Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative
Manfred Jahn

Full reference: Jahn, Manfred. 2002. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. Part III of Poems, Plays, and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of Cologne.
Version: 1.6.
Date: April 10, 2002

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N5.2. Time Analysis

Time analysis is concerned with three questions: When? How long? and How often? Order refers to the handling of the chronology of the story; duration covers the proportioning of story time and discourse time; and frequency refers to possible ways of presenting single or repetitive action units. Genette (1980 [1972]: 33-85, 87-112, 113-160); Toolan (1988: 48-67); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 43-58).

• anachrony A deviation from strict chronology in a story. The two main types of anachrony are flashbacks and flashforwards. If the anachronically presented event is factual, it is an objective anachrony; a character's visions of future or memory of past events are subjective anachronies. Repetitive anachronies recall already narrated events; completive anachronies present events which are omitted in the primary story line. External anachronies present events which take place before the beginning or after the end of the primary story line; anachronies that fall within the range of the primary story line are internal anachronies. See Genette (1980 [1972]: 35-85); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 46-51); Toolan (1988: 49-50); Ci (1988) [a critical account].

• flashback/retrospection/analepsis The presentation of events that have occurred before the current story-NOW. An external flashback presents an event occurring before the beginning of the primary story line (i.e., in the pre-history).

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• flashforward/anticipation/prolepsis The presentation of a future event before its proper time. An external flashforward involves an event happening after the end of the primary story line. An objective flashforward or certain anticipation presents an event that will actually occur; a subjective flashforward or uncertain anticipation is just a character's vision of a likely future event. Genette (1980 [1972]: 40, 48-79); Lintvelt 1981: 53-4; Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 46-51); Toolan (1988: 50-54); Ci (1988). Examples:

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An hour later Fielding had still appeared neither at the party office nor Tetbury Hall. The faithful had been sent away, with apologies, little knowing that in three days' time the cause of their disappointment was to be the subject of headlines. (Fowles, "The Enigma" 190) [certain anticipation]

I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. (Dickens, Tale of Two Cities 404) [A subjective, external, and completive flashforward.]


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• achrony A sequence of temporally wholly unordered events (Genette 1980 [1972]: 84).

N5.2.2. Duration (How long?). The basic distinction that needs to be established first is that between 'story time' and 'discourse time'.

• discourse time The time it takes an average reader to read a passage, or, more globally, the whole text. Discourse time can be measured in the number of words, lines, or pages of a text. (A rule of thumb used by radio announcers is that one line of text equals 1.5 seconds.)

• story time The fictional time taken up by an action episode, or, more globally, by the whole action. To determine story time, one usually relies on aspects of textual pace, intuition, and text-internal clues.

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The years passed. The sun swept through its majestic cycles. The moon waxed and waned, and tides rushed back and forth across the surface of the world. Ice crept down from the north, and for ten thousand years [text-internal clue] covered the islands, its weight and power breaking down rocks and forming earth. (Michener, Hawaii 7)

• In isochronous presentation ('of equal duration'; also congruent presentation, isochrony), story time and discourse time are approximately equal or rhythmically mapped. This is normally the case in passages containing lots of dialogue or detailed action presentation. Isochrony is a defining feature of the scenic narrative mode (N5.3.1.). Genette (1980 [1972]: 94-95, 109-112); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 54-55); Toolan (1988: 57-61).

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     "I have your call to New York now, Mrs. Glass," the operator said.

     "Thank you," said the girl, and made room on the night table for the ashtray. A woman's voice came through. "Muriel? Is that you?" The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. "Yes, Mother. How are you?" she said. (Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" 7-8)


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• In speed-up/acceleration, an episode's discourse time is considerably shorter than its story time. Speed-up typically characterizes a 'summary' or 'panoramic' mode of presentation. Genette (1980 [1972]: 94-95, 95-99); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 53-54); Toolan (1988: 57-61).

     Set loose, Sybil immediately ran down to the flat part of the beach and began to walk in the direction of Fisherman's Pavilion. Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy collapsed castle, she was soon out of the area reserved for guests of the hotel.


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     She walked for about a quarter of a mile and then suddenly broke into an oblique run up the soft part of the beach. She stopped short when she reached the place where a young man was lying on his back. (Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" 14)

• In slow-down/deceleration, an episode's discourse time is considerably longer than its story time. Slow-down is a rare phenomenon; many cases classified as slow-down are probably more properly interpreted as congruent presentations of subjective time. Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 53); Toolan (1988: 57).
• ellipsis/cut/omission A stretch of story time which is not textually represented at all. "The discourse halts, though time continues to pass in the story" (Chatman 1978: 70). Some critics consider ellipsis a special case of speed-up. Genette (1980 [1972]: 93, 95, 106-109); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 53); Toolan (1988: 56).

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Roses, green grass, books and peace. [Martha's last thoughts before she falls asleep.]

     Martha woke up with a start when they got to the cottage, and gave a little shriek which made them all laugh. Mummy's waking shriek, they called it. (Weldon, "Weekend" 314) [Story time has been cut during Martha's sleep.]


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• pause During a pause, discourse time elapses on description or comment, while story time stops and no action actually takes place. Genette (1980 [1972]: 95, 99-106); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 53); Toolan (1988: 56).

N5.2.4. Frequency (How often?). Frequency analysis investigates a narrator's strategies of summative or repetitive telling. There are three main frequential modes:

• singulative telling Recounting once what happened once.

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• repetitive telling Recounting several times what happened once.
• iterative telling Recounting once what happened n times.

As a contemporary French critic has pointed out in a treatise on narrative [an allusion to Genette 1980], a novelist can (a) narrate once what happened once or (b) narrate n times what happened once or (c) narrate n times what happened n times or (d) narrate once what happened n times. [The occasion for this comment is the narrator's problem of how to recount the sexual experiences of his characters.]

• He goes to the McDonald Hamburger stand, and to graduate student parties to smoke pot, and to political meetings. He writes letters home to the girl with the abortion, and washes his clothes in the laundry down in the basement of the graduate dormitory, shown the way by Ting. He eats Fardiman's apple cake and grades many themes. He stands behind his desk in the Chemistry Building, three days a week, and tells his students about Carnaby Street and Portobello Road. He goes to the Teaching Round Table, where all the graduate assistants sit around a square table and discuss their problems. (Bradbury, "Composition" 293-94) [An example of summarizing iterative narration]

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• It was winter. Jess and Lorraine sat in movie theatres and held hands, then they sat in restaurants where they drank hot chocolate and held hands. They walked in the snowy, deserted Common, shivering, and held hands. (Metalious, The Tight White Collar 159)
• Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved, was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

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     This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome. (Incipit of Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark; qtd. Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 53-54)

N5.3.1. The main narrative modes (or ways in which an episode can be presented) basically follow from the frequential and durational relationships identified above. First, however, let us make the traditional distinction between 'showing' and 'telling' (often correlated with 'mimesis' and 'diegesis', respectively):

• showing In a showing mode of presentation, there is little or no narratorial mediation, overtness, or presence. The reader is basically cast in the role of a witness to the events.

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• telling In a telling mode of presentation, the narrator is in overt control (especially, durational control) of action presentation, characterization and point-of-view arrangement.

There are only two major narrative modes: scene and summary:

• scene/scenic presentation A showing mode which presents a continuous stream of detailed action events. Durational aspect: isochrony. Bonheim 1982: 20-24; Genette 1980 [1972]: 94-95, 109-112; Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 54-55.

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He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies caliber 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple. (Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" 21)

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• summary A telling mode in which the narrator condenses a sequence of action events into a thematically focused and orderly account. Durational aspect: speed-up. Bonheim (1982: 22-24). Example:

Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved, was not loved; and his life ended in disaster. (Nabokov, Laughter in the Dark; qtd. Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 53-54)

• description A telling mode in which the narrator introduces a character or describes the setting. Durational aspect: pause. As Chatman (1978: 43-44) points out, descriptive sentences are typically predicated on 'stative verbs' like be and have ("His hair was white. He had no friends or relatives"). See also block characterization (N7.4). Examples:

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He had numbered ninety years. His head was completely bald -- his mouth was toothless -- his long beard was white as snow -- and his limbs were feeble and trembling. (G.W.M. Reynolds, Wagner the Were-Wolf)

In the centre of the square stands the courthouse itself, a Victorian building of no distinction, with defensive cannon at every corner. In front of the courthouse stands a statue, of a soldier, his rifle in a negative position, a Henry Fleming who has been perpetuated as he ducks out of the Civil War. (Bradbury, "Composition" 286)


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• comment/commentary A telling mode in which the narrator comments on characters, the development of the action, the circumstances of the act of narrating, etc. Durational aspect: pause. Comments are typical narratorial intrusions and often indicative of 'self-conscious narration'. See Bonheim (1982: 30-32). Example:

I've been a postman for twenty-eight years. Take that first sentence: because it's written in a simple way may make the fact of my having been a postman for so long seem important, but I realize that such a fact has no significance whatever. After all, it's my fault that it may seem as if it has to some people just because I wrote it down plain; I wouldn't know how to do it any other way. (Sillitoe, "The Fishing-Boat Picture" 135)

N6. Setting and fictional space

• literary space The environment which situates objects and characters; more specifically, the environment in which characters move or live in.

See Kahrmann et al. (1977: C.4) and Hoffmann (1978). Along with characters, space belongs to the 'existents' of a narrative (Chatman 1978). Bakhtin (1981 [1973]), Chatman (1978: 96-106, 138-145), Bronfen (1986), Ronen (1994: ch. 6).

• story space The spatial environment or setting of any of the story's action episodes; or more globally, the ensemble or range of these environments.

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• discourse space The narrator's current spatial environment; more globally, the whole range of environments in which the narrative situation is located. For instance, hospitals and psychiatric wards are popular modern discourse spaces (J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Günter Grass's The Tin Drum).

• story-HERE The current point in space in story space; functionally, the deictic point of origin for deictic expressions such as here, there, left, right, etc., often used in register with the physical position of an internal focalizer (N3.2.2).

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• discourse-HERE The current point in space in discourse space, equivalent to the physical position of the narrator. Example:

The solid wood desk, on which I am writing, formerly a jeweler's workbench, is equipped with four large drawers and a top whose surface, slightly sloping inwards from the edges (no doubt so that the pearls that were once sifted on it would run no risk of falling to the floor) is covered with black fabric of very tightly woven mesh. (Georges Perec, "Still Life/ Style Leaf")

N6.4. As Ronen (1986; 1994) has pointed out, any description of space invokes a perception of space: apart from the reader's imaginative perception, this is either a narrator's perception, or a character's perception; both can be either actual perception or imaginary perception. For this reason, fictional space is evidently strongly correlated to focalization (N3.2).

• In Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill", Miss Brill's room is likened to a "cupboard", a simile that not only captures the dimensions of the room but also expresses its cramped atmosphere and the protagonist's isolation.

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• I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in the third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly, crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name. (Joyce, "Araby")

• About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes -- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

N6.6. Representations of space should always be related to the story's underlying narrative situation. Consider the two examples below:

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[Coketown] was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes would have allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. (Dickens, Hard Times ch. V) [an authorial narrator's panoramic view (a highly critical one) of the novel's main setting.]


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[T]hey were clanking through a drive that cut through the garden like a whip-lash, looping suddenly an island of green, and behind the island, but out of sight until you came upon it, was the house. It was long and low built, with a pillared veranda and balcony all the way round. The soft white bulk of it lay stretched upon the green garden like a sleeping beast. And now one and now another window leaped into light. Someone was walking through the empty rooms carrying a lamp. (Mansfield, "Prelude" 17) [space seen through the moving point of view of an internal focalizer -- significantly, some aspects of space only become visible as the cart approaches the house]

N7. Characters and Characterization

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She [Katie] pecked Martha on the forehead. "Funny little Martha," she said. "She reminds me of Janet. I really do like Janet." (Weldon, "Weekend" 320)

On the one hand, this is Katie's explicit characterization of Martha ("funny", "little"); at the same time it is also an implicit self-characterization, indicative of Katie's patronizing arrogance.

• block characterization The introductory description of a character, by the narrator, usually on the character's first appearance in the text; a special type of explicit characterization. (Term introduced by Souvage 1965: 34-36).

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He was personable and quick-minded, which might, with his middle-class manner and accent, have done him harm; but he was also a diplomat. [. . .] His name was Michael Jennings. (Fowles, "The Enigma" 198)

N7.5. An implicit characterization is a (usually unintentional) auto-characterization in which somebody's physical appearance or behavior is indicative of a characteristic trait. X characterizes him- or herself by behaving or speaking in a certain manner. Nonverbal behavior (what a character does) may characterize somebody as, for instance, a fine football player, a good conversationalist, a coward, or a homosexual, while verbal behavior (the way a character speaks, or what a character says in a certain situation) may characterize somebody as, for instance, having a certain educational background (jargon, slang, dialect), as belonging to a certain class of people (sociolect), or as being truthful, evasive, ill-mannered, etc. Characters are also implicitly characterized by their clothing, their physical appearance (e.g., a hunchback) and their chosen environment (e.g., their rooms, their pet dogs, their cars).

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"I give every man his due, regardless of religion or anything else. I have nothing against Jews as an individual," I says, "It's just the race." (Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury) [Cited by Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 63 as a statement showing a character's bigotry.]

Generally speaking, all explicit characterizations are always also implicit auto-characterizations (why?). Occasionally, an implicit auto-characterization can sharply clash with an explicit auto-characterization.

• reliable narrator A narrator "whose rendering of the story and commentary on it the reader is supposed to take as an authoritative account of the fictional truth" (Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 100).

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• unreliable narrator A narrator "whose rendering of the story and/or commentary on it the reader has reasons to suspect. [...] The main sources of unreliability are the narrator's limited knowledge, his personal involvement, and his problematic value-scheme" (Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 100). Many first-person narrators are unreliable.

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True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story. (Poe, beginning of "The Tell-Tale Heart") [Not at all a "healthy" and "calm" way of beginning a story!]

• flat character/static character A one-dimensional figure characterized by a very restricted range of speech and action patterns. A flat character does not develop in the course of the action and can often be reduced to a type or even a caricature (e.g., "a typical Cockney housewife", "a bureaucrat" etc.). Flat characters are often used for comic effect.-- Mrs. Micawber in Dickens's David Copperfield is characterized by keeping on saying "I never will desert Mr. Micawber".

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• round character/dynamic character A three-dimensional figure characterized by many, often conflicting, properties. A round character tends to develop in the course of the action and is not reducible to a type. Forster (1976 [1927]); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 40-42); Pfister (1988: 177-179). Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 41) identifies Stephen in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Strether in James's The Ambassadors as round characters.

• confidant (fem., confidante) Somebody the protagonist can speak to, exchange views with, confide in -- usually a close friend. -- Dr. Watson is Sherlock Holmes's confidant (and also his 'foil', see below). Sam is Frodo's confidant in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

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• foil character A foil is, literally, "a sheet of bright metal that is placed under a piece of jewelry to increase its brilliancy" (Holman 1972); one meaning of to foil is 'to enhance by contrast'. In literature, a minor character highlighting certain features of a major character, usually through contrast. -- In Weldon's "Weekend", Janet is a foil for Katie and Katie is a foil for Martha. Sherlock Holmes's cleverness is highlighted by Dr. Watson's dullness.

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• chorus character Originally a convention in drama, an uninvolved character ("man in the street") commenting on characters or events, typically speaking philosophically, sententiously, or in clichés.

"One time we had a mayor of Chicago punched your King George right in the snoot [...]. Don't forget now," says the cabbie, "It's better here, so if you don't like it go back where you came from." (Bradbury, "Composition" 289) [The American taxi driver who takes William, a British student, to the campus.]

• How (with what sequence of expressions) does a text establish a character's identity? (Cf. block characterization, N7.4, above.)

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• Are the characters mainly referred to by first name, nickname, last name, with or without a (honorific) form of address (Mr., Mrs., Dr., Father, Senator, Colonel, ...), or by a descriptive referring expression? (For instance, in Joyce's Ulysses, the younger protagonist is "Stephen", while the older protagonist is "Mr Bloom"; Dickens often uses descriptive expressions such as "his eminently practical friend" etc.)

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• When and with what implications or presuppositions does the text use personal pronouns? (Cf. use of referentless pronoun', N3.3.10).

Uspensky (1973) [first close analysis of point-of-view aspects of naming]; Genette (1988: 68-71) [discussion of character identification in 19C and 20C story incipits]; Moore (1989) [naming conventions in James's What Maisie Knew]; Fludernik (1996: 246-48); Emmott (1997) [major study especially focusing on pronouns]; Collier (1999) [naming in Patrick White).

N8. Discourses: representations of speech, thought and consciousness

• the narrator's discourse, comprising all 'diegetic statements' telling the 'narrative of (nonverbal) events'; also, the narrator's evaluative or commentatorial statements, if any; and

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• the characters' discourses, making up the 'narrative of verbal events/words'.

Although this is a useful distinction, there are many transitional and borderline phenomena such as 'narrative report of discourse', 'psychonarration', 'narrated perception' etc. (see below). Dolezel (1973: Introduction); Cohn (1978: 21-57), Genette (1980: 164-169; 1988 [1983]: 18, 43, 61-63, 130); Lintvelt (1981: ch. 4.6.2).

• quotation theory The theory of the narrative options of rendering a character's speech or thought. The primary relationship is one of framing or embedding: a character's discourse or inset is presented within a narrator's discourse or frame. The simplest kind of frame is a clause of 'attributive discourse' (She said [frame], Good morning [inset]). Attitudinal forces between frame and inset range from 'wholly consonant' via 'neutral' to 'wholly dissonant' (ironical). Each instance of quoted discourse is either self-quotation or 'alteroquotation' (quotation of somebody else's speech). The inset represents either actual words or virtual words (hypothetical utterances as well as verbalized mental events), and the inset's mimetic quality (or accuracy) ranges from rough approximation to verbatim reproduction. See Cohn (1978); Sternberg (1982b) [frame and inset]; Genette (1988 [1983]: ch. 9); Plett (1988).

N8.3. A special subset of diegetic statements is 'attributive discourse':

• attributive discourse A diegetic phrase or 'tag' identifying an agent and an act of speech, thought, or perception. Syntactically, there are two main forms: (a) an 'introductory tag' is a discourse tag in initial position (Jane thought (that)); (b) a 'parenthetical tag' is a discourse tag in either medial or final position (That, she thought, was it; "That is it", she thought). Semantically, attributive discourse tags are constructions based on (a) 'verba dicendi' or 'inquits' (she said, asked, replied, muttered, confessed, claimed, remarked, promised, announced, ...), (b) 'verba cogitandi' or 'cogitats' (she thought, realized, felt, ...), and (c) 'verba sentiendi/percipiendi' or 'percepits' (she saw, heard, felt, remembered, imagined, dreamed, ...). Note, Latin verbum means 'word' (i.e., not just 'verb'), so a phrase like "The thought struck him that" can easily count as an introductory 'cogitat tag'.

• direct discourse A direct quotation of a character's speech ('direct speech') or (verbalized) thought ('direct thought'). Direct speech is often placed within quotation marks, explicitly signaling the transition from quoting to quoted discourse (= frame/inset, see 'quotation theory', N8.2). Tagged direct discourse is framed by a clause of attributive discourse; untagged direct discourse (alternatively, free direct discourse) is free of attributive discourse. The main property of direct discourse is that the deictic elements of the quoted inset, especially its tenses and pronouns, are wholly independent of the deixis of the quoting discourse.

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[...] only I myself am novel, he thinks, the experience is not.. . . But what, he thinks, next? (Bradbury, "Composition") [Tagged direct thought].

Wonderful! The best husband in the world: look into his crinkly, merry, gentle eyes; see it there. So the mouth slopes away into something of a pout. Never mind. Gaze into the eyes. Love. It must be love. You married him. (Weldon, "Weekend" 313) [Untagged direct thought].

N8.6. Free indirect discourse styles.

• free indirect discourse A representation of a character's words ('free indirect speech') or verbalized thoughts ('free indirect thought') which is (a) 'indirect' in the sense that pronouns and tenses of the quoted discourse are aligned with the pronoun/tense structure of the current narrative situation, and (b) 'free' to the extent that the discourse quoted appears in the form of a non-subordinate clause. While free indirect discourse changes and shifts some of the words of the original utterance, it retains subjective constructions and expressions, question forms, exclamation marks, speaker emphasis, etc. Free indirect discourse is generally a less mimetic (i.e., a less accurate) rendering than direct discourse, but more mimetic than indirect discourse.

See Bally (1912 [f.i.d. and French imparfait]); Pascal (1977 ['dual voice' theory]); McHale (1978 [excellent overview]); Banfield (1982 [a generative-grammar account]); Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 110-116); Cohn (1978: 99-140 [consonant and dissonant uses of f.i.d.]); Toolan (1988: 119-137); Short (1991 [speech-act parameters]); Fludernik (1993b [the most comprehensive account to date]). Examples:

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What was he to do? Ridiculous to try driving it away. And to leave the wood, with the rain still coming down full pelt, was out of the question. (Hughes, "The Rain Horse" 129) [Untagged free indirect thought in a third-person context.]

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? (Dickens, "The Signalman" 12) [Tagged free indirect speech in a first-person text.]


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     He will write to her?

     He will write to her every alternate day, and tell her all his adventures. (Dickens, Edwin Drood 174) [Untagged free indirect dialogue in a heterodiegetic present tense context.]

• indirect discourse A form of representing a character's words ('indirect speech') or (verbalized) thoughts ('indirect thought') which uses a reporting clause of introductory attributive discourse, places the discourse quoted in a subordinate clause bound to the deictic orientation of the narrator, and generally summarizes, interprets, and grammatically straightens the character's language. Indirect discourse adjusts pronouns, tenses, and referring expression to the point of view of the reporting speaker (the narrator), and paraphrases rather than reproduces the original's expressivity and illocutionary force. Example:

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Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself (Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway).
• narrative report of discourse A narrator's summarizing report of a character's words ('narrative report of speech') or thoughts ('narrative report of thought'). Using a strategy of 'departicularization' (Sternberg 1982b: 93-100), the technique's aim is to capture the gist of the character's discourse, but renders it in the narrator's own language. Differentiating increasing degrees of mimesis and concreteness, McHale (1978) discerns three subtypes: 'diegetic summary' (which mentions a speech/thought event without further specification), 'summary report' (which names the topics only), and 'indirect content-paraphrase' (which reports propositional content in the form of indirect discourse).

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Discussion very active indeed [diegetic summary]. I talk to plain young man with horn-rimmed glasses, sitting at my left hand, about Jamaica, where neither of us has ever been [...] [summary report]. Go into the drawing room, and all exclaim how nice it is to see the fire [indirect content-paraphrase/ indirect discourse]. (Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady)

N8.8. To conclude this section, we will briefly turn to terms that specifically identify certain styles of representing 'inside views' (Booth 1961: 163-168) into a character's mind. Presenting the mental processes of characters, their thoughts and perceptions, their memories, dreams, and emotions became a prime challenge for late 19C and early 20C novelists. Among the authors who became strongly interested in what was soon called 'stream of consciousness art', 'literary impressionism', 'novel of consciousness', etc, were D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Dorothy Richardson, Patrick White (and many others). See Cohn (1978) for an excellent introduction to the subject.

• stream of consciousness Originally, a term coined by the American psychologist William James (the brother of Henry James) to denote the disjointed character of mental processes and the layering and merging of central and peripheral levels of awareness. Appropriated into literary criticism by May Sinclair in 1918, stream of consciousness is often used as a general term for the textual rendering of mental processes, especially any attempt to capture the random, irregular, disjointed, associative and incoherent character of these processes.

N8.9. The main techniques of representing the sound and rhythm of a character's stream of consciousness are 'interior monologue', 'direct thought', and 'free indirect thought'. Direct thought and free indirect thought have already been defined in N8.5 and N8.6, above. Interior monologue is a special case of direct thought:

• interior monologue An extended passage of 'direct thought', sometimes also considered an independent text type ('autonomous monologue'), e.g. by Cohn (1978). Examples are chapter 18 of Ulysses (Molly's monologue), Schnitzler's stories "Leutnant Gustl" and "Fräulein Else", Dujardin's novella The Bays Are Sere (orig. Les lauriers sont coupés [1887]). As Edouard Dujardin, often identified as the inventor of the style, puts it, "The essential innovation introduced by interior monologue consists in the fact that its aim is to invoke the uninterrupted flow of thoughts going through the character's being, as they are born, and in the order they are born, without any explanation of logical sequence and giving the impression of 'raw' experience (Dujardin 1931: 118). Examples:

• The waiter. The table. My hat on the stand. Let's take our gloves off; drop them casually on the table; these little things show a man's style. My coat on the stand; I sit down; ouf! I was weary. I'll put my gloves in my coat pockets. Blazing with light, golden, red, with its mirrors, this glitter, what? the restaurant; the restaurant where I am. I was tired. (Dujardin, The Bays Are Sere) [Interior monologue representing the thoughts of a man entering a restaurant.]

..

• I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as far only for the bones . . . (Joyce, Ulysses). [Thoughts of Molly Bloom lying in bed thinking about tomorrow's supper. The text continues in this manner, without a single full stop or comma for over 40 pages.]

N8.10. Earlier forms of extended direct thought are usually identified by the term 'soliloquy' (originally a term in drama theory meaning a monologue uttered aloud in solitude, D3.4):

• soliloquy An early (16-17C) style of directly presenting a character's thoughts. In contradistinction to the more modern form of the 'interior monologue' (see above), the epic soliloquy is characterized "both by a dialogical structure and by a highly rhetorical language" (Orth 2000; cf Fludernik 1996: 147-148). Example:

..
I had thought that women had bene as we men, that is true, faithfull, zealous, constant, but I perceiue they be rather woe vnto men, by their falshood, gelousie, inconstancie. I was halfe perswaded that they were made of the perfection of men, & would be comforters, but now I see thev haue tasted of the infection of the Serpent [...]. The Phisition saythe it is daungerous to minister Phisicke vnto the patient that hath a colde stomacke and a hotte lyuer. least in giuing warmth to the one he inflame the other, so verely it is harde to deale with a woman whose wordes seeme feruent, whose heart is congealed into harde yce, least trusting their outwarde talke, he be betraied with their inwarde trechery. (Lyly, Euphues [1578], qtd Orth 2000: 441)

• psychonarration The textual representation of a character's conscious or unconscious mental states and processes, mainly by using forms of 'narrative report of discourse' or 'narrated perception'. A borderline case is the 'report of what characters do not know, think, or say' (Chatman). See Cohn (1978: 21-57); Chatman (1978: 225-226 [report of what characters do not think or say]); Stanzel (1984: ch. 7.1.8 [on "not knowing that" vs. "not knowing why"]).

• They had married in 1905, almost a quarter of a century before, and were childless because Pilgram had always thought [iterative summary, presently supplemented by indirect content-paraphrase:] that children would be merely a hindrance to the realization of what had been in his youth a delightfully exciting plan but had now gradually become a dark, passionate obsession. (Nabokov, "The Aurelian")

..

• All this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in her mind. (Lawrence, Women in Love, qtd Cohn 1978: 49).
• The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many grains of allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare of long continuance between him and Dr. Rappacini (Hawthorne, "Rappacini's Daughter", qtd. Chatman 1978: 226) [report of what a character does not know].

..

• narrated perception The textual representation of a character's perception, often using a form of psychonarration, or a rendering in indirect discourse or free indirect discourse. See Fehr (1938); Chatman (1978: 203-205).

N8.12. Finally, 'mind style' is a general term for a character's or a narrator's typical patterns of mentation:

• mind style The textual evocation, especially by typical diction, rhetoric, and syntax, of a narrator's or a character's mindset and typical patterns of thinking. See Fowler (1977: 76); Leech and Short (1981: ch. 6); Nischik (1991).

..
"Corto y derecho," he thought, furling the muleta. Short and straight. Corto y derecho. (Hemingway, "The Undefeated" 201) [A bullfighter thinking in bullfighting terms.]

Ah, to be all things to all people: children, husband, employer, friends! It can be done: yes, it can: super woman. (Weldon, "Weekend" 312) [The weary exclamation, the enumeration of stress factors, and the ironical allusion are typical features of Martha's mind style.]

N9. A Case Study: Alan Sillitoe's "The Fishing Boat Picture"

N9.1. Like many first-person narratives, Sillitoe's "Fishing-Boat Picture" is a fictional autobiography. Harry is a mature narrator who looks back on his past life. Although he is only fifty-two at the time of writing the story, he feels his life is all but over. Like many first-person narrators, he has become not only older but also wiser. Looking back on his life, he realizes that he made many mistakes, especially in his behavior towards his wife Kathy. The story's first-person narrative situation is uniquely suited for presenting Harry's insights about his wasted life.

..


As always, after coming home from his round and lighting his pipe, his glance fell on the wedding picture on the sideboard. As always, the memory of that autumn evening twenty-eight years ago struck him when he had asked Kathy for a walk up Snakey Wood. That day he had landed the job at the P.O. and ...

..


I was born dead, I keep telling myself. Everybody's dead, I answer. So they are, I maintain, but then most of them never know it like I'm beginning to do, and it's a bloody shame that this has come to me at last when I could least do with it, and when it's too bloody late to get anything but bad from it. (149)