nonnarratives
Narration and Narratives
Why Narratives Are Important
Reading Narratives
The Role of the Reader
The Place of Narratives in the Media
Topics to Be Covered in This Book
2. Theorists of Narrativity
Aristotle on Narratives
Vladimir Propp on the Problems
of Studying Folktales
Morphology of the Folktale
A Modification of Propp's Theory
Paradigmatic Analysis of Narrative Texts
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xiii
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6. Fairy Tales
Defining the Fairy Tale
Fairy Tales, Myths, and Fables
The Way Fairy Tales Function:
A Psychoanalytic Perspective
A Synopsis of A Thousand and One Nights
A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of
A Thousand and One Nights
An Analogy With Psychotherapy
The Fairy Tale as Ur-tale
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95
7. The Comics
Defining the Comic Strip
The Narrative Structure of Comics
The Pictorial Content of Comics
Dialogue in the Comics
The Complex Matter of "Reading" the Comics:
The Katzenjammer Kids
On the Status of Comics in the Scheme of Things
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Appendix:
Simulations, Activities, Games, and Exercises
175
References
186
Name Index
189
Subject Index
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199
Preface
What? Me a Narratologist?
The narrative aspects of the topics Fve investigatedcomics, television shows, popular culture genres, jokes, and so onalways were
somewhat hidden, even though I often mentioned narratives from time
to time. My first book, Wl Abner: A Study in American Satire, contains a
chapter on the narrative elements in the strip, and in it I suggest the
usefulness of considering narrativity in dealing with comic strips and
comic books.
Although I have written about narratives in my books, it never before
occurred to me that a kind of vague, subliminal, unconscious, and
unrecognized interest in narratives pervades my work. I started writing
ix
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Preface
xi
Acknowledgments
xiii
1
The Nature of Narratives
NARRATIVES
We are exposed to narrative texts from our earliest days, when our
mothers sing lullabies and recite nursery rhymes for us. The songs and
simple verse we learn when we are small children are narratives. For
example, take the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.
This is a narrative texta simple one, but a narrative nevertheless. So
are fairy tales, adventure stories, biographies, detective stories, and
science fiction stories. Television is a narrative medium par excellence.
It is possible to see the evening news shows on television as narratives
(or as having many narrative elements in them), although the people
who create newscasts would probably find that idea somewhat farfetched. Comic strips are narratives, but single-frame cartoons are not.
Such cartoons give us a moment in time, but they contain no sequence,
generally speaking.
Although narratives may be simple or complex, understanding how
they function and how people make sense of them are subjects that are
extremely complicated and that have perplexed literary theorists for
centuriesfrom at least as far back as Aristotle's time to the present.
NARRATIVES
7. And all the king's men. This line adds emphasis to the one preceding
it through repetition, and together these two lines suggest that even if
the king committed all his resources to the matter of putting Humpty
Dumpty together again, it still could not be done. There are limitations,
then, on what kings can do and, by implication, limitations on what
anyone can do in given situations. The king's men and, by inference, the
king are actually secondary characters in this tale. The two lines "All the
king's horses / And all the king's men" represent a response to Humpty
Dumpty's fall and can be thought of as part of "falling action." The main
event has occurred, other secondary things are going on, but in a sense
the story has had its crisis.
8. Couldn t put Humpty Dumpty together again. With this line we reach
the "tragic" resolution of the story. Nobodynot even the king, with all
his horses and all his mencould put Humpty Dumpty together again
nobody can reconstruct an egg that has fallen and splattered.
r
We can see that even a simple nursery rhyme has the basic components of a narrative, even if they are elemental in nature. Such narratives
are well suited for the intellectual capacities and emotional development
of their target audienceyoung children. As we get older and grow more
mature, we become interested in narrative texts that are more challenging and more complicated. These texts require more of us; we need more
refined sensibilities and more information, as well, to understand and
appreciate them.
What Is a Narrative?
Anarrative is, as I have suggested, a story, and stories tell about things
that have happened or are happening to people, animals, aliens from
outer space, insectswhatever. That is, a story contains a sequence of
events, which means that narratives take place within or over, to be more
precise, some kind of time period. This time period can be very short, as
in a nursery tale, or very long, as in some novels and epics. Many stories
are linear in structure, which may be represented as follows:
A-B->C->D->E->F->G->H->I
5
ABBC
JA
CD
I]
DE
HI
EF
GHFG
NARRATIVES
Thus the circle is complete when the Count and the Whore have their
dialogue.
Although Schnitzler calls his scenes "dialogues/' various actions also
take place in each scene, so that term is not quite accurate. There are, of
course, plays in which almost no action is shownin which actors
(functioning as narrators of sorts) read letters between characters and
that sort of thingbut most of the time plays depict actions; that is,
characters do other things as well as talk. Talking, of course, can also be
construed as a kind of action.
Notice that I used the term plot above regarding La Ronde. Is there a
difference between a plot and a story? If so, how does a plot relate to a story?
I will discuss this matter later, but I mention it here to show that there
are complications that we must deal with when discussing narratives.
in England and the United States (and perhaps elsewhere); when they
see a picture of Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall, they know what
will happen because they've been exposed to the nursery rhyme as part
of their childhood culture.
Although some paintings contain enough information that they can
be read as narratives, with the viewer looking at one part of the painting
and then moving on to another, generally speaking, pictures that stand
alone are not understood to have narrative content.
NARRATIVES
This dialogue between Humpty Dumpty and Alice goes on at considerable length, and includes the famous business about un-birthdays and
so on. What Carroll has done here is dramatize the traditional nursery
rhyme by turning Humpty Dumpty into a subject, a character who
interacts with another character, Alice.
I should point out that in stories, as Yuri Lotman (1977) has suggested,
everything has significance. As Lotman notes, "The tendency to interpret
everything in an artistic text as meaningful is so great that we rightfully
consider nothing accidental in a work of art" (p. 17). Of course, some
things are more significant than others. In some cases, lack of certain
kinds of action must be construed as action. For example, in a famous
Sherlock Holmes story, a dog that doesn't bark (because it recognizes its
master) is the key to solving the mystery. In stories, then, we can say that
everything plays a role and nothing is completely irrelevant, even
though it may seem to be at first sight. That is one of the keys to detective
stories: Things that seem inconsequential are later shown, when the
detective solves the crime, to be significant.
10
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11
Metaphor
Metonymy
analogy
association
(simile)
(synecdoche)
associated with Eve and the Garden of Eden, and thus has metonymic
significance.
We tend to think of metaphor and metonymy as literary devices that
are far removed from our everyday lives, but this is not the case. As
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) note:
Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in
thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which
we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphoric in nature. The
concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect.
They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane
details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in
the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system
thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right
in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then
the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very
much a matter of metaphor, (p. 3)
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NARRATIVES
Reading Narratives
13
(Work)
Reader
author
reader, audience
artistic plane
aesthetic plane
sender
receiver
creates a text
realizes a text
to be understood
creation of meaning
The image we get from Iser is one of texts as full of holes, with readers
of the texts filling in these holes, in the same manner that readers of comic
strips and comic books, for example, fill in the continuity between the
frames.
Iser (1972/1988) makes a distinction between two poles, what he calls
the "artistic" and the "aesthetic." He explains this notion as follows:
The literary work has two poles, which we might call the artistic and the
aesthetic; the artistic refers to the text created by the author and the
aesthetic to the aesthetic realization accomplished by the reader. From this
polarity it follows that the literary work cannot be completely identical with
the text, or with the realization of the text, but in fact must lie halfway
between the two. The work is more than the text, for the text only takes
on life when it is realized, and furthermore, the realization is by no means
independent of the individual disposition of the readerthough this in
turn is acted upon by the different patterns of the text. (p. 212)
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NARRATIVES
Every work is rewritten by its reader who imposes upon it a new grid
of interpretation for which he is not generally responsible but which
comes to him from his culture, from his time, in short from another
discourse; all comprehension is the encounter of two discourses, a
dialogue. It is futile and silly to try to leave off being oneself in order
to become someone else; were one to succeed, the result would be of
no interest (since it would be a pure reproduction of the initial
discourse). By its very existence, the science of ethnology proves to us,
if need be, that we gain by being different from what we seek to
understand. This interpretation (in the necessary double sense of
translation and comprehension) is the condition of survival of the
antecedent text; but no less so, I should say, of contemporary
discourse. Hence interpretation is no longer true or false but rich or
poor, revealing or sterile, stimulating or dull.
Tzvetan Todorov, Introduction to Poetics (1981, p. xxx)
Table 1.2 provides a clearer picture of Iser's ideas. From this perspective, the readers of texts (and by readers I mean people who watch
television, see films, play video games, and so on) play a much more
important role than they are perceived to play in other theories.
There are some problems with reader-response theories that connect
reader responses to such reader characteristics as social class and gender.
For one thing, people may react viscerally to texts they read or see, and
these reactions may have nothing to do with such things as socioeconomic class and intelligence, but may be more directly connected with
emotion and physical state. In addition, though we may all differ in the
readings we give to texts, the similarities we find in them may be much
more significant than the differences we perceive as a result of differing
educational levels, cultural codings, and so on.
15
A
Artworks (Texts)
America (Society)
C
Medium
Artists (Creators)
D
Audiences
NARRATIVES
16
2
Theorists of Narrativity
Aristotle on Narratives
In Aristotle's Poetics, written about 330 B.C., we find a number of
passages that relate to narratives. Aristotle deals with "poetry," but he
uses that term in a very general sense to talk about literature in general
and narratives in particular, we might say. He starts by suggesting that
literary works are imitations of reality (the mimetic theory of art) and
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notes that we must consider three topics relative to imitation: the medium of imitation, the objects imitated, and the mode of imitation.
He discusses first the media of imitation, mentioning that some arts,
prose or verse, use language alone, whereas other arts employ a number
of different media. (A modern analogue would be the difference between
a novel and a film made from that novel. In the novel, we have only
words; in the film, we have actors, dialogue, settings, sound, music, and
various other things.) He then addresses the objects of imitation:
Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be
either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers to
these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks
of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as
better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are. (Aristotle, 1941, in
Smith & Parks, 1951, p. 30)
It is also possible to mix things up. Thus, for example, a novel may begin
with a third-person narrator and then move into a situation in which the
narrator withdraws and the characters in the story take over.
Aristotle then goes on to differentiate comedy from tragedy. Comedy,
he tells us, is "an imitation of persons inferiornot, however, in the full
Theorists of Narrativity
21
sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the
ugly. It consists of some defect or ugliness which is not painful or
destructive" (p. 33). Tragedy, on the other hand, "is an imitation of an
action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude" (p. 36).
In his discussion of tragedy, Aristotle analyzes what must be done to
present tragedy correctly. He offers a highly schematic discussion of
some of the fundamental aspects of narrative:
Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily follows, in
the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be part of Tragedy. Next,
Song and Diction, for these are the media of imitation
Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies
personal agents who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both
of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions
themselves, and thesethought and characterare the two natural
causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or
failure depends. Hence the Plot is the imitation of the actionfor by Plot
I here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By Character I mean that
in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents. Thought is
required wherever a statement is proved or? it may be, a general truth
enunciated. Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts
determine its qualitynamely Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one
the manner, and three the objects of imitation. And these complete the
list. (p. 34)
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NARRATIVES
works should have unity, Aristotle does not like episodic plots, those in
which "episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence" (p. 38).
Aristotle distinguishes between simple plots and complex plots.
Simple plots involve changes of fortune without reversals or recognition
by the major characters as to what has happened. Complex plots involve
changes of fortune with reversals or recognitions, or both. By "recognition," Aristotle means "a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or
bad fortune" (p. 39). The best plots have both reversals and recognition
and involve changes of fortune from good to bad that arouse both fear
and pity.
This has been only a brief summary of a number of the most important points Aristotle makes in his Poetics concerning the nature of narratives. He discusses many of the topics I have mentioned in considerably
more detail, of course, and a number of other topics that I have not
addressed, but the preceding discussion, I believe, conveys a reasonable
idea of Aristotle's theories on narrativity. We must remember that Aristotle's philosophy carried tremendous weight, and his ideas have influenced the thinking of writers and critics for thousands of years and are
still influential to this day, though they don't have the authority they did
in earlier times.
Of course, like the works of all great thinkers, Aristotle's writings
have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the ages, and people have
debated what Aristotle "really" meant. Still, his theory that art imitates
reality is one of the dominant theories of how art functions. Art is, he
argues, a mirror, reflecting reality. (The other dominant theories of art are
that art is like a lamp, projecting its own reality rather than imitating
reality; that art is a tool with essentially pragmatic functions, such as to
teach or to indoctrinate; and that art is a record and essentially expresses
the emotions and feelings and state of mind of the artist. These theories
are discussed in some detail in . H. Abrams's book The Mirror and The
Lamp, 1958.)
We now move to a discussion of the work of a more contemporary
theorist, Vladimir Propp, whose study of folktales has been extremely
influential and useful to narrative theorists.
Theorists of Narrativity
23
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NARRATIVES
readers to isolate the essential components of a tale and see how they
relate to each other. Such analysis reveals the structure of narratives
how they are put together.
Theorists of Narrativity
25
than fairy tales and to other media that carry narrativesnovels, plays,
comic strips, films, and television programs. We learn from Propp, then,
that many modern narratives borrow not content per se, but structure
from fairy tales. That is, they use Propp's functions, but in modernized
adaptations. Propp's work can help us to understand the "structure" of
all kinds of narratives, a subject about which I will have more to say later.
Table 2.1 offers a highly schematic list of Propp's definitions, signs,
and functions. The initial situation, as I have noted above, is not considered a function. These are the fundamental components of the 100 tales
Propp studied, and they are found also, as Dundes suggests, in many
contemporary texts, regardless of medium. Propp has given us a true
morphology of narratives: a list of their basic components. We might
think of his functions as narratemes, which can be defined as the most
elemental aspects of stories, the elements out of which narratives of all
kinds in all media are constructed.
Of course, in contemporary times, we need to make modifications to
some of Propp's functions; for instance, instead of the hero's getting
married and ascending the throne, he may get married and get a good
job with his father-in-law, or he may not get married but end up making
love to the moral (or is it immoral?) equivalent of the princess figure.
NARRATIVES
26
TABLE 2.1 Propp's Functions
Function
Description
initial situation
1.
absentation
2.
interdiction
3.
violation
Interdiction is violated.
4.
reconnaissance
5.
delivery
6.
trickery
7.
complicity
Victim is deceived.
8.
villainy
lack
9.
mediation
10.
counteraction
11.
departure
12.
1.3.
hero's reaction
14.
receipt of agent
15.
spatial change
16.
struggle
17.
J
I
branding
Hero is branded.
18.
victory
Villain is defeated.
19.
liquidation
20.
return
Hero returns.
21.
pursuit, chase
Hero is pursued.
22.
Rs
rescue
23.
unrecognized arrival
24.
unfounded claims
25.
difficult task
26.
solution
Task is resolved.
27.
recognition
Hero is recognized.
28.
exposure
29.
transfiguration
30.
punishment
Villain is punished.
31.
wedding
Theorists of Narrativity
27
Functions
villain
A, H , P r
donor
D,F
helper
G,K,Rs, N,T
MJ,Ex, U,W
dispatcher
hero
C E,W
false hero
C, E, L
is what Propp calls a "victim hero" (the focus is on what happens to him);
the second kind, a hero who helps others who have suffered some
villainy, is what he calls a "seeker hero" (the focus is on the characters
helped by the hero). Propp notes that he does not find both kinds of
heroes in any one of the fairy tales he analyzes. It is not always easy, I
might point out, to determine which kind of heroes or heroines we are
dealing with in modern textsor even in fairy tales.
After listing and discussing his 31 functions, Propp makes a number
of what he calls "general inferences," which can be summarized as
follows: (a) There are only 31 functions; (b) one function develops out of
another logically (not a single function excludes another one); and (c)
functions often arrange themselves in pairs (struggle/victory) or in
groups (villainy, dispatch, decision for counteraction, departure from
home). Propp also suggests, in his discussion of the attributes of characters, that it is possible to identify "one tale with respect to which all fairy
tales will appear as variants" (p. 89), and that at the core of fairy tales are
certain "abstract representations," which he identifies as myths.
Propp suggests that his functions are distributed in specific ways
among the dramatis personaethe characters involved in the stories.
Many of the functions logically join together into certain "spheres" that
correspond to their respective performers. Table 2.2 shows Propp's main
characters and the functions associated with each in a schematized list I
have created from the information contained in Propp's chapter titled
"The Distributions of Functions Among Dramatis Personae." According
to Propp, there are three possible relations between characters and
functions: A character takes care of one sphere of action, a character
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Theorists of Narrativity
29
Hero
Villain
seeks something
hinders hero
punishes hero
undergoes ordeals
is dispatched
engages in reconnaissance
heroines (rescued)
seeming villainesses
love
lust
young (sons)
old (fathers)
handsome
individualists
collectivists
imagination, invention
technology, manpower
defeats villain
loses to hero
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NARRATIVES
poor, and when we read or hear the word happy, we thinks of the word
sad. If everyone has a great deal of money rich loses its meaning; rich
means something only in contrast to poor.
Paradigmatic Analysis
of Narrative Texts
We must keep Saussure's theory in mind when we consider the ideas
of Levi-Strauss (1967), who offers what is termed a paradigmatic analysis
of texts. In essence, a paradigmatic analysis involves examining the
binary oppositions that exist in a text and that can be elicited from the
text that give it meaning. In such an analysis, attention is focused not on
the sequence of events in the text, which is Propp's focus, but on the
various oppositional relationships found in the text. A paradigmatic
analysis, Levi-Strauss suggests, reveals what the text means to people,
in contrast to a syntagmatic analysis, which is concerned with what
happens in a text.
I would like to suggest a modification of Levi-Strauss's approach in
which, instead of a focus on bundles of related elements in a text,
attention is devoted to what I would describe as the text's central
oppositionseliciting from a given text a set of binary oppositions that
enable us to make sense of it. What we are doing, in effect, is taking
Saussure's insight about the differential definitions of concepts and
applying it to characters and their actions, to help us understand the
meaning of what characters say and do in texts.
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Theorists of Narrativity
TABLE 2.4 Polar Oppositions in "Humpty Dumpty"
danger
safety
stability
unsteadiness
on the ground
on a (high) wall
solid object
hard to break
very fragile
wholeness
pieces
reconstitution possible
reconstitution impossible
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Theorists of Narrativity
33
Bal explains the difference between a story and a text by using the
example of Tom Thumb, a character whose story has been told in many
variations. There are many different texts that tell essentially the same
story about Tom Thumb, so clearly we cannot equate the story with the
texts. Other kinds of stories also exist in many different text forms. For
example, there are many different versions of particular jokes. The text
is not the same thing as the story.
In a wonderful book titled Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau
(1981) illustrates Bal's point well by telling and retelling a very simple
little story using 50 or 60 different styles. All of these different texts tell
the same story, which concerns a young man with a very long neck who
takes an "S" bus in Paris, accuses someone of jostling him, finds a seat,
and is then seen a few hours later talking with a friend. Here are sections
from a few of Queneau's exercises:
Official letter style: I beg to advise you of the following facts of which I
happened to be the equally impartial and horrified witness. Today, at
roughly twelve noon, I was present on the platform of a bus which was
proceeding up the rue de Courcelles.
Cross-examination style:
At what time did the 12.23 p.m. S-line bus proceeding in the
direction of the Porte de Champerret arrive on that day?
At 12:38 p.m.
Were there many people on the aforesaid bus?
Bags of 'em.
Dream: I had the impression that everything was misty and nacreous
around me with multifarious and indistinct apparitions, amongst whom
however was one figure that stood out fairly clearly, which was that of a
young man whose too-long neck . . .
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NARRATIVES
And that is the point of departure for Bal's discussion of narrative texts.
Her book has three main sections, each of which is devoted to one of the
three layers enumerated above.
Bal deals with a question that has interested narrative theorists for a
long time: Is there a common model, or what might be described as an
ur-model, upon which all narratives are based and that would enable us
to recognize that something is, in fact, a narrative? That is, is there some
kind of Platonic "ideal" narrative upon which all narratives are based?
Those proposing a Platonic model for narratives employ two arguments.
The first suggests that there is a parallelism between the linguistic structure
of sentences and that of all narratives; this means that we can see sentences
as micronarratives. The second argument is that there is a correspondence
between what actors do in narratives and what people do in real life,
which suggests that narratives are structured according to the same
logical rules and conventional restrictions that order human thought and
action. Bal (1985) makes an interesting comment about this argument:
Everything that can be said about the structure of fabulas also bears on
extra-literary facts. Various investigators in this area even refer to themselves as anthropologists or sociologists (e.g., Bremond and Greimas).
Consequently, everything that is said about narratives in this chapter
should also be applicable to other connected series of human actions as
well as to elements in film, theater, news reports, and social and individual events in the world. It would take us too far here to make a statement
about such fundamental questions; it is, however, useful to keep in mind
Theorists of Narrativity
35
the fact that the theory of elements makes describable a segment of reality
that is broader than that of narrative texts only. (p. 13)
This statement supports a point I made earlierthat we can take narrative theory and apply it to phenomena that are not literary narratives
(that is, not works of imagination, works of art, created texts) but that
have narrative elements or structures to them. If "all the world's a stage,"
then narrative theory can help us to understand the world better and
enable us to gain insights we could not obtain any other way.
It is the form of the narrative that interests Chatman, not its substance,
and his book is devoted to a very detailed and sophisticated discussion
of this matter.
One of the more important, and useful, distinctions Chatman makes
is between what he calls "kernels" and "satellites." As he explains:
Narrative events have not only a logic of connection, but a logic of
hierarchy. Some are more important than others. In the classical narrative,
only major events are part of the chain or armature of contingency. Minor
events have a different structure. According to Barthes, each such major
eventwhich I call kernel... is part of the hermeneutic code; it advances
the plot by raising and satisfying questions. Kernels are narrative mo-
36
NARRATIVES
merits that give rises to cruxes in the direction taken by events. They are
nodes or hinges in the structure, branching points which force a movement into one of two (or more) possible paths. Achilles can give up his
girl or refuse; Huck Finn can remain at home or set off down the river;
Lambert Strether can advise Chad to remain in Paris or to return; Miss
Emily can pay the taxes or send the collector packing; and so on. Kernels
cannot be deleted without destroying the narrative logic. In the classical
narrative text, proper interpretation of events at any given point is a
function of the ability to follow these ongoing selections, to see later
kernels as consequences of earlier, (pp. 53-54)
A Note on Genres
There are an almost infinite number of narratives in the world, but
we can categorize them in certain ways so that potential readers (televi-
Theorists of Narrativity
37
Narrative Theory
Narrative Genres
(on television, for example: science fiction, westerns, situation comedies,
detective stories, soap operas, news shows, commercials)
Narrative Texts
(all narrative texts that exist)
Figure 2.1. The Ladder of Abstraction
38
NARRATIVES
On the most obvious level television is a dramatic medium simply
because a large proportion of the material it transmits is in the form of
traditional drama numerically represented by actors and employing plot,
dialogue, character, gesture, costumethe whole panoply of dramatic
means of expression
According to the 1980 edition of The Media Book,
in the Spring of 1979 American men on average watched television for
over 21 hours per week, while the average American woman's viewing
time reached just over 25 hours per week. The time devoted by the
average American adult male to watching dramatic material on television thus amounts to over 12 hours per week, while the average American woman sees almost 16 hours of drama on television each week. That
means the average American adult sees the equivalent of five to six
full-length stage plays a week! (p. 7)
This is a remarkable figure, if you think about it. As Esslin points out, for
a theatergoer to see even one play a week is an achievement.
Television is, in large measure, a dramatic or, for purposes of this
discussion, narrative medium. Many of the programs on television,
although not "dramas" (by which Esslin means narrative fictions), have
dramatic structure or narrative elements in them. I will return to this
subject in later chapters, after I discuss narrative techniques.
3
Narrative Techniques and
Authorial Devices
42
NARRATIVES
43
versus
compete
help
versus
hinder
escape
versus
imprison
defend
versus
attack
initiate
versus
respond
disguise
versus
uncover
pretend
versus
reveal
love
versus
hate
unravel
versus
mystify
pursue
versus
evade
search for
versus
evade
tell truth
versus
lie
allow
versus
prohibit
question
versus
answer
rescue
versus
endanger
protect
versus
threaten
suffer
versus
punish
dispatch
versus
summon
allow
versus
interdict
retain
versus
lose
Goals of Heroes
Goals of Villains
overcome a villain
overcome a hero
rescue a victim
kidnap a victim
create a lack
freedom
enslavement
44
NARRATIVES
villains
helpers
henchmen
preventers/hinderers of donors
dispatchers of heroes
captors of heroes
seekers
avoiders
(1966) and Jakobson (1985) are correct about the mind's finding meaning
in things by setting up bipolar oppositions (generally without our awareness, of course). There are some critics, I should point out, who argue that
this matter of setting up bipolar oppositions is questionable, and that the
oppositions that are elicited don't really hold up when scmtinized.
45
Descriptions
Descriptions are one of the most important means through which
authors give us information. They tell us what characters look like and
how they behave, help situate actions, and generate feelings and attitudes in readers. Let me offer an example from The Maltese Falcon. Sam
Spade, who has entered the apartment of Caspar Gutman, describes
what Gutman looks like as Gutman comes to greet him:
The fat man was flabbily fat with bulbous pink cheeks and lips and chins
and neck, with a great soft egg of a belly that was all his torso, and
46
NARRATIVES
pendant cones for arms and legs all his bulbs rose and shook and fell
separately with each step, in the manner of clustered soap bubbles not
yet released from the pipe through which they had been blown, (p. 108)
Gutman, we are told, is dressed in a cutaway coat and wears an ascot
anchored by a pink pearl stickpin. Hammett later describes Gutman's
voice as having a "throaty purr" to it.
This is a marvelous piece of writing that gives the reader a very
precise picture of the aptly named Caspar Gutman (gut + man) and a
sense of what he is like. Notice Hammett's use of metaphor. The "flabbily
fat" Gutman's stomach is "a great soft egg," and when he moves his
body, it shakes "in the manner of clustered soap bubbles." These descriptions help the reader form a fairly precise picture of Gutman.
Description, we can see, can be used for more than creating a visual
image; description can also suggest character, personality, and many
other things as well. We infer a great deal from the way people look
from the shapes of their bodies, from their body language, from their
eyes, from the clothes that they wear, from their hairstyles. (Can we see
Gutman as, perhaps, a modernized kind of Humpty Dumpty figure, who
is also going to have a "great fall"?)
Thoughts
By telling their readers what characters are thinking, authors can
provide important information about such matters as what has happened in the plot (that is, summaries) and ideas a character may have
about various other characters and what is motivating them.
47
After telling the reader what Bouc is thinking, Christie moves on to what
another character, Dr. Constantine, is thinking and then to other things.
Such passages, in which the author tells the reader what characters are
thinking, are useful devices for planting ideas in readers' minds.
From a technical standpoint, Christie functions as an ''omniscient
narrator," one who can tell what is in the minds of various characters in
addition to describing them and showing them in action. One of the
cardinal rules in writing is to "show, not tell," but in some cases it is useful
to be able to tell, and displaying the thoughts of characters is a common
way of doing so.
Visual media usually use more indirect ways of showing what people
are thinkingthrough flashbacks and facial expressions, for instance. It
is also possible to show what characters are thinking by having them
record their thoughts in diaries, letters, journals (on paper or on disk),
and so on.
48
NARRATIVES
Dialogue
Dialogue is the most common means by which characters convey
information to one another and, at the same time, indirectly to readers.
What characters say to one another allows readers to gain insight into
their personalities and thoughts and to gain information about their
actions. Novelists also use dialogue to create distinctive personalities; if
all the characters in a novel sound the same, the reader can become
confused and bored. Consider this passage from Murder on the Orient
Express in which Hercule Poirot is chatting with Bouc as they are dining.
Bouc sighs, "If I had but the pen of Balzac!..." and adds:
"All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages.
For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought
together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from
one another. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways,
never perhaps to see each other again."
"And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident"
"Ah, no, my friend"
"From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But
nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all
these people here are linked togetherby death." (pp. 29-30)
This bit of dialogue is of central importance to the story, for Christie is
really giving away the main point of the mysterywhich is that all of
the people on the train are linked together by death (by one death that
occurred in the past and one that is to occur), though most readers
probably miss this point. Christie then turns her readers' attention away
from Poirot's speculations and discounts them by having Bouc suggest
that Poirot may have indigestion.
Notice the way Christie has created her dialogue. Bouc "sighed"
when he talks about Balzac. Then she uses the simple verb said to describe
Poirot's response to Bouc. Later on, Christie dispenses with any kind of
verb and just has Bouc speak: "Ah, no, my friend" Then Poirot answers, "I agree," echoing an earlier use by Bouc of the word agree.
Words such as said and agree convey different ideas. There are many
other verbs authors use in describing how dialogue is conducted, and all
of them convey different feelings and meanings. Consider, for example,
the following list of some of the verbs that may accompany dialogue:
>
^
5&
$5
^
35$
^
^
>
$5
555
49
said
snarled
replied
answered
announced
asserted
screamed
hissed
exploded
agreed
responded
retorted
decreed
whispered
whined
told
Verb
Implied Meaning
whispered
secrecy, intimacy
shrieked
exploded
rage
agreed
consensus, accord
asked
questioning
hissed
menace (snakelike)
intimated
suggestion, hinting
announced
whined
complaining, whimpering
50
NARRATIVES
There is a subcategory of dialogue that I would describe as interrogation, in which, for example, a detective questions suspects and others
to gain information. Notice how economically Agatha Christie does this
in Murder on the Orient Express as Hercule Poirot questions another
character:
"The train had stopped then?"
"The train had stopped."
"You heard nothingnothing unusual during the time, Madame?"
"I heard nothing unusual."
"What is your maid's name?"
"Hildegarde Schmidt."
"She has been with you long?"
"Fifteen years." (pp. 115-116)
Note that when the two characters are well delineated, it is possible to
dispense with everything but the dialogue itself.
During his interrogations, Poirot learns all kinds of things that are
intended to seem trivial and irrelevant to the reader but that provide
Poirot with the information he needs to solve the crime. Mystery writers
purposely bury their clues in descriptions and dialogue. At the ends of
their stories, when they explain their reasoning, readers can see that they
ignored important information that was given to them that would have
enabled them to solve the crime before the detective did. Mystery stories
are often called "whodunits," and part of the charm of this genre lies in
trying to solve the crime before the detective doesfiguring out "whodunit."
Summaries
At various stages in the average detective story (and in narrative texts
in general) the author provides summaries in which what has gone on
so far is reviewed in a highly abbreviated manner. This is necessary to
help readers keep track of things, to condense certain activities, and
sometimes to indicate that certain things have happened without having
to dramatize them or have characters act them out. Summaries also can
be used by the author to interpret events in the text for the reader.
For example, in Dr. No (1958), one of Ian Fleming's James Bond spy
stories, Fleming uses a summary to recount Dr. No's history and explain
51
how he has come to look the way he does. No explains how some killers
came and cut off his hands and tried to shoot him through the heart, but
No was not killed because his heart is on the right side of his body, not
the left. No continues with his history, talking about how he has changed
the way he looks:
I had all my hair taken out by the roots, my thick nose made thin, my
mouth widened, my lips sliced. I could not get smaller, so I made myself
taller. I wore built up shoes. I had weeks of traction on my spine. I held
myself differently. I put away my mechanical hands and wore hands of
wax inside gloves. I changed my name to Julius Nothe Julius after my
father and the No for my rejection of him and all authority. I threw away
my spectacles and wore contact lenses, (p. 138)
52
NARRATIVES
Characterization
A great deal of characterization is accomplished through description
and dialogue, as well as through action. Two of the pillars of characterization are the author's description of (a) what a character looks like
and is like and (b) how a character behaves. Through characters' actions,
readers get a sense of what they are like by interpreting those actions
according to the readers' own moral codes and value systems.
Consider, for example, the way Christie describes Ratchett in Murder
on the Orient Express. Poirot is having dinner at a hotel in Istanbul and,
while scanning the restaurant, notices a man of between 60 and 70 years
old talking with a younger companion. At first glance, the man seems to
have a kindly look about him:
His slightly bald head, his domed forehead, the smiling mouth that
displayed a very white set of false teethall seemed to speak of a
benevolent personality. Only the eyes belied this assumption. They were
small, deep-set and crafty. Not only that. As the man, making some
remark to his companion, glanced across the room, his gaze stopped on
Poirot for a moment and just for that second there was a strange malevolence, an unnatural tensity in the glance.
Then he rose.
"Pay the bill, Hector," he said.
His voice was slightly husky in tone. It had a queer, soft, dangerous
quality, (p. 23)
Christie characterizes Ratchett in the most negative tones, using such
words as "malevolence," "unnatural," "queer," and "dangerous." We
later find out that Ratchett is actually the notorious kidnapper Cassetti,
who years ago kidnapped a child (an allusion to the Lindbergh case) and
killed her, and this led to all kinds of horrendous things and ruined the
lives of a number of people. Thus, at the end of the book, when Poirot
offers two scenarios to the policeone suggests that every person on the
train participated in a ritual killing of Ratchett/Cassetti and the other
suggests that a mysterious stranger, who had been described by several
of the characters as being on the train for a short while, did itwe are
ready to accept the notion that the stranger did it, despite the fact that
we actually know who murdered Ratchett.
53
$ft
^
33;
S
^
=33
^
$ft
33;
;33
^
$ft
S
^
3ft;
name
age
gender
height
weight
race
hair color
hairstyle
complexion
eyes
nose
posture
body language
voice
accent
clothes
facial expression
occupation
setting
Brigid's description of herself offers readers a sense of who she is. She
admits that she's done some bad things but pleads for Spade's trust.
54
NARRATIVES
What the reader doesn't know yet, of course, is that Brigid is, among
other things, a cold-blooded killer.
We need characterization to explain motivation, to understand why
it is that characters do what they do. There should be a logic to narrative
texts, and readers must be convinced that what characters do is plausible,
which means their actions must be connected to their personalities and
desires. That is, the behavior of characters must be justified somehow so
that the reader can accept what happens as logical and reasonable.
Stereotypes
Stereotypes are, for purposes of this discussion, ideas people share
about what various groups or categories of people are like. We employ
stereotypes in thinking about members of various ethnic and racial
groups, occupational groups, genders, socioeconomic classes, and nationalities, among other things. Thus we talk about Mexicans, Jews,
Scots, African Americans, Asians, lawyers, gays, members of the upper
class, Americans, the French, the English, Russians, and so on, as though
all members of these groups are alike. Stereotypes are generally negative,
though they can be positive or mixed. Semiotically speaking, stereotypes
are metonymies and, more specifically, synecdoches: On the basis of a
part (a few people we may have met or have been told about), we make
generalizations about the whole.
Although stereotyping is simplistic and often dangerous, it is part
of our everyday illogical and uncritical thinking. We apply Ronald
Reagan's notion that "if you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all"
to people; if you've seen, met, had contact with one Mexican, Jew, African
American, or whatever, you know what "they" are like. Despite its
illogicality, stereotyping is often used in narrative texts because it allows
authors to provide motivations and to characterize people very
quickly and economically.
Thus in Ian Fleming's Dr. No, which is full of people of different social
classes and nationalities, we find a number of stereotypes. Excerpts from
the novel containing a number of them are listed below, admittedly taken
out of context. James Bond has been sent to Jamaica to investigate the
disappearance of a couple of agents. He is taken to lunch by the British
55
56
NARRATIVES
when she has Poirot say that the mind behind the killing on the Orient
Express must be logical and rational and then say to Mary Debenham, a
short while later, that she is very Anglo-Saxon, a person who doesn't
approve of emotion.
All of these stereotypes are used by Christie to give readers ideas about
the characters involved in the murder, though these ideas are often used to
lead readers astray. In murder mysteries, one of the standard devices is to
offer a number of "red herrings" to throw suspicion on a number of different
characters and provide motivations and opportunity for these characters
to have done the murder. Christie, an educated and sophisticated
woman, used these stereotypes, including the stereotype of the British
as cold and reserved; it is hard to know whether she actually held them.
The devices and techniques discussed above are some of the more
common ones authors use to communicate information to their readers
directly. That is, when authors describe something for their readers, they
are, so to speak, addressing them directly and providing information that
the authors want the readers to have. In the case of dialogue, of course,
the characters are providing information to one another, and the addressees are the characters, not the readers, though readers also get the
information the authors want them to have.
I will now turn to discussion of the techniques that authors use to
allow their characters to learn information and, in some cases, to pass
this information on to others, what Propp (1928/1968) calls "notification." I have already discussed dialoguewhen two or more characters
speak and exchange information, which I define broadly to cover also
things like feelings and attitudes.
I will be discussing techniques such as letters, overheard conversations, phone calls, articles in publications, thoughts, and confessions.
One could add high-technology analogues: messages on phone recorders and material on videotapes and computers disks, for instance.
Overheard
Conversations
57
"Mary"
The girl interrupted him.
"Not now. Not now. When it's all over. When it's behind usthen"
(p. 18)
When he hears this Poirot turns away, wondering about what he has
heard. He does not recognize Miss Debenham's cool and efficient voice
at that moment. Poirot has overheard Miss Debenham speaking with
Colonel Arbuthnot and has gained some information of importance
they are not two people who have just met and whose relationship is the
casual one as it seemed earlier, when Poirot saw them having a meal
together on the train.
Letters
Letters, telegrams, journals, diaries, and other forms of written material allow authors to provide information of importance to characters.
In Murder on the Orient Express we find that Ratchett has received several
letters. The first one goes as follows:
Thought you'd double-cross us and get away with it, did you? Not on your life.
We're out to GET you, Ratchett, and we WILL get you. There was no
signature.
There is a second letter, similar to the first, threatening Ratchett. It turns
out that the letters have not been written by one person, but by a number
of people, each person printing one letter at a time. The style of the letters
suggests gangsters who are going to get revenge on Ratchett for having
double-crossed them.
Christie is giving us another hint here; the letter was written by a
group of peoplean important bit of information. What cracks the case
open, actually, is a scrap of paper Poirot rescues from a fire in Ratchett's
apartment; the paper has three words on it, and part of a fourth:"member
little Daisy Armstrong" (p. 71). This tells Poirot who the dead man is and
sets the stage for him to determine who murdered Ratchettand why
he had to leave the United States. This scrap of paper ultimately enables
Poirot to figure out that everyone on the train is connected, one way or
another, with Daisy Armstrong's family and to solve the crime.
58
NARRATIVES
5:17a.m.TahitifromSydney to Papeete.
6:03 a.m.Admiral PeoplesfromAstoria.
8:07 a.m.Caddopeakfrom San Pedro.
8:17a.m.SilveradofromSan Pedro.
8:25 a.m.La PalomafromHong Kong.
9:03 a.m.Daisy GrayfromSeattle.
He read the list slowly and when he had finished he underscored
Hong Kong with a fingernail, cut the list of arrivals from the paper with
his pocket-knife, put the rest of the paper and Cairo's sheet into the
wastebasket, and returned to his office, (p. 143)
59
Yes, I got it. I've been waiting
NARRATIVES
60
Most confessions in murder mysteries are not like this one; usually
the murderer, having been exposed, explains why or how he or she did
the murder, and that wraps up the story very neatly. In some cases where
it is impossible to prove who did the killing, a confession is used to catch
the murderer. In such stories the murderer usually thinks he or she has
the detective or another person in his or her power; feeling safe, the
murderer explains why and how he or she did the murder. This explanation, which functions as a confession, is overheard by the police, who
then come in and arrest the murderer.
Conclusion
We can see that a good deal of storytelling relies on authors' transmitting information to readers directly (through descriptions, summaries, stereotypes, and other means) or indirectly (by having characters
transmit information to one another through dialogue, letters, phone
calls, and so on). We can think of such techniques as devices that authors
use to generate certain effects in readers. Texts are not simple, natural
matters, but complex works that achieve their effects as the result of
authors' skills in blending action, dialogue, and characterization and
offering information of various kinds to readers.
When we read a detective storyor any narrative, for that matter
we may be intrigued by the complexity of the plot, but we should also
be aware of the numerous devices and techniques the author uses to
achieve his or her ends. The degree to which we are unaware of the use
of these devices is one of the marks of a good writer.
Nothing . . . is more possible than that [the novelist] be of a turn of mind for
which this odd literal opposition of description and dialogue, incident and
description, has little meaning and light. People often talk of these things as if
they had a kind of internecine distinctness, instead of melting into each other
at every breath, and being intimately associated parts of one general effort of
expression. I cannot imagine composition existing in a series of blocks, nor
conceive, in any novel worth discussing at all, of a passage of dialogue that is
not in its intention descriptive, a touch of truth of any sort that does not
partake of the nature of incident, or an incident that derives its interest from
any other source than the general and only source of success of a work of
artthat of being illustrative. A novel is a living thing, all one and
continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion as it lives it will be
found, I think, that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other
parts.
Henry James, The Art of the Novel
(1934, quoted in Tzvetan Todorov, 1981, p. 9)
4
A Glossary of Terms
Relating to Narrative Texts
64
NARRATIVES
a broad philosophical nature and convey some kind of a moral. The
television series The Prisoner provides an example. This series involves a
spy who has resigned from that profession and is subsequently imprisoned on a mysterious island, deprived of his name and given a new
"designation" (Number 6); he has various adventures in which he fights
with the administrators of the island and tries to escape. Eventually, he
destroys the island and escapes. This series can be seen as an allegory
illustrating the triumph of the human spirit and democratic individualism over the forces of totalitarian bureaucracy and adversity in general.
Characterization: The ways in which the personalities and motivations
of characters are portrayed through description, action, dialogue, and
so on.
Characters: The people found in a story who do the actions that lead to the
resolution of the story (Bal, 1985, uses the term "actors"). Readers must
find characters interesting and want to follow their adventures, so
authors have to find ways of making characters worth bothering with,
so to speak. As a rule, the characters in narratives are not representative
of ordinary people. On television, for example, there are proportionally
many more police officers, detectives, and killers than there are in real
life, and many fewer blue-collar workers. Many narrative theorists argue
that character is the basis of action in narratives, whereas others argue
that action reveals character.
Climax or Crisis: The turning point of a story, when the most important
matter is somehow decided, setting the stage for the resolution of the
story. Every story must have a climax, must lead to some kind of
resolution that readers (ideally) find interesting and satisfying.
Complication: The introduction of opposition and conflict into a story after
the exposition. Sometimes a complication is internal and involves a
character who is torn between two choices, each of which is problematic.
In other cases, good guys (or good women) are opposed by bad guys (or
bad women) and the complication is easily recognized.
Dramatic irony: A state that occurs when a story resolves itself in ways not
anticipated (and generally the opposite of what is desired) by a particular
character. When a character who thinks he will victimize another character turns out to be victimized by that character instead, for example,
there is dramatic irony.
Episode: A scenario or scene in which an action takes place. A plot needs a
number of episodes to allow for adequate development, for rising and
falling action, for conflict, and for satisfying resolutions. For televised
serial texts, such as soap operas and situation comedies, episode refers to
a segment broadcast in a particular week.
Glossary of Terms
65
Event: An incident within a story that provides for "transition from one state
to another state" (Bal, 1985). An event is something that happens in"a text
that leads to something else happening and, ultimately, to the resolution
of the story.
Fabula: "A series of logically and chronologically related events that are
caused or experienced by actors" (Bal, 1985, p. 6).
Formula: A highly conventional scheme used in a text, involving stock
characters and recognizable plot structures. Genre texts such as westerns,
science fiction stories, detective stories, and romances are often highly
formulaic. They take place in certain kinds of locations and have specific
kinds of characters who engage in predictable kinds of actions. If we can
imagine a continuum between texts that are highly conventional and
ones that are highly inventive, formulaic texts would be found very close
to the conventional end of the continuum. Some publishers of romances,
for example, publish guidelines for authors that specify such things as
the ages of heroes and heroines, what they should look like, whether or
not either or both can be divorced (and, if so, how long before the action
of the story the divorce has to have taken place), whether or not they can
have sex before marriage, and so on.
Frame: A story that provides the means of telling other stories within it. For
example, in Rashomon, Kurosawa's classic film, a group of men take
shelter from rain in a temple, where they discuss an outrageous incident
that has occurred. It seems that a bandit has been captured who has tied
up a man, had sex with the man's wife in front of him (was it rape or
seduction?), and may have killed the man. The men in the temple provide
a frame for the plot as they discuss conflicting versions of what went on.
These versions, given by each of the characters involved, are told in
flashbacks. Frames are very useful in plots that have a serial nature and
contain a number of stories, such as 1,001 Arabian Nights.
Exposition or Rising action: Information provided to the reader about what
is going on; characters are introduced and readers get a sense of what
their relationships are. The action "rises" until there is some crisis, after
which it recedes and a resolution to the story is provided.
Flashback: A return in a story to events that took place at an earlier period
than the one being presented; also known as retrospect. Flashbacks help
readers get a sense of what happened earlier that led to the present
situation and what motivates characters.
Jeopardy: Danger; characters who are in danger of some kind are said to be
in jeopardy. Placing characters in jeopardy is a device used to create
interest and suspense in readers. For example, in Murder on the Orient
Express, Ratchett/Cassetti is in jeopardy; he has received letters threatening him with death. The 12 murderers of Ratchett/Cassetti are also in
66
NARRATIVES
jeopardy. The question is. Will Poirot find out who murdered
Ratchett/Cassetti? And when he does, what will he do?
Motivation: The reasons characters behave as they do. We want characters
to behave in logical ways, not just do things randomly. That is, they have
to have adequate reasons to do what they do, to support their behavior
they have to have good motives for their acts.
Narrative texts: Sequential texts that tell stories through the actions of
characters, through a narrator's voice, or some combination of the two.
This term is usually applied to works of fiction, although, of course, when
people talk to one another they often tell stories about things they or
others have done. Gossip often has a narrative, linear, sequential form
characterized by some combination of elements in the "he said/she
said/I said/we said/they said" formula.
Place: The setting where the events in a narrative text occur. Place is one of
two major orientation devices used by authors (the other is time). Audiences learn to read the meanings of settings, and certain actions and
activities, logically speaking, take place only in specific settings: Operations require hospitals, trials require courtrooms, and so on.
Plot: The way an author tells a story and arranges for events to occur. Plots
involve series of actions that are connected to one another and that are
resolved, ideally, in a logical and satisfying manner. Plots generally
include conflict of some kind that generates interest, suspense, and other
emotions in readers. Conflict can be external, between characters or
between a character and some institution, for example, or it can be
internal, in the mind of a character. If there is no conflict or opposition,
there is no suspense to tie events together and make readers interested
in the outcome of the story. Authors must make many choices in plotting;
an infinite number of things can happen to people, and authors must
choose particular ones to generate desired effects. According to Aristotle,
in a well-constructed plot everything hangs together, and changing one
thing will wreck the plot's unity and impact. It is also possible to imitate
the stream of consciousness and to offer audiences random events from
which they can construct some kinds of stories in their own minds.
Point of view: The vantage point from which the author creates a narrative.
Bal (1985) prefers the term "focalization," because she believes most
discussions of point of view are deficient and misleading. Most analyses
of point of view deal with omniscient narrators, naive narrators, and so
on. Bal notes: "All these typologies have proved more or less useful. They
are all, however, unclear on one point. They do not make an explicit
distinction between, on the one hand, the vision through which the
elements are presented and, on the other, the identity of the voice that is
verbalizing that vision. To put it more simply: they do not make a
distinction between those who see and those who speak: Nevertheless, it is
Glossary of Terms
67
possible both infictionand in reality, for one person to express the vision
of another" (pp. 100-101). She prefers the term focalization, then, which
she defines as "the relationship between the 'vision/ the agent that sees,
and that which is seen" (p. 104). The most general questions we have to
ask in thinking about point of view are (a) Who is telling the storyone
person or a number of different people? and (b) How much does the
storyteller know about what is going on in the minds of the various
characters? For example, a story may be told by an omniscient author
who moves in and out of the minds of various characters, by various
characters taking turns relating events in the first or third person, or by
one character (who may or may not be the main character or protagonist
of the story) relating events in the first person.
Recognition or Anagnorisis: A character's sudden realization of his or her
situation and what he or she can expect in the future. Recognition scenes
are often found in tragedies, when the protagonist suddenly discovers
or recognizes the full importance of what has happened and gets an
inkling of what is to come.
Resolution or Denouement: The way things turn out in a story after the
climax. The resolution should fit the nature and scope of the action that
has occurred before it. A resolution that involves a minor character who
has not been shown to have adequate motivation (the butler did it) or
the use of some other unexpected or improbable event brought in at the
last moment is considered to weaken a narrative. The term deus ex
machina (literally, "a god from the machine") is often applied to such
resolutions; it comes from an ancient practice of ending stage plays by
having a player in the role of a god wrap everything up after being
lowered onto the stage by a crane.
Stock characters: Characters who are recognizable as particular types,
stereotyped figures whose natures are easily recognized by readers.
Stock characters enable authors to take shortcuts and give readers a sense
of the behavior to be expected of these characters and the motivation for
their actions.
Story: The various events that occur in a narrative. The story is not identical
to the text; a given story can be told in a number of different texts. For
example, in films, many stories have been told several times; there are
two versions of King Kong for instance, and three of A Star Is Born, not to
mention reworkings of the same stories made under different titles. The
basic stories are the same (or very similar), but they are told somewhat
differently each time, using different actors and actresses, emphasizing
different themes, and so on.
Subplot: A secondary plot involving minor characters and their relationships.
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NARRATIVES
Summary: A recapitulation by the narrator or one of the characters of
important events that have transpired so far. Summaries are useful to
remind readers what has happened in a story up to a certain point and
to focus attention on certain events that authors want their readers to pay
attention to or keep in mind.
Symbolism: The use of objects, events, or actions to stand in for things
outside themselves. Thus in The Maltese Falcon, the statuette has symbolic
significance, representing the villain's greed and obsessiveness and, by
implication, the greed of a number of others who are willing to lie, cheat,
and kill to get their hands on it. The bird turns out, ironically, to be made
of lead, and thus also symbolizes the futility of much human action and
the genius individuals have for acting in self-destructive ways. A symbol
is something that conventional knowledge tells us stands for something
else; thus we have to be taught what symbols mean. The word symbol
comes from the Greek symballein, which means "to put together." Thus
a symbol brings two things togetherfor example, an object and an act
by a character that has some higher meaning. Critics often distinguish
between allegory and symbolism, using the latter term for something
that has a fixed, transcendental significance and the former for one whose
meaning becomes evident as the action progresses.
Text: Generally, any work that can be "read"whether a film, a television
program, a comic strip, a print advertisement, a television commercial,
or something else. Bal (1985) defines a text as "a finite, structured whole
composed of language signs" (i.e., words) (p. 5). Deciding what constitutes a text can sometimes be problematic. Consider, for example, a soap
opera that has been broadcast on television for 30 years. When critics
deal with this soap opera as text, do they have to deal with all 30 years
(impossible, obviously) or can they focus on some segment of it or even
one day's installment?
Theme: A message a narrative conveys about life and human relationships.
Consider, for example. Murder on the Orient Expressthe story is about
the ritual murder of a man on a train by a group of people, but its themes
include the importance of justice being done and the value of compassion.
Time: Along with place, one of the basic orientation devices found in texts.
It is often important for readers to know the time period in which a text's
action takes place because this can play a role in the way they interpret
the meanings of various events. Westerns, for example, take place at the
end of the nineteenth century, when the American legal system had not
been established throughout U.S. territory, and science fiction usually
takes place in the future, when various technological marvels, such as
spaceships, will be (or so it is thought) commonplace.
Glossary of Terms
69
Tone: The style of writing and the attitude or feeling displayed by the author
toward the readers and what occurs in the text. An author can adopt any
tone he or she chooses in creating a textplayful, serious, ironic, solemn,
or something else. The use of the term tone in reference to texts was made
popular by the work of I. A. Richards.
Voice: The persona of the author displayed in the text. Voice may be said to
be almost synonymous with tone, for the voice of the author is the major
element in tone. One could say that it is voice that creates tone. If an
author's voice is, for instance, insouciant and smart-alecky, this tells
readers how they should feel about the events taking place in the story
and also reveals the author's attitudes about these events.
A Final Note
In this brief glossary, I have listed and briefly described a number of
the most important concepts used by critics in dealing with narrative
texts. There is much more to literature, of course, than narrative texts
even though, as I pointed out earlier, much of our television viewing
involves narratives, as does much of our reading. Even nonfiction genres
such as historical books, science books, biographies and autobiographies, and reference books of all kinds do, in fact, have a narrative
structurebecause, I would suggest, it is narratives that most closely
approximate our lives, our way of functioning in the world and making
sense of it. If "all the world's a stage," as Shakespeare tells us it is, then
it is stories that we see on that stage; in many cases, the stories that
interest us most are our own stories, but we also find other stories
interesting and useful because we are diverted from our cares and
worries by them, often can learn from them, and derive some comfort
from their resolutions (which we do not find in our lives).
5
Dreams
A Freudian Perspective
71
72
NARRATIVES
Dreams
73
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NARRATIVES
breaks down when faced by dreams which are not merely unintelligible
but also confused
Most of the artificial dreams constructed by imaginative writers are
designed for symbolic interpretation of this sort: they reproduce the
writer's thoughts under a disguise which is regarded as harmonizing
with the recognized characteristics of dreams, (p. 129)
Freud does not believe that this is the best method of interpreting
dreams. His comments about artificial dreams, however, can be extended
to cover narrative texts and to suggest that these texts are, in interesting
ways, connected to the dreams and imaginations of creative writers.
Freud then discusses the second popular method of dream interpretation, which, he says, can be described as a kind of decoding that treats
dreams as a form of cryptography, in which every sign in a dream can
be seen as representing another sign whose meaning is known in accordance with a fixed set of interpretations (p. 13). He mentions dream books
that claim to tell readers what given symbols in dreams mean, without
consideration of who is doing the dreaming. He mentions a modification
of this method that can be found in the work of an ancient Greek,
Artemidoris of Daldis:
This method takes into account not only the content of the dream but
also the character of the dreamer; so that the same dream-element will
have a different meaning for a rich man, a married man, a bachelor or a
merchant. The essence of the decoding procedure, however, lies in the
fact that the work of interpretation is not brought to bear on the dreams
as a whole but on each portion of the dream's content independently, as
though the dream were a geological conglomerate in which each fragment of rock required a separate assessment, (pp. 130-131)
He even quotes, in a footnote, a writer who suggests that we make sense
of dreams by interpreting them in terms of their opposites.
Although Freud is talking about interpreting dreams, it is not difficult
to see the relevance of his theories for narrative texts in general. His use
of the word decoding anticipated the use of the word by contemporary
critics. Dreams, Freud says, really do have meaning, and there is a
scientific means of interpreting this meaning; we might not agree with
the use of the word scientific in connection with decoding or analyzing
narrative texts, but most critics believe that texts can be interpreted and
that some methods of interpretation are better than others.
Dreams
75
Elements in Dreams
There are a number of processes that gb on during dreaming, and
these have been described in a succinct manner by Erich Fromm in his
book The Forgotten Language (1957). Fromm explains that dreams
require interpretation that must be keyed to the dreamer's life and
experiences. Fromm discusses Freud's ideas about the various elements in dreams:
T h e t r u e d r e a m , w h i c h is t h e e x p r e s s i o n o f o u r h i d d e n desires, F r e u d c a l l s
t h e "latent d r e a m . " T h e d i s t o r t e d v e r s i o n o f t h e d r e a m a s w e r e m e m b e r
it is t h e "manifest d r e a m . " T h e m a i n m e c h a n i s m s t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e
d r e a m - w o r k t r a n s l a t e s t h e latent into t h e m a n i f e s t d r e a m a r e c o n d e n s a tion, d i s p l a c e m e n t a n d s e c o n d a r y e l a b o r a t i o n . B y c o n d e n s a t i o n F r e u d
refers t o t h e fact t h a t t h e m a n i f e s t d r e a m is m u c h s h o r t e r t h a n t h e l a t e n t
d r e a m . It l e a v e s o u t a n u m b e r o f e l e m e n t s o f t h e latent d r e a m , c o m b i n e s
fragments of various elements and condenses them into o n e n e w element
in t h e m a n i f e s t d r e a m
a n e l e m e n t o f t h e l a t e n t d r e a m , a n d often a v e r y i m p o r t a n t o n e , is
NARRATIVES
76
Symbols in Dreams
Freud discusses the nature of symbolism in The Interpretation of
Dreams. He explains that symbolism is found in places other than dreams
and is characteristic of the process of unconscious ideation. He adds that
symbolism is also found in folklore, popular myths, legends, proverbial
wisdom, linguistic idioms, and jokes to a greater extent than in dreams.
Analyzing symbols, he continues, is very complicated and problematic
because of the way dreams disguise latent thoughts. But it is possible to
point out that some symbols are "habitually employed to express the
same thing" (p. 387), even though we must be careful to focus attention
on the individual dreaming and the individual's dream.
Although we cannot say that a symbol always means a particular
thing in a dream, certain symbolsby virtue of their similarity to genitalia, in shape or in functiontend to have specific meanings. Thus
Freud (1900/1965) writes:
All elongated objects, such as sticks, tree-trunks and umbrellas (the
opening of these last being comparable to an erection) may stand for the
male organ... as well as all long, sharp weapons, such as knives, daggers
and pikes.. . . Boxes, cases, chests, cupboards and ovens represent the
uterus . . . and also hollow objects, ships and vessels of all kinds. . . .
Rooms in dreams are usually women
Steps, ladders or staircases, or,
as the case may be, walking up or down them, are representations of the
sexual act. (pp. 389-390)
Dreams
77
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NARRATIVES
situation was a representation of coitus" (p. 61). Fourth, the woman was
able to interpret the transparent gray garment as a condom. The woman
had been worried about conceiving and this, Freud suggests, may have
played a role in generating the dream. Fifth, the black coat and gray
trousers refer to the way the woman liked to see her husband; she wanted
to convince him to dress well, instead of wearing his usual clothes. And
finally, Rumpelstiltskin was connected to the day's residue in the
woman's psyche by an antithetic relation and offered insights into the
infantile stratum of dreams. As Freud (1963) writes:
The droll little fellow, whose very name is unknown, whose secret is so
eagerly canvassed, who can perform such extraordinary tricksin the
fairy tale he turns straw into goldthe fury against him, or rather against
his possessor, who is envied for possessing him (the penis envy felt by
girls)all of these are elements whose relations to the foundations of the
patient's neurosis can, as I have said, barely be touched upon in this
paper. The short-hair of the manikin in the dream was no doubt also
connected with the subject of castration, (pp. 61-62)
Because we do not know much about Freud's patient, we cannot assess
how accurately he represents her and her problems, but his analysis of
her dream is an excellent example of the kind of interpretation that
Freudian critics make not only of dreams, but also of fairy tales (as we
will see in the discussion of Bruno Bettelheim's work in Chapter 6) and
other kinds of texts as well.
I find, generally speaking, that my students tend to dismiss Freud's
arguments out of hand as absurd. Although they usually consider his
notions to be ridiculous, they are able to apply Freud's concepts to
television programs and films and other texts with considerable facility.
The question I pose to them is one we might consider: Why, if Freud is
ridiculous, is it so easy to find phallic symbols, vaginal symbols, and all
kinds of other phenomena from Freud's theories in texts?
Dreams
TABLE 5.1
79
Differences B e t w e e n D r e a m s a n d F a i r y Tales
Dreams
Fairy Tales
pressures unresolved
pressures resolved
uncontrolled
personal, private
general, public
fugitive
long-lasting
and other kinds of narratives to which people are exposed. There has
been some attention paid in recent years, for example, to the ways films
and television programs have "invaded," so to speak, people's dreams.
Literary theorists talk about the notion of "intertextuality," by which they
mean that texts often draw upon, imitate, and are otherwise connected
to (whether consciously or unconsciously) other texts. This theory may
help us understand why some of our dreams take the forms they do.
And Freud reminds us that in dreams, and other kinds of narratives
as well, there is always a hidden symbolic (generally sexual) significance
to much of what characters say and do, and to the objects they use in
their everyday lives. This sets the stage for the discussion of another kind
of narrative, the fairy tale. Bruno Bettelheim, whose book The Uses of
Enchantment (1976) is considered to be one of the most important studies
of this genre, explains how dreams function (p. 54). He suggests that
fairy tales contain dreamlike aspects that are akin to what we find in the
dreams of adolescents and adults, but not of children.
Although an adult's dreams may seem incomprehensible, when
these dreams are analyzed all their details eventually make sense and
enable the dreamer to understand what has preoccupied his or her
unconscious mind. Thus we can gain significantly better understanding
of ourselves by comprehending aspects of our mental lives that have
escaped our notice, been distorted, or have not been recognized before.
Dreams are connected to inner pressures that individuals face that
they have not relieved, and dreams, Bettelheim suggests, don't succeed
in relieving them. Fairy tales, on the other hand, deal with general
pressures that all people face and suggest acceptable solutions. Generally
speaking, wish fulfillment is disguised in dreams, whereas it is much
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more openly expressed in fairy tales. Table 5.1 lists some of the differences in the functions of dreams and fairy tales. We can see that there are
considerable differences between dreams and fairy tales. It is to fairy
tales we now turn, to explore the narrative elements and psychological
significance of this important genre.
Fairy tales are the bedtime stories of the collective consciousness. They persist
in the cultural memory because they interpret crises of the human condition
that are common to all of us. They are shared wish fulfillments, abstract
dreams that resolve conflicts and give meaning to experience. Philosophers of
myth have sketched the genealogy of fairy tales, tracing most of them back to
primitive rites de passage and initiation rituals. In some way, most of them
celebrate the metaphoric death of the old inadequate self as it is about to be
reborn on a higher plane of existence. Like Charon's boat, they grant us
passage to a world where the mortal and the eternal, the sacred and the
secular, meet; where the past and the future are divined; where good and evil
clash, but where goodness, truth and beauty are destined to victory. Fairy
tales are thus primarily metaphors of the human personality, of the individual
psyche's struggle to be free of fear and compulsion.
The omnipresence of myths and fairy tales in so many aspects of
culturespeech, idioms, poetry, music, dance, painting, sculpture, drama,
fiction, filmsuggests that these stories describe and narrate the structures of
a collective as well as individual experience.
Madonna Kolbenschlag, Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye (1981, p. 2)
6
Fairy Tales
airy tales are, Bruno Bettelheim (1976) suggests, the most important
kinds of stories (that is, narratives) we are exposed to as children.
This is because, for reasons that will be explained shortly, they are vital
to the psychic development of young children. They are also, I will
suggest, a protonarrative, or ur-narrative, from which other popular
genre narratives have evolved.
In the analysis that follows I draw primarily upon Bruno Bettelheim's
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976)
and Max Lthi's The Fairytale as Art Form and Portrait of Man (1984),
though I use material from other sources as well. Luthi tends to focus
upon stylistic and aesthetic matters and Bettelheim on the psychological
meanings of fairy tales, but both authors consider fairy tales as a genre
and have important things to say about them.
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NARRATIVES
Fairy Tales
85
gested that the openings of fairy tales lead children from reality to the
unreal and that their closings bring them back from the unreal into the
real. Bettelheim asserts that such endings also reinforce the notion that
the child who is listening to the story, like the hero of the story, can
overcome obstacles and succeed in finding happiness in life.
Third, fairy tales have a basic bipolar structure. Lthi (1984) delineates
this structure, noting that in fairy tales we find extremes and polarities
characterized by "clarity, compactness, and exactitude" (p. 54):
The polarity minus/plus is the framework and the basis of the structure
of the fairy tale, in its entirety just as in individual details
A lack (or
a villainy which causes a lack) and its liquidation provide, according to
Propp, the basic structural pattern of the fairytale. Alan Dundes has
coined the abbreviation L-LL: Lack/Lack Liquidated for this pattern,
(p. 54)
Thus we see that there is an elemental simplicity to the fairy tale based
on bipolar opposition. One might add, keeping in mind Propp's notions
about the kinds of heroes and heroines we find in fairy tales, that there
is also a secondary polarity: villainy/defeat of villain. Lthi continues
with some typical situations found in fairy tales:
Examples of situations of lack are, according to Propp: The hero has no
bride, so he sets out to seek one; the king is ailing and in order to restore
his health, medicinal water or a magic bird must be fetched Examples
of villainies are the kidnapping of the czar's daughter; the doing away
with of a magical helper by the antagonist... . One sees that lack (e.g.
poverty) can result in villainy (the setting out of the children); a villainy
(e.g. robbery) for its part leads automatically to a lack The Lack/Remedy
is in fact the basic pattern of the fairytale and, moreover, of countless stories
and things that occur in life in general, (pp. 54-55)
This pattern is connected to our everyday lives, in which we often
experience the equivalent of fairy tale "lacks" (or, as I have suggested,
suffer from the actions of "villains") and do what we can to remedy these
situations. Connected to this lack/remedy structure is the general matter
of happiness/disturbance/happiness restored and other secondary polaritiesprohibition/violation, need/help, task/fulfillment, kidnap/
rescue, and so on. Many of these are polarities that I have sketched out
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in Table 2.3, in which I took Propp's functions and turned them into sets
of oppositions.
Bettelheim (1976) explains how the use of such polarities helps young
children deal with their problems. He explains that fairy tales characteristically suggest existential dilemmas to children quickly and pointedly. They enable children to recognize problems in their most essential
form, whereas more complex stories may confuse them. Fairy tales also
simplify all situations. Their figures are drawn clearly, and most details,
unless they are very important, are eliminated. Characters in fairy tales,
therefore, are typical rather than unique. Thus the simplicity of the fairy
tale plot assists young children, who lack the ability to understand
ambivalence and ambiguity, both to understand the nature of the problem the tale deals with and to identify with the heroes and heroines of
these tales.
Bettelheim (1976) contrasts fairy tales with what we find in many
modern children's stories that present a sanitized picture of reality:
C o n t r a r y t o w h a t t a k e s p l a c e in m a n y m o d e m children's s t o r i e s , in f a i r y
tales evil is a s o m n i p r e s e n t a s v i r t u e . In p r a c t i c a l l y e v e r y fairy t a l e g o o d
a n d evil a r e g i v e n b o d y in t h e f o r m o f s o m e figures a n d their a c t i o n s , a s
g o o d a n d evil a r e o m n i p r e s e n t in life, a n d t h e p r o p e n s i t i e s for b o t h a r e
p r e s e n t in e v e r y m a n . It is this d u a l i t y w h i c h p o s e s t h e m o r a l p r o b l e m ,
a n d r e q u i r e s t h e s t r u g g l e t o s o l v e it. ( p p . 8-9)
Bettelheim also notes that the polarization we find in fairy tales reflects
the polarization that dominates the mind of the young child, who cannot
understand ambiguities at this stage of development. I would add that
adults also polarize, recalling Saussure's (1966) notion about the way
concepts are interpreted and Jakobson's (1985) suggestion that the mind
finds meaning by setting up bipolar oppositions.
Fourth,/a/ry tales center on the actions ofheroes and heroines. All the other
figures are of secondary importance and are used to provide complications, to set the action in motion, to help the hero or heroine accomplish
some task, and so on. The heroes and heroines tend to be young, weak,
common individuals, and often we only know their first names (as is the
case with Jack in "Jack and the Beanstalk"). The characters are typical
and not unique, and this, I would suggest, allows children to identify
with them more easily.
Fairy Tales
87
Fifth, in fairy tales good and evil are omnipresent and the difference between
them is sharply drawn. Characters are either good or evil. This is because,
as Bettelheim points out, young children have not reached the level of
psychological development necessary for them to deal with ambiguities
and subtle distinctions. When young children are exposed to texts that
have moral ambiguities at too early an age, as is the case when they watch
certain television programs (soap operas, for example), they may experience psychological trauma that can affect their ability to relate to others
in their adult years.
The above discussion gives a highly generalized picture of the fairy
tale. Not all fairy tales take identical form, but the elements listed are all
typically found in fairy tales. They are highly formulaic stories passed
down through the ages, and they tend to have conventional beginnings
and endings; they are simply drawn, and do not go into detail as a rule;
and they have young, common, ordinary heroes and heroines who are
sharply delineated from the various villainous figures who battle with
them. These heroes and heroines generally either confront some villain
or strive to take care of some lack, and do so with the aid of helpers and
magic objects.
Fairy tales were originally oral in nature, one result of which is that
there are many different versions of particular stories, even though they
are now available in written form. With fairy tales it is the story that is
important, not the text. Different texts may vary in minor details, but as
long as the basic elements of the story are intact, the fairy tale will work
its magic.
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Fairy Tales
Myths
indirect
ordinary heroes, heroines
typical, generalized characters
simple presentation
no demands made on readers
the typical
happy endings
optimistic
ego integration depicted
direct, didactic
gods and demigods, superhuman characters
particularized heroes and heroines
majestic presentation
demands made on readers
the unique
tragic endings (often)
pessimistic
superego dominant
We can see that there are considerable differences between fairy tales and
myths. Myths play an important part in our psychological development,
but they are useful to people when they are older and can deal with the
psychological complexities of these stories. As Bettelheim suggests at the
end of his chapter on myths and fairy tales, myths project ideal personalities who act on the basis of their superego demands. Fairy tales, on the
other hand, depict an ego integration that makes possible the proper
satisfaction of id desires. This explains why myths tend to be pessimistic
and fairy tales are generally optimistic.
Bettelheim alludes to Freud's notion that the human psyche has three
components: the id, ego, and superego. This is known as Freud's "structural hypothesis." The three components may be described in simplified
form as follows:
, Id: d e s i r e
&
Ego: p e r c e i v i n g reality a n d a d a p t i n g t o it
Superego:
guilt
Fairy Tales
89
The problem with fables, Bettelheim asserts, is that they are too
explicit, too overtly moralistic, and leave nothing to the imagination of
the child. He points out that if a child happens, by chance, to identify with
the grasshopper in the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, there is no hope
leftonly doom awaits the child who has made this identification.
With this overview of the general nature of fairy tales in mind, I
would like to turn now to the way fairy tales function, to the way they
work their magic with children. I will focus here on the ideas of Bruno
Bettelheim and others concerning the psychoanalytic significance of
these tales.
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which occupy the child's mind, these stories speak to his budding ego
and encourage its development, while at the same time relieving preconscious and unconscious pressures. As the stories unfold, they give conscious credence and body to id pressures and show ways to satisfy these
that are in line with ego and superego requirements, (pp. 5-6)
The fairy tale offered didn't necessarily have anything to do with the
external life of the disoriented person, but had to do with his internal
conflicts. By contemplating the story, the person found his own solution
to his problems.
Fairy Tales
91
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92
risks and enduring trials and ordeals. But ultimately, children learn from
these stories that they will triumph, and this gives them the psychological support they need at their stage in the developmental process.
In the first half of The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim deals with
psychoanalytic processes and the way they relate to fairy tales, discussing a number of them briefly. In the second half of the book he offers
extended analyses of a number of classic tales, such as "Hansel and
Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Snow
White," and "Cinderella." His discussion of Cinderella is the longest of
the analyses, almost 40 pages long. I would urge anyone interested in
the relation of fairy tales to psychological processes or in psychoanalytic
criticism of texts to read this material. As an example of how Bettelheim
uses psychoanalytic theory to explicate fairy tales, I will analyze his brief,
but very perceptive, discussion of A Thousand and One Nights (also
known as The Arabian Nights or 2,002 Arabian Nights) from the first part
of the book.
A Synopsis of
A Thousand and One Nights
Let me first offer a brief synopsis of A Thousand and One Nights, a
collection of stories from Persia and India. The story of Sheherezade is a
frame story that introduces the collection (and ends it, after the last story
has been told).
A king named Shahryar has become very angry and terribly disillusioned with women because he has discovered that his wife has been
unfaithful to him (with black slaves) and that the same thing has happened to his brother, King Shahzeman. In addition, a powerful jinni has
also been betrayed by a woman he thought he had locked up carefully.
Shahryar finds out about his wife's betrayal from his brother, who
has grown weak because he is suffering from an internal woundthe
notion that nobody can love him. The same idea, we are led to believe,
afflicts Shahryar. He decides to give his life over to lust and sensual
pursuits, but vows also that he will not allow a woman to betray him
again, so every evening he sleeps with a virgin and then has her killed
the following morning. Finally, no young virgins are left in the kingdom
Fairy Tales
93
except Sheherezade, the daughter of the grand vizier. The grand vizier
doesn't want Sheherezade to go to King Shahryar, but she insists on
doing so in order to become his "means of deliverance."
Sheherezade tells her younger sister, Dunayazad, to come to the
king's bedroom after Sheherezade and the king have had sex and ask
Sheherezade for one of her delightful stories. Sheherezade then tells a
different story every night, but doesn't finish it, so the king doesn't have
her killed in the morning because he wants to hear how the story ends.
She ends one story and begins another each evening for 1,001 days. At
the end of the 1,001 days, Dunayazad is replaced during the storytelling
by the king's and Sheherezade's little son. Sheherezade declares her love
for the king, and he declares his love for her and his trust in her, and they
live happily ever after.
A Psychoanalytic Interpretation
of A Thousand and One Nights
Any text has a number of possible interpretations, depending on the
point of view, disciplinary identification, political beliefs, and so on of
the person making the interpretation. Even if one adopts a psychoanalytic perspective, there are many different schools of psychology, so one
can even expect differences among psychoanalytic interpreters. This
discussion follows Bettelheim's essentially Freudian analysis.
Bettelheim starts off by pointing out that the story involves a man
and woman who meet during a crisis in each of their lives: The king hates
women and is disgusted with life; the woman faces death but is determined to save the king from himself and to save herself as well. She does
these two things by telling the king many, many fairy tales. She needs to
do this, Bettelheim suggests, because people's psychological problems
are very complex and difficult to solve. They require a number of tales
(each of which has something to contribute to the healing process) to
generate the catharsis that is needed. It takes almost three years of the
continued telling of fairy tales to help the king escape from his depression and become cured. He has to listen, attentively, to fairy tales for a
thousand nights in order to reintegrate his personality, which had become completely disintegrated.
NARRATIVES
94
Fairy Tales
95
person suffering from neurotic problems "talks" with a therapist (sometimes over a long span of time) and, as a result of a variety of things that
happen, is helped or becomes cured.
One of the purposes of psychoanalysis is, according to Freud, to free
people from domination by their ids and help them nourish their egos.
"Where there is id let there be ego" is the famous phrase he used. (Those
wishing to find out more about psychoanalytic theory and practice
would do well to consult Charles Brenner's An Elementary Textbook of
Psychoanalysis, 1974, one of the best introductions to this complicated
subject.) It took 1,001 stories to cure the king, and it sometimes takes a
considerable number of sessions to help some individuals deal with their
problems.
Brenner (1974) suggests that fairy tales are usually the first kind of
stories that interest children because these tales deal with childhood
instinctual fantasies. He also argues that, when one probes their deepest
meanings, significant narratives are all ultimately connected to oedipal
themes. He notes, "For a literary work to have a strong, or, even more, a
lasting appeal, its plot must arouse and gratify some important aspect
of the unconscious oedipal wishes of the members of its audience" (p. 235;
emphasis added). The connections are not obvious, and people are not
generally aware of the role oedipal issues play in their lives, but the
reason works "resonate" in us, Brenner asserts, is that the connection is
made, at a level below that of our consciousness.
In a sense, one can say there is one "hidden" or "real" (what Jungians
would call an "archetypal") story that underlies all the other stories we
tell ourselves or tell othersthe story, disguised and camouflaged in
many different ways, of our battle to resolve what may be described
broadly as our oedipal conflicts. So all stories are, in reality, one story
the same old storya fight sometimes for love and sometimes for glory,
and sometimes for both.
NARRATIVES
96
All of these genres take elements from fairy tales and develop those
elements (and related narrative features) to a considerable degree. It is
not too much of a step, if you think about it, from a creature that eats
princesses to a dragon that breathes fire, to a Dracula or a Frankenstein's
monster.
From fairy tales, the most important kind of narratives we encounter
in childhood (from a psychological point of view), we move to comic
stripsone of the earliest kinds of print narratives to which we are
Fairy Tales
97
exposed and probably the first form of print narrative we are able to read
and understand on our own. It is also one of the longest lasting, given
that it is not unusual for particular comic strips to continue to appear for
40 years or moreor even longer in some cases, when the original artist
is replaced.
Narration or storytelling is also a main function of the comics. They are meant
to be read, as opposed to traditional narrative art meant to viewed and
interpreted. While they have never competed with the classics, they have
seriously altered popular reading habits by attracting readers away from pulp
magazines, dime novels, and cheap tabloids (only detective and science
fiction have withstood the competition and survived). The total work of some
cartoonists constitutes something like a novel on the pattern of Balzac's
human comedy or Faulkner's Yoknapatwpha County cycle. Little Orphan
Annie follows the picaresque pattern of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and
Gasoline Alley anatomizes an entire midwestem community much in the
tradition of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio or Sinclair Lewis' Main
Street (especially with the recent emphasis by Dick Moores and his successor
Jim Scancarelli on the provincial grotesque).
It has been suggested that the comics are closest to drama in that both rely
on the dramatic conventions of character, dialogue, scene, gesture,
compressed time, and stage devices, but probably the motion picture is closer.
Will Eisner, distinguished for his visual innovations in comic art, has stated
that "comics are movies on paper."
M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (1990, pp. xix-xx)
7
The Comics
NARRATIVES
100
Let me point out that there is a difference between comics and cartoons.
Cartoons, as a rule, do not have continuing characters; they also generally have only one frame, and the dialogue is not in balloons but is
usually found in a caption beneath the cartoon. The Far Side, for example,
is not a comic strip but a cartoon; it has certain types of characters, but
it doesn't have the same characters appearing regularly.
The Comics
101
102
NARRATIVES
manuals. (There are even books in comic strip format devoted to Freud
and to Marx.)
In recent years, comic strip artists have adapted the comic strip to
longer narrative forms, and we now have what are sometimes described
as pictorial novelsnovels that use the comic strip format to tell their
tales. An example of this is Art Spiegelman's Maus (1986), a work that
deals with a very serious subjectthe Holocaust. There are many others
as well.
The Comics
103
what characters are thinking and to tell something about what is going
on, and they need drawings to create characters with whom their readers
can identify, characters their readers find interesting, amusing, or exciting.
1994, p . 58)
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NARRATIVES
as a "cool" and not a "hot" medium (I would use the term artform instead
of medium). Cool media, according to McLuhan, have relatively little
information and, as a result, generate a good deal of participation. He
contrasts, for example, a photograph with a cartoon or comic strip;
photographs generally carry an enormous amount of information,
whereas comic strips do not.
Comics require their readers to interpret every sign (every facial
expression, action, thought, use of language, and so on) available and to
bring to the comics an understanding of human behavior and motivation. Readers fill in the outline provided by the comic strip, so to speak.
Let me illustrate this point by using a comic strip that has no dialogue
in it but that we are nevertheless able to understand; in effect, the reader
creates imaginary dialogue to explain the action.
The episode I will analyze is from Rudolph Dirks's The Katzenjammer
Kids; this particular strip was first published February 2,1930. The strip
deals with the continual battles waged by the Kids, twins Hans and Fritz,
with three adult figuresMama (often shown spanking the Kids for
stealing pies or wielding a rolling pin as a weapon), the Captain (a
shipwrecked sailor who functions as a father figure), and the Inspector
(a school administrator).
In this episode, the Captain and the Inspector steal a cake that is
cooling in Mama's kitchen. Mama sees footprints and follows them; she
stops following the footprints when she comes across the Kids, who are
innocently fishing, and, thinking they have stolen the cake, gives them
a spanking. The Captain and the Inspector see this but don't do anything,
and when Mama has gone back home, they bring the cake to a clearing
and start eating it. The Kids see them and decide to get revenge. They
create a contraption to simulate footprints and steal a pie that is cooling
in the kitchen. They make the footprints lead to the Captain and the
Inspector. Mama follows the footprints and dispenses justice with her
rolling pin. Then the Kids, carrying their pie and their footprint contraption, walk by the Captain and the Inspector.
There are numerous graphic devices used in the strip to help us
understand what is going on. In the first frame, we see a long ribbon of
smell leading from the cake to the Inspector's nose. That is, we are shown
that he is smelling a cake. In the next frame we see the Captain and the
Inspector peering into the kitchen. Heat lines are emanating from a cake
The Comics
105
106
NARRATIVES
and pie that are cooling on a table, and "SNIFF!" is shown underneath
the noses of the Captain and the Inspector. We do not actually see them
take the cake, but in the third frame, Mama looks at the table and notices
the cake is gone. There is a dotted line leading to her eyes and a big
question mark signifying that she wonders what has happened to the
cake. We are led to assume that the Captain and the Inspector have taken
the cake. Our familiarity with the characters of the strip over the years
gives us good reason to make this assumptionthough even if we don't
know the characters well, the logic of the narrative suggests, very
strongly, that they have taken the cake.
In the next frame Mama sees footprints and, putting two and two
together, she concludes that these footprints were made by the people
who stole the cake. If you look at the footprints carefully, you can see that
they were made by one person; that is, we don't have two sets of
footprints. Dirks is merely indicating, in a general way, that there are
footprints, and is not trying to be realistic. Mama follows the footprints
and in the next frame comes across Hans and Fritz, who are innocently
fishing. Assuming that they stole the cake, and not following the footprints further, she gives them a good spankingwhile the Captain and
the Inspector look on, hidden in the bushes. The expressions on the faces
of the Kids show they are suffering greatly as they are spanked. The
following frame shows the Kids crying as the Captain and the Inspector
walk past them, carrying the cake. The Captain lifts his hat, to acknowledge that he has seen them. In the next frame, the Kids, with angry
expressions on their faces, figure out how to get revenge. They take a
hoop and put shoes on it to make a device that generates a line of
footprints; then they steal the pie.
When Mama comes into the kitchen she is really surprised (as we can
see from her body language) and we see four question marks, indicating
that she wonders what has happened to the pie. She looks out the
window and sees the footprints. Armed with a rolling pin, she follows
the footprints, comes across the Captain, the Inspector, and a friend
eating the cake. We have here only the suggestion of footprints, for there
is only a line of single footprints, which is not what you get when a
person walks. In the last frame, Hans and Fritz, carrying their pie, walk
by the adults who have been soundly thrashed by Mama. The Kids are
shown smilinghaving gotten revenge and, in addition, having a nice
pie for themselves to eat.
107
The Comics
108
NARRATIVES
Calvin and Hobbes then look at an art book and find a work of pop arta
painting of a comic strip.
CALVIN: A painting of a comic-strip panel. Sophisticated irony. Philosophically challenging. "High" art.
In the last frame we find Calvin doing a drawing. Hobbes asks a
question:
HOBBES: Suppose I draw a cartoon of a painting of a comic strip?
Calvin replies:
CALVIN: Sophomoric. Intellectually sterile. "Low" art.
(Calvin and Hobbes Watterson. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate. AW rights
reserved.)
The Comics
109
a d v e r t i s e a n a p p e a l i n g w a y of life a s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e r e s t a u r a n t , c a u s i n g t h e
v i e w e r t o t u r n t o t h e p r o d u c t for gratification.
B r u c e K u r t z , Spots: The Popular Art of
American Television Commercials ( 1 9 7 7 , p . 9 4 )
8
The Macintosh "1984"
Television Commercial
A Study in Television Narrativity
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NARRATIVES
A Brief Primer on
Television (Video) Aesthetics
The question arises: If there are no frames to function as the primary
unit in television, what, if anything, has this function? My answer to that
would be the shot. Vladimir Propp (1928/1968) argues that the most
113
114
NARRATIVES
Definition
Meaning
Shot
close-up
intimacy
extreme close-up
inspection
medium shot
most of body
personal relations
full shot
all of body
social relations
long shot
context, scope
z-axis
involvement
wipe
imposed end
dissolve
weaker ending
Camera work
pan down
power of viewer
pan up
camera looks up at X
weakness of viewer
dolly in
camera moves in
observation
fade in
beginning
fade out
ending
cut
excitement
is p u b l i c . I n t h e c i n e m a , a l s o a p u b l i c o c c a s i o n g a t h e r i n g a l a r g e a u d i e n c e
i n t o a single r o o m , t h e a c t o r s a r e n e a r e r to the s p e c t a t o r s t h a n in t h e
theater, b u t in c l o s e - u p s t h e y a r e l a r g e r t h a n life. Television is s e e n a t c l o s e
r a n g e a n d in a m o r e p r i v a t e c o n t e x t . T h e c l o s e - u p o f t h e
television
p e r f o r m e r is o n a s c a l e t h a t m o s t n e a r l y a p p r o x i m a t e s d i r e c t h u m a n
contact, (pp. 30-32)
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117
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NARRATIVES
Television, we are led to infer, plays an important role in this dehumanized total society.
5. An extreme long shot of the inmates in a large auditorium. With this
shot, we now have the inmates seated and we see them all watching the
screen that was shown in the previous shot. There is a huge number of
inmates. We can see, in retrospect, that the first five shots have all been
of the inmates as they marched toward and into the auditorium.
6. A medium shot ofa woman swinging an object. Here we are introduced
to the heroine of this drama, an attractive blonde woman who shows that
not everyone is enslaved, that there are elements of resistance in this
institution or society. In the background we see a huge television screen
that is the object of attention of the members of the audience. In the
commercial, we see the blonde woman, her breasts heaving, racing
ahead of a pack of burly guards who are pursuing her.
7. A second medium shot, from the opposite angle, of the woman swinging
an object. In the storyboard, the object looks like a bat or a piece of wood;
this is replaced in the commercial by a much more symbolic sledgehammer. We also see a huge screen (with a gigantic head on it mumbling
gobbledygook) that is the object of her attack.
8. A shattered screen. This is one of the most significant images in the
commercial. The woman has thrown her sledgehammer at the screen and
shattered it. In so doing, we are led to believe, she has inflicted a mortal
wound on the organization that enslaves the inmates by, so it is suggested, controlling their minds. In the commercial, the skinheads sit
transfixed by the speaker on the huge television screen. After the screen
has been shattered, they have astonished looks on their faces.
9. The beginning of the Apple Macintosh announcement starts scrolling.
We see the Apple Macintosh announcement beginning to appear.
10. The full Apple Macintosh announcement is on screen. The announcement reads: "On January 19th Apple Computer will introduce
Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984/ " The commer-
119
cial plays off of comparisons between the year 1984 and George Orwell's
imagined future of that year in his dystopian novel 1984.
120
NARRATIVES
111
and adolescents, and on adults as well. We may be more like the zombies
in the "1984" Macintosh commercial than we imagine, and we need
someone to help us break out of the trances we fall into when we turn
on our television sets and stare at them for 4 hours each day (and there
are addicts who spend considerably more time watching television).
Television in the United States is, I would suggest, like an invading
fungus in a treeyou don't see anything from the outside, but the fungus
slowly kills the tree. (There's nothing in the medium that makes it that
way; rather, the economic arrangements, I would suggest, have led to
the debasement of the medium.) Television is devastating our culture
and corrupting our political life. Many would argue that television, more
than any other medium (though the record industry might be a close
second), is having a very negative influence on our childrenexposing
them to mind-numbing violence and excessive sexual excitement.
If we cannot figure out how to counter television's influence on our
children, our institutions, and our society in general and somehow
control it, there is no telling what its effects will be in the future. We may
find, as we recall the "1984" Macintosh commercial, that we have become
prisoners in a total institution or total society of our own making.
P e t e r B r o o k s briefly p o i n t s to t h e fact t h a t n a r r a t i v e s e e m s t o c h a n g e in
c u l t u r a l i m p o r t a n c e a t different m o m e n t s o f h i s t o r y a n d w i t h i n different
s p h e r e s o f c u l t u r e a n d c o n s u m p t i o n . R i g h t n o w w e s e e m t o b e in a n a g e
s e e k i n g b e y o n d n a r r a t i v e , especially in a r e a s o f h i g h c u l t u r e . In p o p u l a r
fiction
9
The Popular Culture Novel
novel is
u s e d in its b r o a d e s t s e n s e t o d e s i g n a t e a n y e x t e n d e d
fictional p r o s e n a r r a t i v e . In p r a c t i c e , h o w e v e r , its u s e is c u s t o m a r i l y
r e s t r i c t e d t o n a r r a t i v e s in w h i c h t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f c h a r a c t e r o c c u r s
e i t h e r in a s t a t i c c o n d i t i o n o r in t h e p r o c e s s o f d e v e l o p m e n t a s t h e r e s u l t
of events or actions, (p. 3 1 8 )
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NARRATIVES
Thrall et al. note that the term comes from the Italian novella, "a short,
compact, broadly realistic tale" that was popular in the middle ages. We
use the term novella now to refer to a narrative that is longer than a short
story but shorter than a novel. In very broad measure, short stories can
be any length from a few to 50 pages, novellas anything from 50 to 100
pages or so, and novels anything longer. However, it is hard to put
numerical limits on art forms; who is to say that a given work is really a
long novella rather than a short novel?
Thrall et al. (1960) add some information about the formal characteristics of novels:
The
novel
i n c i d e n t o r P L O T . It m a y b e m e r e l y a series o f incidents s t r u n g t o g e t h e r
o n a string, a s t h e P I C A R E S Q U E N O V E L t e n d s to b e . It m a y b e f i r m l y
p l o t t e d , w i t h a s t r u c t u r e a s firm a n d s u r e a s that o f a T R A G E D Y . . . . It
m a y a t t e m p t t o p r e s e n t t h e details o f life w i t h a scientist's d e t a c h e d a n d
objective c o m p l e t e n e s s , a s in N A T U R A L I S M ; o r it m a y t r y b y I M A G E
a n d linguistic a n d s y n t a c t i c m o d i f i c a t i o n to r e p r o d u c e t h e u n c o n s c i o u s
flow o f t h e e m o t i o n s , as in t h e S T R E A M - O F - C O N S C I O U S N E S S N O V E L .
It m a y b e e p i s o d i c , l o o s e in s t r u c t u r e , e p i c in p r o p o r t i o n s w h a t is c a l l e d
" p a n o r a m i c " o r it m a y b e a s tightly knit a s a w e l l - m a d e play, b r i n g i n g
its m a t e r i a l f o r w a r d in d r a m a t i c o r d e r l i n e s s w h a t is c a l l e d "scenic."
(p. 3 1 9 )
We see, then, that novel is an umbrella term; it is really a site for all kinds
of different forms and styles of narratives that can have different aims
and purposes.
At the core, however, for a work to be called a novel, it must have the
fundamental features of a novel. First, it must be fictionalabout invented characters and not real people, though invented characters can
sometimes be tied to real people and real people sometimes appear in
novels. Second, it must be in prose, not in poetry, though the style of
some novels is very poetic and lyrical. Third, it must be extendedlong
enough to develop the characters in considerable detail and to have a
number of different events take place and be resolved in a satisfying
manner. The novel's resolution must deal with the complications in the
story and should conclude in a manner that is logical and reasonable.
The extended nature of novels helps to differentiate them from short
stories and novellas.
125
There are differing opinions about when the novel form originated,
but most critics agree that Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, written by Samuel
Richardson in 1740, is the first work that we can describe as a real novel.
Novels differ from histories, which are about the lives and doings of real
people, and from epics, which are usually long poems about national
figures with superhuman and divine characteristics.
A novel can be about anything; it isn't the subject that is important
but what the writer does with the subject, including what kinds of
characters the writer creates and what events he or she has these characters involved in. There are numerous stylistic possibilities open to the
novelist, which is why some critics describe the novel as a supergenre.
Michael Holquist (1981), in his preface to Mikhail Bakhtin's The Dialogic
Imagination, discusses Bakhtin's notions about novels and how they
relate to other genres:
O t h e r g e n r e s a r e c o n s t i t u t e d b y a set o f f o r m a l f e a t u r e s for fixing lang u a g e t h a t p r e - e x i s t a n y specific u t t e r a n c e w i t h i n t h e g e n r e . L a n g u a g e ,
in o t h e r w o r d s , is a s s i m i l a t e d t o f o r m . T h e n o v e l b y c o n t r a s t s e e k s t o
s h a p e its f o r m t o l a n g u a g e s ; it h a s a c o m p l e t e l y different r e l a t i o n s h i p to
l a n g u a g e s f r o m o t h e r g e n r e s since it c o n s t a n t l y e x p e r i m e n t s w i t h n e w
s h a p e s in o r d e r t o d i s p l a y t h e v a r i e t y a n d i m m e d i a c y o f s p e e c h diversity.
It is t h u s b e s t c o n c e i v e d either a s a s u p e r g e n r e , w h o s e p o w e r c o n s i s t s in
its ability t o e n g u l f a n d i n g e s t all o t h e r g e n r e s . . . t o g e t h e r w i t h o t h e r
s t y l i z e d b u t n o n - l i t e r a r y f o r m s of l a n g u a g e ; o r n o t a g e n r e in a n y strict,
t r a d i t i o n a l s e n s e a t all. ( p . x x i x )
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and elite culture in general. As far as novels are concerned, I think this
argument generally makes sensea poor "serious" novel is a poor work
and a fine "genre" novel is a fine work. A question suggests itself here:
Does a "genre" novel like Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon lose its
genre identity when it achieves a certain level of literary excellence? I
will leave this question unanswered, but I suggest that there are, in many
cases, differences between the novel, as we commonly understand the
term, and the popular culture "genre" novel. It is to the popular culture
novel that I now turn.
127
in P o p u l a r C u l t u r e G e n r e s
Western
Detective
spy
Science Fiction
Time
1800s
present
present
future
Place
American West
city
world
space
Hero
cowboy
detective
agent
spaceman
Heroine
schoolmarm
damsel
spy
spacegal
Villains
outlaws
killers
moles
aliens
Plot
restore law
and order
find killer
find mole
repel aliens
Theme
justice
discovery of killer
save world
Costume
cowboy hat
raincoat
suit
high-tech clothes
Locomotion
horse
beat-up car
sports car
spaceship
Weapon
six-gun
pistol with
silencer
ray gun
e m p l o y s h e r o e s like S h e r l o c k H o l m e s a n d H e r c u l e
like S a m S p a d e a n d M i k e H a m m e r ,
p r i v a t e i n v e s t i g a t o r s w h o h a v e a m b i v a l e n t relations w i t h t h e police. T h e y
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NARRATIVES
a r e often i n v o l v e d w i t h w o m e n a n d a l s o a r e often in d a n g e r ( c y n i c s m i g h t
say the t w o go together).
3.
f o r c e a n d u s e the r e s o u r c e s o f t h e p o l i c e ( l a b o r a t o r i e s a n d s o o n ) to t r a c k
d o w n criminals.
129
NARRATIVES
130
Thus in the first four pages of the novel we have Mike Hammer
pledged to kill the person who killed his best friend so brutallyno
matter who it is. We have a sadistic, cold-blooded murderer to contend
with, and we have a smart, tough private detective who, he tells us later,
131
isn't afraid to break an arm or play a bit fast and loose with the law to
accomplish his task.
In the course o f his investigation, Hammer meets and falls for a
beautiful psychiatrist, Charlotte Manning. Here is how Spillane describes her in a very important passage:
She strode provocatively across the r o o m and back toward me. U n d e r
t h e d r e s s h e r b o d y w a s s u p e r b S h e w a s s l i m m e r , really, h e r w a i s t thin,
but her shoulders broad. H e r breasts w e r e laughing things that w e r e
firmly in p l a c e , a l t h o u g h I c o u l d s e e n o s t r a p m a r k s o f a r e s t r a i n i n g b r a .
H e r l e g s w e r e e n c a s e d in s h e e r n y l o n s a n d set in h i g h heels, m a k i n g h e r
a l m o s t a s tall a s I w a s . Beautiful legs. T h e y w e r e s t r o n g l o o k i n g ,
shapely....
"Well, d o y o u like i t ? " s h e a s k e d a g a i n .
"Lovely. A n d y o u k n o w it." I g r i n n e d at her. " Y o u r e m i n d m e o f
something."
"What?"
" A w a y o f t o r t u r i n g a guy." ( p . 6 0 )
(Her thumbs hooked in thefragilesilk of the panties and pulled them down.
She stepped out of them as delicately as one comingfroma bathtub. She was
completely naked now. A sun-tanned goddess giving herself to her lover. With
arms outstretched she walked toward me. Lightly, her tongue ran over her lips,
132
NARRATIVES
making them glisten with passion. The smell of her was like an exhilarating
perfume. Slowly, a sigh escaped her, making the hemispheres ofher breasts quiver.
She leaned forward to kiss me, her arms going out to encircle my neck.)
The roar o f the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step.
H e r e y e s w e r e a s y m p h o n y of incredulity, a n u n b e l i e v i n g w i t n e s s t o t h e
t r u t h . Slowly, s h e l o o k e d d o w n a t t h e u g l y s w e l l i n g in h e r n a k e d b e l l y
w h e r e t h e bullet w e n t in. A thin trickle o f b l o o d w e l l e d o u t . ( p . 1 7 3 )
After he shoots her, Hammer discovers that Manning had a gun ready
to use on the table behind him, and that she was planning to blow his
brains out. (This fact is intended as justification for Hammer's killing
her.) The book ends with Charlotte gasping, incredulously, "How
c-could you?" and Hammer answering, "It was easy."
We can see that there is a symmetry in I, the Jury. Charlotte Manning
shot Mike Hammer's best friend through the stomach and Hammer
shoots her through the stomach. He has honored his pledge to avenge
his friend's murder. He justifies shooting Manning with a vigilante's
explanation: She would have gotten off if brought to trial. In addition,
she was planning on killing him, if he had let her embrace him.
The combination of violence and sexual titillation and teasing in /, the
Jury must have struck a responsive chord in the reading public, because
it was a great success from a sales point of view. But the book reflects
also a diffuse kind of anxiety about female sexuality: Men have to be very
careful, it suggests, because women will use their sexual attractiveness
to distract or even destroy men when it suits their purposes. The book's
enormous popularity suggests that it tapped something very basic in the
American psychea fear of women and a sense that individuals, at
times, have to take the law into their own hands. This latter notion is still
alive in U.S. society, as the militia movement shows.
A Concluding Note
on Fantasy and Reality
When we look at novels and other texts analytically, we focus on the
various techniques authors use to create the effects they want. From what
point of view (that is, in which person) do they write? How do they use
language? What are their descriptions like? What is their dialogue like?
How do they combine dialogue, description, and action?
133
T h e c e n t r a l p o i n t o f O r s o n Welles' b r o a d c a s t , it s e e m s t o m e , is t h a t t h e f r a m e
t h a t defines a p o c a l y p s e a s a useful fiction c a n n e v e r b e m a d e s e c u r e
enough.
10
Radio Narratives
A Case Study of the
War of the Worlds Script
136
NARRATIVES
FREBERG
Okay people, now when I give the cue, I want the 700-foot
mountain of whipped cream to roll into Lake Michigan, which has been
drained and filled with hot chocolate. Then the Royal Canadian Air Force
will fly overhead, towing a ten-ton maraschino cherry which will be
dropped into the whipped cream to the cheering of 25,000 extras.
FREBERG
SFX
FREBERG
SFX
FREBERG
SFX
FREBERG
SFX
FREBERG
SPONSOR
Wel-1-1-1
FREBERG
SPONSOR
FREBERG
Up to 21 inchesyes.
SOURCE: Reprinted by permission of Stan Freberg, Freberg Ltd. Los Angeles, CA.
Today Freberg would have to change the last line, given that television sets are made in much larger sizes now than when he wrote the ad,
but his point is still valid: You can do things with radio that you can't do
with television or filmeven with the new technologies that have been
developed. That's because the images a radio presentation generates in
our minds are our own, private, personal ones. The images we see on
television and in films, on the other hand, are always mediatedthat is,
they are always someone else's images.
The only limitation radio faces is that of the human imagination, and
that is boundless. We must recognize, also, that the human voice is an
incredibly powerful instrument. Performers can create all kinds of effects
by their use of accents, by the tones in which they speak, by the softness
Radio Narratives
137
or loudness of their voices, and by using devices that affect the sounds
of their voices and generate special effects, such as echoes. (This also
applies to film and television and other media as well.)
There are, for example, "educated voices," voices that sound as
though they must belong to educated or professional people. We can
suggest socioeconomic class, geographic region, and race by accent,
among other things. So the human voice is a remarkable instrument and
can be used to give listeners all kinds of information that need not necessarily be stated. But using dialogue, music, and sound, script writers must
make certain that their audiences understand and can easily follow what
is happening in their stories. That means that stories have to be written
in a rather simple manner and that the characters or a narrator must
provide information to audiences about motivation and actions.
138
NARRATIVES
T A B L E 10.1
R a d i o Script Terms
Fade in
The sound starts from nothing and rises to normal speaking level. This
Fade out
The sound becomes fainter and fainter and gradually disappears. Most
Cross-fade
Under
Music or other sounds are soft and heard "under" the dialogue.
Over
Up
Out
U p and out
Sting
Filter
On mike
Off mike
Sound effects
to happen.
(1966):
L o n g b e f o r e t h e b r o a d c a s t h a d e n d e d , p e o p l e all o v e r t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s
w e r e p r a y i n g , c r y i n g , fleeing frantically t o e s c a p e d e a t h f r o m t h e M a r tians. S o m e r a n t o r e s c u e l o v e d o n e s . O t h e r s t e l e p h o n e d f a r e w e l l s o r
warnings, hurried to inform neighbors, sought information from newsp a p e r s o r r a d i o s t a t i o n s , s u m m o n e d a m b u l a n c e s a n d p o l i c e c a r s . A t least
six million p e o p l e h e a r d t h e b r o a d c a s t . A t least a million o f t h e m w e r e
f r i g h t e n e d o r d i s t u r b e d , (p. 4 7 )
T h i s is a r e m a r k a b l e t e s t i m o n i a l t o t h e p o w e r o f a n a r r a t i v e , i n t h i s c a s e
o n e b r o a d c a s t b y t h e m a s s m e d i a , t o affect l a r g e n u m b e r s of p e o p l e in
p r o f o u n d w a y s . C a n t r i l e s t i m a t e s t h a t t h e f i g u r e o f a m i l l i o n p e o p l e is
probably quite conservative.
Cantril believes that the p a n i c created b y the b r o a d c a s t w a s tied to
a n x i e t y a n d fear t h a t w e r e "latent in t h e g e n e r a l p o p u l a t i o n " (p. 2 0 2 ) ; t h e
Radio Narratives
139
140
NARRATIVES
a s m o r t a l a s his o w n . W e k n o w n o w t h a t a s h u m a n b e i n g s b u s i e d
t h e m s e l v e s a b o u t their v a r i o u s c o n c e r n s t h e y w e r e s c r u t i n i z e d a n d
studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a m a n with a microscope might
s c r u t i n i z e t h e t r a n s i e n t c r e a t u r e s that s w a r m a n d m u l t i p l y in a d r o p o f
w a t e r , (in C a n t r i l , 1 9 6 6 , p . 4 )
Basically, the openings are the same, except that the script uses the phrase
"we know now" twice instead of Wells's rather impersonal "No one
would have believed." The drama is set in motion by this opening.
The script then cuts out a bit of Wells's language that follows this
passage, and then repeats his dulling words that came next in a marvelous bit of writing. In Wells's ( 1 8 9 8 / 1 9 6 4 ) novel:
Yet a c r o s s t h e g u l f o f s p a c e , m i n d s t h a t a r e t o o u r m i n d s a s o u r s a r e t o
t h o s e o f t h e b e a s t s that p e r i s h , intellects v a s t a n d c o o l a n d u n s y m p a t h e t i c
r e g a r d e d this e a r t h w i t h e n v i o u s e y e s , a n d s l o w l y a n d s u r e l y d r e w t h e i r
p l a n s a g a i n s t us. A n d e a r l y in the t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y c a m e t h e g r e a t
disillusionment, ( p . 7 )
The only important change here is Koch's substitution of "in the thirtyninth year of the twentieth century" (or 1 9 3 8 , the year of the broadcast)
for "early in the twentieth century." The script then adds some further
information:
Radio Narratives
141
It w a s n e a r t h e e n d o f O c t o b e r . B u s i n e s s w a s better. T h e w a r s c a r e w a s
o v e r . M o r e m e n w e r e b a c k at w o r k . Sales w e r e p i c k i n g u p . O n this
particular evening, October 3 0 , the Crossley service estimated that thirtyt w o million p e o p l e w e r e listening in o n their r a d i o s , (in C a n t r i l , 1 9 6 6 ,
p. 5 )
The Interruptions
In the script, after Orson Welles finishes his opening monologue, an
announcer gives a weather forecast and then switches to the Meridian
Room of the Hotel Park Plaza in New York for some music. The script
then has a series of interruptions in which "a special bulletin from the
Intercontinental Radio News" tells of a Professor Farrell in an observatory in Chicago observing some explosions on Mars.
142
NARRATIVES
The script switches back and forth between the music at the Hotel
Park Plaza and interruptions in which various authorities are interviewed and the radio overhears, so to speak, events being acted out. An
announcer interrupts the music to bring an interview by reporter Carl
Phillips with Professor Richard Pierson, a "famous astronomer" at
Princeton University. Pierson, the hero of the story, is played by Orson
Welles. Later on, reports from other professors are given and the news
that a "huge, flaming object" has fallen in a field 11 miles from Princeton
University. Phillips interviews a folksy farmer, Mr. Wilmuth, on whose
farmland the object has fallen.
Phillips and Pierson are on hand when the creatures in the space
capsule start unscrewing its hatch and then show themselves. Phillips
describes itGood heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a grey
snake. Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me.
There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like
wet leather. But that face. It... it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself
to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The
mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem
to quiver and pulsate, (in Cantril, 1966, p. 16)
The script at this point indicates various sound effects, such as
clanking sounds, hissing sounds, humming sounds, shouts from crowds,
and explosions, to give listeners an idea of what is happening and
establish a mood of panic and terror in the people involved with the
Martians.
Next there are a couple of scenes in which military forces attempt to
destroy the Martians, but are unsuccessful. The Martians have heat rays
and discharge thick black smoke that kills everyone. The Martians, in
five big machines, are devastating all that lies before them. And more
Martian space cylinders are falling all over the country. People are fleeing
in boats, the streets are jammed with confused people, who are "falling
like flies." An announcer describes the black smoke coming toward him.
He says that it's "100 yards away... it's 50 feet
" The script then cuts
to an operator trying to reach someone:
2X2L calling CQ....
2X2L calling CQ....
Radio Narratives
143
2 X 2 L calling C Q . . . . N e w Y o r k .
Isn't t h e r e a n y o n e o n t h e air?
Is t h e r e a n y o n e
2X2L
(in C a n t r i l , 1 9 6 6 , p . 3 1 )
This character is silenced, and we have the idea that the Martians are
killing everyone. This leads to an intermission. An announcer indicates
to listeners of the program that they are hearing Orson Welles and the
Mercury Theatre in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds.
After the break, Pierson becomes the dominant figure.
144
NARRATIVES
f u r t h e r significance t h a n a s t h e h o l i d a y
offering it w a s i n t e n d e d to b e . T h e M e r c u r y T h e a t r e ' s o w n r a d i o v e r s i o n
o f d r e s s i n g u p in a s h e e t a n d j u m p i n g o u t o f a b u s h a n d s a y i n g B o o ! (in
Cantril, 1 9 6 6 , p. 4 2 )
He adds a few more lines about Halloween, and the program ends. This
announcement was not very effective in averting panic; by the time
Welles made it, huge numbers of impressionable listeners had been
frightened, and many were panic-stricken.
When we look at the War of the Worlds script today, it seems amazing
that a text so simple could have the effects it had. The program's
production values were quite modest: It included a few sound effects
here and there, and some crowd noises, but nothing very difficult to do
at all. The play's power came from the imagination of its audience, from
the audience's ability to "see" the characters and "participate" emotionally in the activities being described. This text functioned as it did (and
all stories, plays, movies, and so on function as they do) because of our
"willing suspicion of disbelief."
In this radio play, most of the horror comes from the descriptions of
the Martians and their death rays and other instruments of destruction.
It includes some action, in the scenes of the military trying to destroy the
Martians and instead being wiped out, but the second half has no real
action to speak of. Pierson talks with an artillery man who has crazed
ideas about how to survive in the sewers of New York, and then he sees
the dogs with chunks of the Martians, who have been killed by bacteria.
Bacteria, in fact, are introduced in the very first paragraph of the book
and in the opening speech of the play, so the story has a kind of circularity.
Radio Narratives
145
A Personal Note
I grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, when the radio was full of wonderful shows every weekThe Lone Ranger; Jack Armstrong (the All-American
Boy); Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons; The FBI in Peace and War; The Green
Hornet; Counterspy. And when I was in high school in Boston, at Roxbury
Memorial High School for Boys, I took a class in speech that took us to
a radio station, where we acted out scripts every weekalong with an
organist, who provided the "mood" music. It amazed me how little was
needed to put on a decent radio drama.
Radio drama has now been replaced, for the most part, by television,
and although television adds something to storytelling, it also takes a
great deal away, because we no longer have to use our imaginations to
visualize the stories we hear in our minds. I think we lost something
valuable when radio drama was displaced by TV.
T h e c o m m u n i t y in t h e w e s t e r n c a n b e s e e n a s a p o s i t i v e force, a m o v e m e n t o f
r e f i n e m e n t , o r d e r a n d local d e m o c r a c y into t h e w i l d s , o r a s a h a r b i n g e r o f
c o r r u p t i o n in t h e f o r m o f E a s t e r n v a l u e s w h i c h t h r e a t e n frontier w a y s
T h u s c e n t r a l t o t h e f o r m , w e h a v e a p h i l o s o p h i c a l dialectic, a n a m b i g u o u s
c l u s t e r o f m e a n i n g s a n d a t t i t u d e s t h a t p r o v i d e t h e traditional t h e m a t i c
s t r u c t u r e o f t h e g e n r e . T h i s shifting i d e o l o g i c a l p l a y c a n b e d e s c r i b e d t h r o u g h
a s e r i e s o f a n t i n o m i e s , so:
THE WILDERNESS
CIVILIZATION
The Individual
The Community
freedom
restriction
honour
institutions
self-knowledge
illusions
integrity
compromise
self-interest
social-responsibility
solipsism
democracy
Nature
Culture
purity
corruption
experience
knowledge
empiricism
legalism
pragmatism
idealism
brutalization
refinement
savagery
humanity
The West
The East
America
Europe
t h e frontier
America
equality
class
agrarianism
industrialism
tradition
change
the past
the future
In s c a n n i n g this g r i d , if w e c o m p a r e t h e t o p s a n d tails o f e a c h s u b s e c t i o n ,
w e c a n s e e t h e a m b i v a l e n c e a t w o r k a t its o u t e r limits: the West, f o r e x a m p l e ,
rapidly m o v e s from being the spearhead of manifest destiny to the retreat of
ritual. W h a t w e a r e d e a l i n g w i t h h e r e is n o less t h a n a n a t i o n a l - w o r l d v i e w :
u n d e r l y i n g the w h o l e c o m p l e x is t h e g r a v e p r o b l e m o f identity t h a t h a s
s p e c i a l m e a n i n g for A m e r i c a n s .
J i m Kitses,
Horizons West ( 1 9 6 9 , p p .
11-12)
11
Film Narratives
Distinctive Aspects of
Film as a Medium
When we see a film in a theater, the room is dark, we are in a public
space, and our attention is focused on huge images projected onto a
screen and the accompanying soundsmusic, spoken words, and various effects. When we see a film on television, the viewing situation is not
the same; we view it on a video screen, usually in a lighted room and in
147
148
NARRATIVES
as wide as high
The television screen is also 1.3 times as wide as it is high, which means
that when we watch some films on television, the images have to be
cropped or there are thick black bands on the top and the bottom of the
image to duplicate the 1.85:1 ratio. In addition, because of time limitations and commercials, films are often cut to fit certain time slots. We
don't generally see films on commercial broadcast television as coherent
texts, but rather as a series of miniscenes between commercials.
Also, of course, the images on television are much smaller than they
are in a movie theater, and the quality of sound is not as good. Altogether,
the considerable differences between seeing a movie in a theater and
seeing it on television combine to lessen the film's impact, though it still
can be significant.
Film Narratives
149
Montage
One of the most celebrated theorists of montage, Sergei Eisenstein
(1975), explains the way montage functions in an essay titled "Word and
Image." Eisenstein says that the filmmaker must present a narrative that
is not only logically connected but also has a powerful emotional impact.
That is where montage comes in. He describes montage by saying that
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NARRATIVES
any two pieces of film "of any kind, placed together, inevitably combine into
a new concept, a new quality, arising out of that juxtaposition" (p. 4). The way
this works, he goes on to explain, is by carrying the viewer along with
the emotions of the creator:
T h e s t r e n g t h o f m o n t a g e r e s i d e s in this, t h a t it i n c l u d e s in t h e c r e a t i v e
p r o c e s s t h e e m o t i o n s a n d m i n d o f t h e s p e c t a t o r . T h e s p e c t a t o r is c o m pelled to proceed along that selfsame creative road that the a u t h o r
t r a v e l e d in c r e a t i n g t h e i m a g e . T h e s p e c t a t o r n o t o n l y s e e s t h e r e p r e s e n t e d e l e m e n t s o f t h e finished w o r k , b u t a l s o e x p e r i e n c e s t h e d y n a m i c
p r o c e s s o f t h e e m e r g e n c e a n d a s s e m b l y o f t h e i m a g e just a s it w a s
e x p e r i e n c e d b y t h e author, ( p . 3 2 )
The film image, and the combination of film images that create montages,
then compels the viewer to experience certain emotions and feelings.
These montage elements, Eisenstein (1975) continues in an essay
titled "Synchronization of Senses," have an impact on every sense. He
quotes from the Goncourt journals some lines about an athletic arena:
In t h e d e e p s h a d o w o f t h e t w o e n d s o f t h e hall, t h e scintillation o f t h e
b u t t o n s a n d s w o r d hilts o f t h e p o l i c e m e n .
T h e glistening limbs o f w r e s t l e r s d a r t i n g i n t o t h e full l i g h t . C h a l l e n g i n g e y e s . H a n d s s l a p p i n g flesh in c o m i n g t o g r i p s . S w e a t s m e l l ing of the wild beast.Paleness b l e n d i n g w i t h b l o n d e m o u s t a c h e s .
Bruised flesh g r o w i n g pink.Backs sweating like the s t o n e walls o f a s t e a m
b a t h . A d v a n c i n g b y d r a g g i n g o n their k n e e s . W h i r l i n g o n their h e a d s ,
etc. etc. (p. 7 2 )
This prose has a number of direct appeals to the senses, which Eisenstein
lists for us:
touch ( b a c k s s w e a t i n g like t h e s t o n e w a l l s o f a s t e a m b a t h )
T h e s e n s e o f smell ( s w e a t s m e l l i n g o f t h e w i l d b e a s t )
T h e s e n s e o f sight including b o t h light ( t h e d e e p s h a d o w a n d t h e glistening
1. T h e s e n s e o f
2.
3.
color
(paleness
b l e n d i n g w i t h b l o n d e m o u s t a c h e s , b r u i s e d flesh g r o w i n g p i n k )
hearing ( h a n d s s l a p p i n g flesh)
T h e s e n s e o f movement ( a d v a n c i n g o n k n e e s ,
Pure emotion, o r d r a m a (challenging e y e s )
4. The sense of
5.
6.
w h i r l i n g o n their h e a d s )
Film Narratives
151
All of this leads Eisenstein to suggest that there is no appreciable difference between purely visual montage and montage that links various
spheres of feeling together in other art forms.
The short passage quoted and analyzed by Eisenstein shows how
even a relatively simple verbal text can generate sense experiences. Film
can do so also, but with even greater intensity and power. This happens
only when a film is successful, of course. But even second-rate directors
and flawed or poor films often generate powerful effects in viewers; the
element of psychic compulsion felt by those attending films and generated by filmmakers (if only for an interlude of an hour and a half or so)
is an important aspect of watching films.
John G. Cawelti
on the Western Formula
The western film I will be discussing here is one of the most famous
ever made: High Noon. Before I discuss it, however, I would like to say
something about what westerns are and the formulaic nature of the
western as a genre. Cawelti discusses some of the essential attributes of
the western in his book The Six-Gun Mystique (1971):
1. It m u s t "take p l a c e in t h e West, n e a r t h e frontier, a t a p o i n t in h i s t o r y w h e n
s o c i a l o r d e r a n d a n a r c h y a r e in t e n s i o n " a n d m u s t i n v o l v e " s o m e f o r m o f
p u r s u i t " ( p . 3 1 ) . T h e s e t t i n g i n t h e A m e r i c a n West, w i t h its p e c u l i a r
t e r r a i n ( o p e n plains, m o u n t a i n s , a n d s o o n ) i s c r u c i a l , a s is t h e t i m e
p e r i o d , n e a r t h e e n d o f t h e frontier, w h e n t h e W e s t h a d n o t b e e n fully
civilized. In this setting, t h e w e s t e r n c o s t u m e c o w b o y h a t s , b o o t s , a n d
s o o n m a k e s sense.
2 . It m u s t h a v e w h a t F r a n k G r u b e r , a w r i t e r o f p u l p w e s t e r n s , h a s d e s c r i b e d
a s o n e o f t h e s e v e n b a s i c p l o t s f o u n d in w e s t e r n s : ( a ) t h e U n i o n - P a c i f i c
Story, d e a l i n g w i t h t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of a r a i l r o a d o r t e l e g r a p h o r s t a g e c o a c h line, o r t h e a d v e n t u r e s of a w a g o n train; (b) t h e R a n c h Story,
focusing on battles'between ranchers a n d rustlers or cattlemen a n d
s h e e p m e n ; (c) t h e E m p i r e Story, a n e p i c v e r s i o n o f t h e R a n c h S t o r y ; ( d )
t h e R e v e n g e S t o r y ; (e) C u s t e r ' s L a s t S t a n d o r t h e C a v a l r y a n d I n d i a n
S t o r y ; (f) t h e O u t l a w S t o r y ; o r ( g ) t h e M a r s h a l l Story. G r u b e r m a y s i m p l i f y
t h i n g s a bit, b u t his list offers a g o o d s e n s e o f t h e n a t u r e o f m o s t w e s t e r n s .
3 . It m u s t c o n t a i n c e r t a i n c h a r a c t e r t y p e s , t h e m o s t d o m i n a n t o f w h i c h a r e
a s follows:
152
NARRATIVES
Film Narratives
153
Plot
Sample Film
Predominant
Time
Story Line
Classical
Shane
1930-1955
Lonegu
Lone gunfighter saves town or farmers.
Vengeance
Stagecoach
1950-1960
Transitional
High Noon
1950-1953
Professional
Rio Bravo
1958-1970
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NARRATIVES
These four basic plots are important because they are connected,
W r i g h t (1975) a r g u e s , to social a n d political institutions. T h e n a r r a t i v e
s t r u c t u r e , h e asserts, s p e a k s to p e o p l e a n d " m u s t reflect t h e social relationships necessitated b y the basic institutions within w h i c h they live"
(p. 1 8 6 ) . H e g o e s o n to explain these relationships in s o m e detail, w i t h a
particular focus u p o n economic considerations:
In t h e W e s t e r n , t h e classical plot s h o w s t h a t t h e w a y t o a c h i e v e s u c h
h u m a n r e w a r d s a s friendship, r e s p e c t , a n d d i g n i t y is to s e p a r a t e y o u r s e l f
from others and use y o u r strength as a n a u t o n o m o u s individual to s u c c o r
t h e m . T h i s p l o t e x i s t s in t h e c o n t e x t o f a r e s t r i c t e d b u t a c t i v e m a r k e t
economy. The vengeance variationin the context of a tentative planned
e c o n o m y w e a k e n s the compatibility of the individual a n d society b y
s h o w i n g t h a t t h e p a t h t o r e s p e c t a n d l o v e is t o s e p a r a t e y o u r s e l f f r o m
others, struggling individually against y o u r m a n y a n d strong enemies
b u t s t r i v i n g to r e m e m b e r a n d r e t u r n t o t h e softer v a l u e s o f m a r r i a g e a n d
humility. T h e t r a n s i t i o n t h e m e , a n t i c i p a t i n g n e w social v a l u e s , a r g u e s
that love and companionship are availableat the cost of b e c o m i n g a
social o u t c a s t t o the individual w h o stands firmly a n d righteously
a g a i n s t t h e i n t o l e r a n c e o f society. Finally, t h e p r o f e s s i o n a l p l o t i n t h e
context of a corporate e c o n o m y a r g u e s that companionship a n d respect
a r e t o b e a c h i e v e d o n l y b y b e c o m i n g a skilled technician, w h o joins a n
elite g r o u p o f professionals, a c c e p t s a n y job t h a t is offered, a n d h a s
l o y a l t y o n l y t o t h e integrity o f t h e t e a m , n o t t o a n y c o m p e t i n g social o r
c o m m u n i t y values, (pp. 186-187)
W h a t W r i g h t d e l i n e a t e s is, h e s u g g e s t s , a p i c t u r e o f t h e e v o l u t i o n
of
A m e r i c a n s o c i a l a n d e c o n o m i c t h o u g h t a s it w o r k s itself o u t o v e r t h e
y e a r s a n d is r e f l e c t e d , indirectly, i n t h e k i n d s o f w e s t e r n s t h a t h a v e b e e n
p r o d u c e d . W h a t W r i g h t ' s a n a l y s i s i m p l i e s is t h a t a s c e r t a i n b e l i e f s h a v e
b e c o m e d o m i n a n t in U.S. society, t h e y h a v e b e e n reflected in w e s t e r n
films. This h a s n o t b e e n d o n e consciously, o f c o u r s e , b u t h a s o c c u r r e d
b e c a u s e artists, w r i t e r s , a n d c r e a t i v e p e o p l e o f all k i n d s a r e a t t u n e d t o
d o m i n a n t c o d e s a n d reflect these c o d e s in their w o r k .
T h e t r a n s i t i o n a l t h e m e is s o m e w h a t u n i q u e i n t h a t W r i g h t s e e s o n l y
t h r e e films a m o n g the t o p m o n e y m a k i n g w e s t e r n s h e a d d r e s s e s a s fitting
into this category:
Film Narratives
155
its hearers (or viewers) and communicates this order through a formal
structure that is understood like language" (p. 17). This is an important
point. Myths are generally defined as sacred narratives, and these narratives give people a sense of who they are and how they should live.
They are not trivial, and thus neither are the western films that have
given form to American myths.
Myths work, Wright continues (taking some ideas from Claude LeviStrauss and Ferdinand de Saussure), by setting up bipolar oppositions
because meaning is tied, in essence, to this process. He quotes Saussure
on this matter: "Concepts are... defined... negatively by their relations
with other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in
being what others are not" (p. 22). Myths work, then, by setting up
bipolar oppositions that reflect and reinforce social understandings.
They are, Wright suggests, allegories for social action. It is necessary to
see both the oppositions found in the myths and the ways they are
embodied in narrativesthe events that take place in a story and the way
the story is resolved.
The basic oppositions that Wright finds in westerns, embodied in
their stories and in their visual aspects (clothing, scenery, movements,
expressions, and so on), are listed in Table 11.2. These four oppositions
are, for Wright, at the core of westerns; the characters and plots involve
various combinations and permutations of these oppositions. (We see a
somewhat different set of paired oppositions in the Kitses quotation at
the opening of this chapter.) Keeping in mind that narratives, by their
form, communicate ideas about how we are to see life, how we are to
behave, and how we should make sense of experience, let us consider
High Noon in some detail.
156
T A B L E 11.2
NARRATIVES
O p p o s i t i o n s in W e s t e r n s
inside society
outside society
good
bad
weak
strong
civilization
wilderness
Film Narratives
157
western: Those who are inside society (the cowardly townspeople) are
seen as bad and those outside society (Will and Amy Kane) are seen as
good. Kane, like the hero of the classical plot, is a man who is strong, who
has special abilities (he's good with a gun), so that opposition still
obtains, although Wright suggests that society is now strong and those
outside of it (Will and Amy) are weak, a view I find somewhat questionable. After all, Will and Amy confront Frank Miller and his men and kill
them. Wright does not see the opposition "wilderness versus civilization" as operating in High Noon, though he does find it in the other two
films he categorizes as transitional.
I would suggest that there are various kinds of conflict going on in
High Noon that give the story its resonance. On the most elementary level,
we have physical conflictthe matter of the gunfight and the events
leading up to itthat generates an enormous amount of tension. Kane
tries to get help to reduce the odds against him and cannot, and as he
struggles the time is passing and the train is bringing Frank Miller closer
to Hadleyville. The title of the film indicates the importance of time in
the story, and a number of shots call our attention to passing time. The
film runs from 10:40 a.m. to noon, a period that coincides with the actual
running time of the film.
Kane's wife, whom he has just married, has deserted him, or so it
seems. She is a Quaker and violence is against her religion. Thus there is
a moral conflict on her part: Does she follow her religion and let the man
she loves be killed, or does she help him, even if it means going against
her religious beliefs? At the end of the film we find that she has chosen
her love for Kane over her nonviolent principles.
Kane himself struggles with moral issues and, for a brief period,
abandons the town, but he quickly returns because he believes he has a
moral responsibility to do so. Our understanding of his sense of moral
obligation is heightened when we compare his actions with those of the
townspeople. The citizens of Hadleyville do not come off very well in
this story, from a moral point of view. In essence, they are a cowardly lot;
they will not help Kane defend himself, and indirectly themselves, from
Frank Miller and his gang. Had Miller killed Kane, it is implied that he
would have taken over the town again, and that lawlessness and random
violence would prevail.
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NARRATIVES
T A B L E 1 1 . 3 C o n f l i c t s a n d O p p o s i t i o n s in
Character
Realm
High Noon
Character
Frank Miller (and gang)
Will Kane
physical
moral
people of Hadleyville
moral
A m y as wife
moral
A m y as Quaker
moral
Hadleyville
Film Narratives
159
Narrative Analysis ( 1 9 9 3 ,
pp. 18-19)
12
Narratives and
Everyday Life
Differences Between
Narratives and Everyday Life
Narratives, as I have been using the term throughout this book, are
works of fiction that have sequence; that is, narratives are made-up
stories that unfold over time. Everyday life is real; it is the basic stuff, we
might say, of our lives. And it goes on, more or less automatically, until
we die. We can see, here and there, sequences and narrative elements in
our everyday lives, but that is not the same thing as saying they are
narratives.
161
162
T A B L E 12.1
NARRATIVES
Differences B e t w e e n N a r r a t i v e s a n d E v e r y d a y Life
Narratives (Mediated)
Everyday Life
fictional
real
all middle
focused
diffuse
repeat performances
vague goals
eventfulness basic
eventlessness basic
imitate life?
imitates art?
163
provide security. We want to save our energy for more important decisions. In this respect we differ from the heroes and heroines we follow
in narrative fictions; each of their stories (or each episode in the continuing series) is different from the last.
Relatively speaking, everyday life can be described as eventless,
whereas the lives of the characters we follow in narrative fictions are
eventful and highly charged. In serious dramas characters are faced with
various kinds of death and destruction. They have to catch murderers,
undertake risky actions, extricate themselves from or get themselves
involved in complicated love affairs, and so on. In comedies, the heroes
and heroines have to remove themselves from ridiculous messes they
create for themselves (or others create for them).
The characters in most genre fictional narratives, whether heroes and
heroines in comic books or detective novels or westerns or science fiction
adventures, do not have, so to speak, everyday lives; rather, they have lives
full of excitement and challenge. Now, interestingly enough, we use narrative fictions to fill up much of the leisure parts of our everyday lives. We
derive, I have suggested, numerous gratifications from narrative fictions
and put them to many usesfrom vicarious sexual titillation to exploring taboo subjects with impunity. It is television that occupies us, as a rule,
for something like 4 hours of our leisure time each day, and television brings
us many narrative fictions every day, as Esslin (1982) points out.
The question that many media theorists and researchers are wrestling
with now is, What effects are all these fictional narratives (which tend to
be full of violence and sexuality) having on us? Art imitates life, according to Aristotle. (Of course, in the mass media, art imitates life in a highly
distorted manner.) But is life now beginning to imitate art? With these
distinctions between narrative fiction and everyday life in mind, let us
consider a number of aspects of everyday life that have narrative elements
in themthat is, that have linear, sequential dimensions to them and,
generally speaking, some kind of resolutiondramatic or otherwise.
Jokes as Narratives
A joke may be defined as a short fictional narrative, meant to amuse
others, that ends with a punch line. There are many ways of creating
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NARRATIVES
humor other than by telling jokes: A person can use insult, victim humor
(insult directed at oneself), exaggeration, sarcasm, absurdity, allusion,
facetiousness, and so on. I list and explain 45 basic techniques found in
humor in my book An Anatomy of Humor (1993). These techniques are
also, I should point out, often found in jokes.
What is distinctive about jokes is that they are narratives that are
resolved by punch lines. Each element or part of a joke we can call a jokeme.
When you have a string of jokemes that end in a punch line, which "creates
the humor," you have a joke. Jokes take the following form:
A - B ~ C - D - > E - > F - > G - > H ( p u n c h line)
I (laughter)
Here A through G represent the parts of the joke (that is, the jokemes)
that lead up to H, the punch line, a surprise resolution of the narrative.
The punch line gives the joke "meaning" and generates laughter.
165
A s a n i l l u s t r a t i o n , let m e offer o n e o f m y f a v o r i t e j o k e s :
A m a n g o e s to M i a m i for v a c a t i o n .
A f t e r t h r e e d a y s i n t h e s u n , h e n o t i c e s t h a t h e h a s a g l o r i o u s t a n all
o v e r his b o d y e x c e p t for his penis.
T h e n e x t d a y , h e g o e s t o a d e s e r t e d p a r t o f t h e b e a c h , t a k e s off all h i s
c l o t h e s , a n d p u t s s a n d all o v e r h i m s e l f u n t i l o n l y h i s p e n i s is s t i c k i n g o u t in t h e s u n .
" W h e n I w a s 2 0 , 1 w a s s c a r e d to d e a t h of them."
(laughter)
find
t h e m a m u s i n g a n d tell t h e m for a n u m b e r o f r e a s o n s : t o i n c r e a s e o u r
popularity, to a m u s e , to entertain, to a r o u s e others sexually, a n d s o on.
T h e r e is u s u a l l y a g o o d d e a l o f h o s t i l i t y a n d a g g r e s s i o n i n j o k e s , a n d
w h e n j o k e s "fall f l a t " it is u s u a l l y b e c a u s e t h i s a g g r e s s i o n i s t o o o v e r t .
Jokes reveal a great deal about the mind-sets and psychological hang-ups
of t h e p e o p l e in t h e societies in w h i c h t h e y a r e told, a n d s o a r e v a l u a b l e
t e x t s for social scientists. L i k e all n a r r a t i v e s , jokes c a n b e u s e d t o c o n t r o l
p e o p l e a n d often h a v e a coercive dimension to them.
But jokes also often c o u n t e r the p o w e r structure a n d function as a
m e a n s of resistance. E x a m p l e s of this u s e of jokes include m a n y of t h o s e
166
NARRATIVES
A j o k e is a p l a y u p o n f o r m . It b r i n g s i n t o relation d i s p a r a t e e l e m e n t s in
s u c h a w a y t h a t o n e a c c e p t e d p a t t e r n is c h a l l e n g e d b y t h e a p p e a r a n c e
o f a n o t h e r w h i c h in s o m e w a y w a s h i d d e n in t h e first. I c o n f e s s t h a t I
find F r e u d ' s definition o f t h e j o k e h i g h l y satisfactory. T h e j o k e is a n
i m a g e o f t h e r e l a x a t i o n o f c o n s c i o u s c o n t r o l in f a v o u r o f t h e
s u b c o n s c i o u s . F o r t h e rest o f this article I shall b e a s s u m i n g t h a t a n y
r e c o g n i z a b l e j o k e falls into t h e j o k e p a t t e r n w h i c h n e e d s t w o e l e m e n t s ,
t h e j u x t a p o s i t i o n o f a c o n t r o l a g a i n s t t h a t w h i c h is c o n t r o l l e d , this
j u x t a p o s i t i o n b e i n g s u c h that t h e latter t r i u m p h s . N e e d l e s s t o say, a
successful subversion of one form b y another completes o r ends the
j o k e . It is implicit in t h e F r e u d i a n m o d e l t h a t t h e u n c o n s c i o u s d o e s n o t
t a k e o v e r t h e c o n t r o l s y s t e m . T h e w i s e s a y i n g s o f lunatics, talking
a n i m a l s , c h i l d r e n a n d d r u n k a r d s a r e f u n n y b e c a u s e t h e y a r e n o t in
control; otherwise they w o u l d not be an image of the subconscious.
T h e j o k e m e r e l y affords o p p o r t u n i t y for realising t h a t a n a c c e p t e d
p a t t e r n h a s n o necessity. Its e x c i t e m e n t lies i n t h e s u g g e s t i o n t h a t a n y
p a r t i c u l a r o r d e r i n g of e x p e r i e n c e m a y b e a r b i t r a r y a n d subjective. It is
f r i v o l o u s in t h a t it p r o d u c e s n o real a l t e r n a t i v e , o n l y a n e x h i l a r a t i n g
f r e e d o m f r o m f o r m in g e n e r a l .
M a r y D o u g l a s , Implicit Meanings:
Essays in Anthropology ( 1 9 7 5 , p . 9 6 )
167
168
NARRATIVES
Conversations
Although we seldom give much thought to the matter, conversations
are really a popular art form, and, as such, they have their own rules and
conventions. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson discuss these conventions
in their book Metaphors We Live By (1980). Discussing the most basic form
of conversation, which involves two persons, they point out that a certain
amount of cooperation is involved between the individual who initiates the
conversation and the other person, who participates in taking turns and
keeping the conversation on its topic or shifting to a different one.
E v e n in a s s i m p l e a c a s e a s a polite t w o - p a r t y c o n v e r s a t i o n , s e v e r a l
d i m e n s i o n s o f s t r u c t u r e c a n b e seen:
Participants: T h e p a r t i c i p a n t s a r e o f a c e r t a i n n a t u r a l k i n d , n a m e l y ,
people.
H e r e t h e y t a k e t h e role o f s p e a k e r s . T h e c o n v e r s a t i o n is d e f i n e d b y
w h a t the participants do, and the s a m e participants p l a y a role
throughout the conversation.
Parts:
T h e p a r t s c o n s i s t o f a c e r t a i n n a t u r a l kind o f activity, n a m e l y ,
talking. E a c h t u r n a t talking is a p a r t o f t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n a s a w h o l e ,
a n d t h e s e p a r t s m u s t b e p u t t o g e t h e r in a c e r t a i n f a s h i o n for t h e r e t o
be a coherent conversation.
Stages: C o n v e r s a t i o n s
t h r o u g h v a r i o u s s t a g e s , i n c l u d i n g at least a b e g i n n i n g , a c e n t r a l p a r t ,
a n d a n e n d . T h u s t h e r e a r e c e r t a i n t h i n g s t h a t a r e s a i d in o r d e r to
initiate a c o n v e r s a t i o n ("Hello," " H o w a r e y o u ? , " e t c . ) , o t h e r s t h a t
m o v e it a l o n g to t h e c e n t r a l p a r t , a n d still o t h e r s t h a t e n d it.
a r e o r d e r e d in a l i n e a r
Causation:
Purpose: C o n v e r s a t i o n s m a y s e r v e a n y n u m b e r o f p u r p o s e s b u t all
typical
77-78)
We can see, then, that conversations have a linear nature and thus
function as narratives. If one of the persons involved in a conversation
169
The hostess had asked a question to draw her guest out and enable the
guest to tell the others present something about the book and get a new
conversation going. When the guest said, "It's a textbook" and nothing
else, the hostess, who wanted to provide an opportunity for her guest to
talk, asked, very aptly, "End of conversation?" What she meant by this
was that the guest had not seized the opportunity to continue the
conversation. Once the hostess asked, "End of conversation?" the guest
started discussing the book in more detail.
We see, then, that conversations take a certain amount of effort and
involve creating fugitive narratives that are rule bound; to be able to
converse, one must know the rules and follow them. People who do not
follow the rules about turn taking and monopolize conversations are
generally considered to be bores (and boors). As Ambrose Bierce puts it,
a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen." Now we turn
to a special kind of conversationpsychotherapy.
Psychotherapy
People who undergo psychotherapy become involved in unique
kinds of spoken dialogues with otherstherapists who try to help them
deal with problems they have (or, as those who are hostile to psychotherapy would put it, problems they think they have); Freud calls this the
"talking cure." The therapeutic experience is, from a structural point of
view, analogous to fictional narratives in that both have, or often have,
tasks to be done, complications, flashbacks, crises, and leading figures
or protagonists and antagonists (heroes and heroines, villains, and helpers for both).
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NARRATIVES
The conversations that take place in the context of therapy are often
like detective stories in that they deal with discovering or uncovering
some 'Villain" and understanding that person's motivations and the
motivations of the person undergoing therapy as well. Therapeutic work
also often resembles spy stories in which one has to find the "mole," the
member of the organization (or spy "family") who is sabotaging things,
giving information to the enemy, and acting as a double agent. Some
psychotherapy is endless, like a television serial (like a soap operaand
often in other respects also); in other cases, psychotherapy is bounded
by an agreement between the parties to end the therapy after a certain
number of sessions.
Therapy can be seen, then, as a kind of dramatic autobiographical
narrative text in which the client plays the central role, a two-person play
of sorts in which the client responds to questions and comments by the
other actor (the therapist) and tries to find some way of resolving a
problem or conflict that may be internal, external, or a combination of
the two. The therapist has a dual role, as both player and audience, and
it is what the therapist hears as the audience that shapes what he or she
does as a player.
As in theatrical dramas, therapy often reaches a moment of crisis (in
the Freudian view of things, that is), when a resolution to some problem
suddenly appears, when there is at least the possibility of a satisfactory
denouement. In some cases, that is enough to terminate the therapy; in
others it is only one episode in a series of resolutions that need to be
made.
Psychotherapy can be seen, then, as a kind of interactive play that
clients "write" from week to week (or more often). What happens one
week often affects what happens the next. The therapist also writes a
kind of script, afterward, to indicate what has been done and how things
are going.
Repeat Performances
We can also adopt a theatrical metaphor to look at most of our
everyday experiences, what I call repeat performances. Every day, generally speaking, we do certain things: We get up and wash up, have
171
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NARRATIVES
see doctors more routinely, for example. We move from playing the leads
in our stories (the guy who gets the girl or vice versa) to supporting roles,
so to speak. Katharine Hepburn has made an interesting comment about
getting older that is relevant: "After seventy," she said, "every time you
turn around, it's time for breakfast."
So, like the stars of long-numing Broadway plays, who give the same
performances (say the same lines over and over again) for months or
years; our lives can be seen as repeat performances in which we are
happy to be on the stage, to be able to repeat our performances, for as
long as we can. Then, one day, the final curtain falls.
Obituaries
Obituaries are hyperreductionist microbiographies. They cover the
high points of individuals' lives and, for most people, represent one of
the few times their names are printed in a newspaper; the other times, if
at all, are when they are born and when they get married. (Many people,
of course, never have article-length obituaries in the papers; their names
simply appear in listings of those who have died.) An obituary often has
the tightness of drama, because it lists only the most important points of
a person's life. An obituary reduces a life to a paragraph or two, in the
ordinary case: the person's occupation, what family he or she leaves
behind, any accomplishments, that kind of thing.
An obituary thus is a summary of a person's life and not a resolution
of a story that puts everything into place and resolves various conflicts.
This, of course, sometimes happens when a person dies, but it is always
by chance. Obituaries are microbiographies, highly compressed texts.
The size of an obituary and its location in a newspaper, as well as which
newspapers it appears in, are signifiers of the deceased person's importance. The deaths of world-renowned personalities are often followed by
the appearance of long articles about them, a functional alternative to
the routinized obituary, on the first page of the New York Times and other
important newspapers. Other newspapers often carry edited versions of
obituaries of "important people" the next day.
There is one other point I want to make here. For important figures,
or extremely notorious ones, obituaries are often written before their
173
deaths and are ready to be updated in a flash when the persons actually
die. So one measure of what a person has achieved in life may be when
the draft of his or her obituary is written. The more important one is, we
could say, the earlier one's obituary is written.
The humorist Robert Benchley said that "the world is divided into
two groups of people: those who divide the world into two groups of
people and those who don't." In like manner, we can say that the world
is divided into three groups of people: those who have their obituaries
written before they die, those whose obituaries are written after they die,
and those who die but don't have obituaries written about them at all.
A Note on Narratives
and Everyday Life
I have dealt here with only a few of the areas in which we find
narratives in our everyday lives; there are many others. An illness can be
considered a narrative, for instance; it can actually take the form of a
written narrative in the notes physicians make as an illness progresses.
Confessions are also narratives: A criminal describes what he or she has
done, usually in the form of a list of crimes.
Sporting events take narrative form also. They are often very exciting,
because we don't know how they will be resolved (who will win). They
174
NARRATIVES
Appendix
Simulations, Activities,
Games, and Exercises
175
176
NARRATIVES
take on roles to act out what is written. In other kinds of games, the
"findings" of the various teams can serve as the basis of classroom
discussion. Depending on the classroom, the class, and the context,
variations on all of these learning games can be devised, of course, and
new games can be created.
Anatomy of a Tale
In my discussion of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale
(1928/1968) in Chapter 2, I have shown how we can use Propp's
functions to analyze a story. In this exercise, you are to write a story
based on the set of Propp's functions listed below. To play this game,
you should consult Table 2.1 and use the descriptions of the functions
in writing your story. Remember that you can modernize thingsthus,
at the end, the hero need not literally marry a princess and ascend the
throne.
Remember, when you write the story, to (a) use the past tense, (b)
include description and dialogue, and (c) make sure there's action and
conflict, to keep interest. (Do not write a fairy tale in this exercise.) Base
your story on the following functions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Interdiction: I n t e r d i c t i o n a d d r e s s e d t o h e r o ( c a n b e r e v e r s e d ) .
Violation: I n t e r d i c t i o n is v i o l a t e d .
Villainy: Villain c a u s e s h a r m t o m e m b e r o f t h e family.
Mediation: M i s f o r t u n e m a d e k n o w n , h e r o is d i s p a t c h e d .
Receipt of agent: H e r o a c q u i r e s u s e of m a g i c a l a g e n t .
Spatial change: H e r o led to object o f his s e a r c h .
Struggle: H e r o a n d villain join in c o m b a t .
Branding: H e r o is b r a n d e d .
Victory: Villain is d e f e a t e d .
Unfounded claims: F a l s e h e r o is e x p o s e d .
Wedding: H e r o is m a r r i e d , a s c e n d s t h e t h r o n e .
him- or
Appendix
177
After the stories are written, teams or individuals should share their
stories so that the larger group can see how different stories can be even
when they use the same Proppian functions.
Paradigmatic Analysis
Levi-Strauss (1967) has argued that the paradigmatic analysis of a
text tells us what it "really" means, in contrast to a syntagmatic (Proppian) analysis of a text, which focuses on what happens. In this modification of Levi-Strauss's methods, you will b e looking at various paired
oppositions that give a text meaning. Saussure (1966) has suggested that
concepts are defined differentially; the same applies to characters in
texts, their actions, and s o on. Create a list of paired oppositions that can
b e elicited from the following quotation:
In t h e b e g i n n i n g G o d c r e a t e d t h e h e a v e n a n d t h e e a r t h . A n d t h e e a r t h
w a s w i t h o u t f o r m , a n d v o i d ; a n d d a r k n e s s w a s u p o n t h e face o f t h e d e e p .
A n d t h e Spirit o f G o d m o v e d u p o n t h e face o f t h e w a t e r s . A n d G o d s a i d ,
" L e t t h e r e b e light": a n d there w a s light. A n d G o d s a w t h e light, t h a t it
w a s g o o d : a n d G o d d i v i d e d t h e light f r o m t h e d a r k n e s s . A n d G o d c a l l e d
t h e light Day, a n d t h e d a r k n e s s h e c a l l e d N i g h t . A n d the e v e n i n g a n d t h e
m o r n i n g w e r e t h e first day.
Dream Analysis
According to psychoanalytic theory (and most psychologists would
agree), dreams play a very significant role in our lives. Freud used his
theories about symbolization, condensation, displacement, and so on, to
analyze dreams. Fve offered an example of Freud's analysis of a dream
experienced by one of his patients in Chapter 5; now I offer a dream taken
from Freud's (1900/1965) book on dreams and ask you to decode it, as
best you can, using the concepts discussed in Chapter 5.
I w e n t i n t o a k i t c h e n in s e a r c h o f s o m e p u d d i n g . T h r e e w o m e n w e r e
s t a n d i n g in it; o n e o f t h e m w a s t h e h o s t e s s o f t h e i n n a n d w a s t w i s t i n g
s o m e t h i n g a b o u t in h e r h a n d s , a s t h o u g h s h e w a s m a k i n g K n o d e l [ d u m p -
178
NARRATIVES
lings]. S h e a n s w e r e d t h a t I m u s t w a i t until s h e w a s ready. I felt i m p a t i e n t
a n d w e n t off w i t h a s e n s e o f injury. I p u t o n a n o v e r c o a t . B u t t h e first I
tried o n w a s t o o l o n g for m e . I t o o k it off, r a t h e r s u r p r i s e d t o find it w a s
t r i m m e d w i t h fur. A s e c o n d o n e t h a t I p u t o n h a d a l o n g s t r i p w i t h a
Turkish d e s i g n let into it. A s t r a n g e r w i t h a l o n g f a c e a n d a s h o r t p o i n t e d
b e a r d c a m e u p a n d tried to p r e v e n t m y p u t t i n g it o n , s a y i n g it w a s his. I
s h o w e d h i m t h e n t h a t it w a s e m b r o i d e r e d all o v e r w i t h a T u r k i s h p a t t e r n .
H e a s k e d : " W h a t h a v e t h e Turkish ( d e s i g n s , s t r i p e s . . . ) t o d o w i t h y o u ? "
B u t w e t h e n b e c a m e quite friendly w i t h e a c h other.
What sense can you make of the events that take place in this dream?
In addition to analyzing this dream, you may wish to write down a
dream you've had and try to analyze it.
Here is another dream to analyze, taken from a novel by D. M.
Thomas, The White Hotel (1981). (In the novel the dream is recounted, and
then a few pages later, a small portion of the dream that had been
forgotten is recounted. I have inserted the forgotten fragment in boldface
type here to differentiate it from the original recounting of the dream.)
Try as best you can to make sense of the symbolic significance of the
various events that happen in the dream.
I w a s travelling in a train, sitting a c r o s s f r o m a m a n w h o w a s r e a d i n g .
H e i n v o l v e d m e in c o n v e r s a t i o n , a n d I felt h e w a s b e i n g overfamiliar. I
said to the young man I was going to Moscow to visit the s , and he
r e p l i e d they w o u l d n ' t be able to put m e up, and I'd have to sleep in
the s u m m e r - h o u s e . It w o u l d be hot in there, he added, and I'd have to
take m y c l o t h e s off. T h e train s t o p p e d in t h e m i d d l e o f n o w h e r e , a n d I
d e c i d e d t o g e t out, t o b e rid o f h i m . I w a s s u r p r i s e d t h a t a l o t o f o t h e r
p e o p l e g o t o u t too, a s it w a s o n l y a s m a l l p l a c e a n d c o m p l e t e l y d e a d . B u t
Appendix
179
You might also want to record some of your own dreams, if you can
remember them, and try to analyze them.
W r i t e a t r a d i t i o n a l ( n o t a m o d e r n i z e d p a r o d y ) fairy t a l e t h a t s t a r t s " O n c e
u p o n a t i m e , l o n g , l o n g a g o " a n d c o n c l u d e s " a n d s o t h e y all l i v e d h a p p i l y
e v e r after." U s e d i a l o g u e , d e s c r i p t i o n , a n d lots o f a c t i o n .
W r i t e in t h e p a s t tense, a n d i n c l u d e t y p i c a l c h a r a c t e r s f r o m f a i r y tales:
kings, q u e e n s , p r i n c e s a n d p r i n c e s s e s , d r a g o n s , a n i m a l h e l p e r s , h e r o e s
w i t h n a m e s like " J a c k " o r "Tom."
H a v e t h e a c t i o n s o f t h e c h a r a c t e r s reflect a n d p r o v i d e r e s o l u t i o n s for t h e
n u m e r o u s psychological problems of the person w h o h a s been assigned
t o y o u f r o m t h e following choices:
Person 1: O e d i p u s c o m p l e x , c a s t r a t i o n anxiety, r e g r e s s i o n
Person 2: p e n i s envy, n a r c i s s i s m , r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n
Person 3: a n a l e r o t i c i s m , a m b i v a l e n c e , fixation
Person 4: O e d i p u s c o m p l e x , n a r c i s s i s m , fixation
Person 5: fixation, c a s t r a t i o n anxiety, n a r c i s s i s m
Origin Tales
Every comic book hero and heroine, or team of heroes and heroines,
has an origin talea page or two in which the character is introduced to
the audience. The most famous of these, no doubt, is the one for Superman, which tells of his origins on Krypton, his long travel in a spaceship
180
NARRATIVES
adopted
U s e 1 0 o r 1 2 f r a m e s . M a k e real d r a w i n g s a n d c o l o r t h e m in. D o n o t u s e
stick figures.
i&
C o n s i d e r w h a t special abilities, p o w e r s , a n d s o o n y o u r h e r o o r h e r o i n e
has.
Tell a story. E v e n t h o u g h y o u a r e i n t r o d u c i n g y o u r c h a r a c t e r t o a n
a u d i e n c e , y o u still h a v e t o h a v e a c t i o n , conflict, a n d s o o n .
dealt
those
Radio Scripts
U s i n g the m a t e r i a l in Table 10.1 as well as the e x a m p l e of a r a d i o script
in C h a p t e r 10, write a radio script that parodies a w e l l - k n o w n television
program, such as
or
Northern Exposure.
Re-
&
D i v i d e t h e p a g e into t w o c o l u m n s . In t h e left-hand c o l u m n , w h i c h s h o u l d
b e a b o u t \Vi i n c h e s w i d e , u s e A L L C A P S f o r t h e n a m e s o f t h e c h a r a c t e r s
o r i n d i c a t i o n s for M U S I C o r S F X ( s o u n d effects).
Appendix
S
181
P l a c e i n s t r u c t i o n s c o n c e r n i n g m u s i c o r s o u n d effects, in A L L C A P S a n d
u n d e r l i n e d ( o r italicized), in t h e r i g h t - h a n d c o l u m n .
U s e t h e r i g h t - h a n d c o l u m n for t h e d i a l o g u e , a l w a y s in c a p s a n d l o w e r c a s e . ( H a v i n g o n l y t h e d i a l o g u e in c a p s a n d l o w e r c a s e m a k e s it e a s y t o
differentiate d i a l o g u e f r o m o t h e r a s p e c t s o f t h e s c r i p t . )
P l a c e i n s t r u c t i o n s a b o u t h o w a c h a r a c t e r is t o r e a d h i s o r h e r lines o r o t h e r
a c t i o n h e o r s h e is t o t a k e in A L L C A P S a n d in p a r e n t h e s e s b e f o r e o r
f o l l o w i n g t h e affected d i a l o g u e .
JOHN
GWEN
( C O Y L Y ) P l e a s e forgive m e , J o h n . I w a s s o i n v o l v e d l e a r n i n g
MUSIC
first t i m e .
a b o u t n a r r a t i v e s t h a t I lost t r a c k o f t i m e .
JOHN
GWEN
T r y t o d e c i d e w h i c h e v e n t s in t h e t e x t a r e t h e "kernels" a n d w h i c h a r e t h e
"satellites."
182
NARRATIVES
^
T h i n k o f t h e t e x t a s b e i n g a k i n d o f "public" d r e a m . A n a l y z e t h e t e x t in
t e r m s o f t h e s y m b o l i c significance o f t h e m a j o r e v e n t s in t h e t e x t . W h a t
m i g h t t h e y reflect a b o u t politics, society, c u l t u r e ?
Western Films
Watch
Shane
a n d a n a l y z e it b y a p p l y i n g t h e v a r i o u s c o n c e p t s d i s -
c u s s e d in C h a p t e r 11 o n film w e s t e r n s . S o m e t h i n g s t o c o n s i d e r :
H o w g o o d is t h e a c t i n g ?
^
H o w significant is t h e c a s t i n g ? Is A l a n L a d d b e l i e v a b l e in t h e title r o l e ?
Is J a c k P a l a n c e s u i t e d for his r o l e ? Justify y o u r a n s w e r s . D o y o u t h i n k it
is t h e a c t i n g t h a t " m a k e s " t h e film, o r s o m e t h i n g else? If s o , w h a t ?
H o w g o o d is t h e w r i t i n g in t h e s c r i p t ? D o e s t h e p l o t m a k e s e n s e ?
H o w w o u l d y o u a p p l y C a w e l t i ' s ( 1 9 7 1 ) n o t i o n s a b o u t w e s t e r n s t o this
film? D o y o u find his i d e a s useful? D o t h e y p r o v i d e y o u w i t h a n y i n s i g h t s
>
Will W r i g h t ( 1 9 7 5 ) s e e s
of importance?
Shane a s
a "classical" w e s t e r n o n e in w h i c h a
l o n e g u n f i g h t e r s a v e s a t o w n o r f a r m e r s . D o y o u a g r e e ? If t h a t isn't t h e
m o s t i m p o r t a n t a s p e c t o f t h e film, w h a t is?
^
s&
W r i t e a " s h o r t s h o r t " W e s t e r n r a d i o s c r i p t in w h i c h y o u u s e a s m a n y o f
the conventions of the genre as y o u can.
Popular Fiction
I n this activity, y o u a r e to t a k e five n o v e l s f r o m a n y o n e p o p u l a r
fiction g e n r e d e t e c t i v e novels, s p y n o v e l s , science fiction n o v e l s , o r
Appendix
183
Dr. No
P u n c t u a l l y a t six o'clock t h e s u n s e t w i t h a last y e l l o w flash b e h i n d t h e
Blue Mountains, a w a v e of violet s h a d o w p o u r e d d o w n R i c h m o n d R o a d ,
a n d t h e c r i c k e t s a n d tree frogs in t h e fine g a r d e n s b e g a n t o z i n g a n d
tinkle.
Frankenstein
Letter 1
To M r s . Saville, E n g l a n d
St. P e t e r s b u r g h , D e c . 11th, 1 7
Y o u w i l l rejoice t o h e a r t h a t n o d i s a s t e r h a s a c c o m p a n i e d t h e c o m m e n c e m e n t o f t h e e n t e r p r i s e w h i c h y o u h a v e r e g a r d e d w i t h s u c h evil
f o r e b o d i n g s . I a r r i v e d h e r e y e s t e r d a y , a n d m y first t a s k is t o a s s u r e m y
d e a r sister o f m y w e l f a r e a n d increasing c o n f i d e n c e in t h e s u c c e s s o f m y
undertaking.
184
NARRATIVES
Thirteen at Dinner
T h e m e m o r y o f t h e p u b l i c is s h o r t . A l r e a d y t h e i n t e n s e interest a n d
e x c i t e m e n t a r o u s e d b y t h e m u r d e r o f G e o r g e A l f r e d St. V i n c e n t M a r s h ,
f o u r t h B a r o n E d g w a r e , is a thing p a s t a n d f o r g o t t e n . N e w e r s e n s a t i o n s
h a v e taken place.
Quotations to Discuss
In this activity you will read and discuss the following quotations.
What ideas and insights do they offer about narrative theory, authorial
techniques, narratives in the popular arts and media, and related considerations? Are either of them dated? Do the authors make glittering
generalizations, mistakes in fact, or any other kinds of errors? Look up
any terms the authors use with which you are not familiar, so you can be
very clear on what they are talking about.
Soap operas present communities of as m a n y as 4 0 characters, m a n y of
w h o m h a v e b e e n o n t h e s h o w s for y e a r s . T h e fans find m o s t o f t h e
c h a r a c t e r s interesting; t h e y identify w i t h s o m e , h a t e o t h e r s , a n d l o v e
hating some. Importantly, they c o m e to care w h a t h a p p e n s to the c h a r acters, a n d they see and interpret the story through characters' perspectives. . . . To i n t e r p r e t c h a r a c t e r p s y c h e s a n d s e e t h i n g s f r o m t h e i r
p e r s p e c t i v e s , p a r t i c i p a n t s m u s t d r a w o n their o w n i n t e r p e r s o n a l a n d
emotional experiences as well as other areas of expertise. Because s o a p
c h a r a c t e r s live in a w o r l d w h e r e life is f o c u s e d a l w a y s o n t h e p e r s o n a l ,
t h e familial, t h e relational, a n d a b o v e all, t h e e m o t i o n a l , v i e w e r s m u s t
b r i n g their o w n k n o w l e d g e o f t h e s e r e a l m s t o b e a r o n i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . T h e
v i e w e r s ' relationship w i t h c h a r a c t e r s , t h e v i e w e r s ' u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f
s o c i o e m o t i o n a l e x p e r i e n c e , a n d s o a p o p e r a ' s n a r r a t i v e s t r u c t u r e , in
Appendix
185
and
p o s s i b l e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f w h a t h a s b e e n seen. ( B a y m , 1 9 9 5 , p . 1 4 3 )
T h e t y p i c a l s c i e n c e fiction film h a s a f o r m a s p r e d i c t a b l e a s a W e s t e r n ,
a n d is m a d e u p o f e l e m e n t s w h i c h , t o a p r a c t i c e d e y e , a r e a s c l a s s i c a s t h e
saloon brawl, the blonde schoolteacher from the East, a n d the g u n duel
o n t h e d e s e r t e d m a i n street.
O n e m o d e l s c e n a r i o p r o c e e d s t h r o u g h five p h a s e s :
(1) T h e a r r i v a l o f the thing. ( E m e r g e n c e o f t h e m o n s t e r s , l a n d i n g o f t h e
alien s p a c e s h i p , etc.) T h i s is u s u a l l y w i t n e s s e d o r s u s p e c t e d b y just
o n e p e r s o n , a y o u n g scientist o n a field trip. N o b o d y , n e i t h e r h i s
n e i g h b o r s n o r his c o l l e a g u e s will b e l i e v e h i m for s o m e t i m e
(2) C o n f i r m a t i o n o f t h e h e r o ' s r e p o r t b y a h o s t of w i t n e s s e s t o a g r e a t
act o f d e s t r u c t i o n
(3) In t h e c a p i t a l of t h e c o u n t r y , c o n f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n scientists a n d t h e
military take place w i t h the hero lecturing before a chart, m a p , o r
b l a c k b o a r d . A n a t i o n a l e m e r g e n c y is d e c l a r e d
(4) F u r t h e r atrocities. A t s o m e p o i n t , t h e h e r o ' s girlfriend is in g r a v e
d a n g e r . M a s s i v e c o u n t e r a t t a c k s b y i n t e r n a t i o n a l forces, w i t h brilliant d i s p l a y s o f rocketry, r a y s , a n d o t h e r a d v a n c e d w e a p o n s , a r e all
unsuccessful. E n o r m o u s military casualties, usually b y incineration.
(5) M o r e c o n f e r e n c e s , w h o s e m o t i f is: " T h e y m u s t b e v u l n e r a b l e to
s o m e t h i n g . " T h r o u g h o u t t h e h e r o h a s b e e n w o r k i n g in his lab t o this
end
Final r e p u l s e o f t h e m o n s t e r o r i n v a d e r s . M u t u a l c o n g r a t u -
References
Abrams, . . (1958). The mirror and the lamp: Romantic theory and the critical tradition. New
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Name Index
Abrams, . H., 2 2 , 6 3
Anderson, Sherwood, 98
Aristotle, 2 , 1 9 - 2 2 , 4 5 , 6 6 , 1 6 3
Artemidoris, 74
Dirks, Rudolph, 1 0 4 , 1 0 6 , 1 0 7
Douglas, Mary, 166
Dundes, Alan, 2 4 , 2 5 , 3 2 , 8 5
Faulkner, William, 98
Fleming, Ian, 5 0 , 5 4 - 5 5 , 1 8 3
Freberg, Stan, xiii, 135-137
189
190
Freud, Sigmund, 9 , 7 1 - 7 9 , 8 8 , 1 0 2 , 1 6 9 , 1 7 7
Fromm, Erich, 75
NARRATIVES
Madsen, R., 158
Marx, Karl, 102
McCloskey, Donald, 12
McLuhan, Marshall, 103-104,112
Moores, Dick, 98
Inge, M. Thomas, 9 8 , 9 9
Iser, Wolfgang, 1 2 , 1 3
Queneau, Raymond, 3 3 , 3 4
Jakobson, Roman, 2 9 , 4 4 , 8 6
James, Henry, 62
Jameson, Fredric, 28
Johnson, Mark, 11,168
Johnson, Samuel, 89
Joyce, James, 126
Reagan, Ronald, 54
Richards, I. ., 69
Richardson, Laurel, 10
Richardson, Samuel, 125
Riessman, Catherine Kohler, 160
Ritter, Tex, 155
Name Index
191
Subject Index
Biographies, 2
Blade Runner, 115
Brady Bunch, The, 180
Broken Arrow, 154
194
Confessions, 45,59-60
Murder on the Orient Express, 59
Conversations, 168-169
structural aspects of, 168-169
Counterspy, 7 1 , 1 4 5
Crisis, 64
Deconstruction, 122
Defamiliarization, 41
Denouement, 67
Describing a character, 53 (chart)
Descriptions, 45,45-46
Detective genre, 96,127-128
classical formula, 127
procedural formula, 127
tough-guy formula, 127
Detective stories, 2
Devices of authors:
articles from publications, 45
characterizations, 45
confessions, 45
descriptions, 45
dialogue, 45
letters, telegrams, correspondence, 45
overheard conversations, 45
phone calls, 45
stereotypes, 4 5
summaries, 45
thoughts of characters, 45
Dialogic Imagination, 125
Dialogue, 45,48-50
Diaries, 167
journals and, 167
Dick Tracy, 101,102
Displacement, 75-76
Dr. No, 5 0 - 5 1 , 5 4 , 1 8 3
Dracula, 96
Dramatic irony, 64
Dreams, 71-80
condensation, 75
decoding, 73-74
difference from fairy tales chart, 79
displacement, 75-76
fairy tales and, 78-80
Freud's analysis of a dream, 77-78
hidden sexual significance, 79
invaded by television programs, 79
latent dream, 75
NARRATIVES
manifest dream, 75
memory and, 72
psychiatric definition of, 70
secondary elaboration, 75
symbols in, 74,76-77
Ego, 9 , 8 8
Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis, 95
Epic, 18
Episode, 64
Eve, 119
Event, 3 3 , 6 5
Everyday life, 161-174
all middle, 162
conflict muted, 162
definition of, 161
difference from mediated narratives,
162
diffuse, 162
eventlessness basic, 162
imitates art, 162
real, not fictional, 162
repeat performances, 162
sports and, 173-174
vague goals, 162
Exercises in Style, 33
cross-examination style, 33
dream style, 33
official letter style, 33
Exposition, 65
Fables, 18
defined, 88
fairy tales and, 88-89
Samuel Johnson definition of, 89
Fabula, 3 3 , 6 5
difference from story, 34
Fairytale as Art Form and Portait of Man,
The, 83
Fairy tales, 83-97
actions of heroes and heroines basic, 86
basic actions of characters, 43
bipolar structure of, 85-87
children and, 9
defining elements, 84-87
development of children and, 89-92
ego elements, 88
Subject Index
goals of heroes and villains, 43
good and evil omnipresent, 87
id elements, 88
myths and, 27,87-88
narratives, 2
opposing characters in, 44
psyche and, 90
superego elements, 88
U r genre, 96-97
use in Hindu medicine, 90
way tales begin, 84
way tales end, 84-85
Fantasy, 129-132
reality and, 133
Far Side, The, 100
FBI in Peace and War, The, 71,145
Film:
contrast with television, 147
definition of, 147
narratives, 147-159
similarities to drama, 149
Finnegan's Wake, 126
Flashbacks, 4 7 , 6 5
Focal points:
America (society), 15
artists, 15
artworks (texts), 15
audiences, 15
medium, 15
Forgotten Language, 75
Formula, 65
Frame, 65
Frankenstein, 9 6 , 1 8 3
Garden of Eden, 11
Gasoline Alley, 98
Genres, 36-38
action-adventure, 96
conventions and, 37
conventions in popular culture (chart),
127
detective, 96
formulas and, 127-128
horror, 96
kinds of narrative genres, 37
narrative texts and, 37
narrative theory and, 37
romance, 96
195
science fiction, 96
Glossary of terms relating to narrative,
63-69
Goldfinger, 40
Goncourt Journals, 150
Green Hornet, The, 71,145
lack Armstrong, 7 1 , 1 4 5
Jeopardy, 6 5 , 6 6
Johnny Guitar, 154
Jokemes, 164
Jokes, 163-166
narratives, 163-166
Journals, 167
diaries and, 167
196
King Kong, 67
Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye, 82
KrazyKat, 102,103
La Ronde, 5-6
circular structure of, 5
Legend, 18
Letters, telegrams, corresponence, 45
Li 7 Abner, 1 0 1 , 1 0 3
Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire, ix
Literary theory, 1
Little Orphan Annie, 9 8 , 1 0 1
Lone Ranger, The, 7 1 , 1 4 5
NARRATIVES
Myths, 18
fairy tales and, 27,87-88
Subject Index
Northern Exposure, 180
Novel:
definition of, 123
other genres and, 125
picaresque, 124
stream-of-consciousness, 124
Nursery rhymes, narrative aspects of, 4
Obituaries, 172-173
narrative elements in, 172-173
Objects, 7
Occurrence in Dreams of Material From
Fairy Tales, 77-1%
Oedipus Complex, 95
literary works and, 95
1,001 Arabian Nights, 65
Overheard conversations, 45
Murder on the Orient Express 56-57
197
definition of,
Practice of Everyday Life, xiv
Prison-House of Language, 28
Prisoner, The, 64
allegorical aspects of, 64
Psychiatric Dictionary, 70
Psychoanalytic interpretation, A Thousand
and One Nights, 93-94
Psychotherapy, 169-170
as interactive play, 170
narrative aspects of, 169-170
Saint Ursula, 18
Satellites, 35-36
Science fiction, 2
Science fiction films, formulas in, 185
Science fiction genre, 96
Screen ratios, 148
Secondary elaboration, 75
Semiology, 29
Semiotic Challenge, 18
Shadow, The, 71
Shane, 153,182
Six-Gun Mystique, The, 126,151
essential attributes of westerns, 151-152
Sixguns and Society, 153-155
Soap operas, 184-185
Sound effects, 135
198
Sports, 173-174
Spots: The Popular Art of American
Television Commercials, 110,120
Stagecoach, 153
Star Trdt, 180
Stereotypes, 45,54-56
Dr. No and, 54-55
Stock characters, 67
Story, 6 , 3 3 , 6 7
difference from fabula, 34
Story and Discourse:
kernels, 35
satellites, 35-36
Stream-of-consciousness novel, 124
Structural hypothesis, 9
Structuralism, binary oppositions, 29
Subjects, 7
Subplots, 67
Summaries, 4 5 , 5 0 - 5 1 , 6 8
Superman, 179
Superego, 9 , 8 8
Symbolism, 68
Symbols:
of sexual act, 76
of uterus, 76
phallic, 76
Tale, 18
Techniques, devices, 45-60
Television, 111
as fungus, 121
close-up medium, 114
genres shown on, 37
hours per day we watch. 111
McLuhan on, 112
meaning of shots and camera work
(chart), 114
narrative medium, 2 , 3 8
parasocial elements of, 114
shot as basic unit, 112,113
NARRATIVES
size of image and human contact, 114
theater of the mindless, 71
voyeuristic medium, 113
Terms used in radio production (chart),
138
Text, use of term for works of art, 1
Theme, 68
Theories of art:
emotive, 22
imitation, 22
pragmatic, 22
projection, 22
Thirteen at Dinner, 183,184
Thoughts of characters, 45,46-47
Through the Looking Glass, 8
Time, 68
Tone, 69
Tragedy, 1 8 , 1 2 4
Aristotle's definition of, 21-22
WaroftheWell(e)s, 135
War of the Worlds, 137-144
Westerns, 185
antinomies in (Kitses chart), 146
oppositions in, 156
White Hotel, 178
Wineshurg, Ohio, 98
Arthur Asa Berger is Professor of Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts at San Francisco State University, where he has taught since
1965. He has written extensively on media, popular culture, and related
concerns. Among his recent books are Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key
Concepts (1995), Essentials of Mass Communication Theory (1995), Manufacturing Desire: Media, Popular Culture, and Everyday Life (1996), and The
Genius of the Jewish Joke (1997). This volume is his twenty-seventh book
and his eighth book for Sage Publications.
Dr. Berger had a Fulbright scholarship to Italy
in 1963 and taught at the University of Milan. He
has lectured extensively on media, popular culture, and related subjects in more than a dozen
countries, including Brazil, Thailand, Italy, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, China, Taiwan,
and Turkey. He is film and television review editor
for Society magazine, editor of a series of reprints
titled Classics in Communication and Mass Culture,
and a consulting editor for Humor magazine. He
has appeared on 20/20 and The Today Show, and he
appears frequently on radio and television in the
San Francisco Bay Area.
199
200
NARRATIVES
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