Narrative Communication
We will end the course, the same way we started it: with a theoretical reflection on the nature of narrative communication.
We will start analyzing the concept of “narrative distance” and the different subtypes of distance (temporal, spatial, attitudinal).
Then, we will deal some rhetorical terms, such as narrative sympathy and irony.
Finally, we will discuss the idea of narrative perspective and analyze the various levels of the narration.
Narrative Distance
The term distance refers particularly to the relationship between the narrator and the events and characters.
Bullough defines narrative distancing as “the separation of personal affections, whether idea or complex experience, from the concrete personality of the experience.”
For the sake of clarity, we will study in this learning unit three different types of narrative distance:
Spatial, temporal and attitudinal distance.
Temporal Distance
Temporal is the most common form of narrative distance.
Narration in fictional literature and film is normally retrospective,
Meaning, it involves a temporal distance between the act of the narration and the events that are narrated.
Example of Narrative Distance in Film: Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970)
Spatial Distance
Temporal distance and Spatial distance in space appear frequently together.
Star Wars’ promotional line:
A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away
epitomizes narrative temporal and spatial distance.
Attitudinal Distance
The concept of attitudinal distance is more complex than the ones we have studied before: temporal or spatial distance.
By attitude, we are referring to the narrator’s level of insight, to their judgments or values.
For example, the narrator can express opinions about the characters and events, judge them.
In Amadeus, the film directed by Milos Forman in 1984, Antonio Salieri is constaly making comments about Mozart.
He admires his work, loves his music.
But on the other hand, he cannot help loathing, even hating the actual human being behind his work.
He is constantly expressing his disgust about what he considers to be the most vulgar character.
Sympathy
The concept of narrative sympathy introduces a level of complexity in the attitudinal distance.
Third person narrators may establish different levels of attitudinal distance in a narration.
They can explicitly or implicitly express more sympathy for some of the characters.
In the Sound and the Fury, Faulkner’s narrator shows a clear inclination for the character of Benjy Crompson.
This character has intellectual disabilities.
In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallström let his narrator show the same type of narrative sympathy for Arnie, one of the first relevant roles played by Leonardo di Caprio, and who by the way was also mentally impaired.
Irony
Verbal Irony: A statement in which the person who is speaking (or writing) actually means the opposite of what she or he is actually saying.
Stable Irony: Constant ironic approach to a character.
Example of stable irony: One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961)
Unstable Irony: The different layers of meaning are superimposed in an ironic regression.
Examples of unstable irony:
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Otto e mezzo (Eight and a half, Federico Fellini, 1963)
Dramatic Irony
We talk about dramatic irony in narrative theory when in a particular narration, the spectator – or the reader – has more knowledge about the actual story than a particular character in the drama.
The character ends up acting against the own interest without being aware of it.
Example of dramatic irony: Crash (Paul Haggies, 2004)
Narrative Perspective
Narrative Perspective refers to the angle through which the narrative elements are presented
External Perspective: normally associated with the third person narrator.
Internal Perspective: The reader (or spectator) has no choice but to see the fictional events with the eyes of this character. Such internal perspectives are usual in first-person narrative.
Narrative Levels
Diegetic Level
All the characters and events that belong to the actual story are situated in this level.
Anything that appear in the narration that is not directly related to the actual story, the story that is told, happens either at the extra-diegetic or the Hypo-diegetic level.
Extra-diagetic Level
The extra-diegetic level is placed above the main action in the story.
Traditionally, this is the virtual location of the third person narrator.
We already discussed this omniscient narrator when we define the concept of narrative authority.
Hypo-diegetic Level
What happens at the narrative level below the diegetic one.
Sometime, narrators include secondary stories within the main story – that are only tangentially related to the main action
That was very frequent in the literature of the Renaissance
The best example would be Miguel de Cervantes’ immortal novel Don Quixote de la Mancha. This author introduced short stories in the main narration that were told by some of the characters of the novel, but that had nothing to do with the adventures of Don Quixote.
In filmic narrative, we found examples of Hypo-diegetic narration in movies about literary authors.
Director Terry Gillian used this narrative strategy in two of his movies: The Fisher King – and The Brothers Grimm.
In both movies the director shows us the stories created by the main characters of the story. Still, those Hypodiegetic narrations are only marginally relevant with the main action of the movie, which about the life of the authors.