JOSE ANGEL GARCIA LANDA
3. Time structure in the story.
(Grard Genette, Narrative Discourse)
3.1. The
Generation of Story Time
3.6. Time and
Status of the Narrating
3.1. The Generation of Story Time
Literature is, like music or cinema, a sequential form of
art; a literary work, just like any other linguistic product, unfolds itself in
time. Language exists in time, but
its mission is to represent, to signify.
And among things which can be represented we find time itself. A text, unfolding itself in time, can at
the same time represent time. Texts
do not have to be narratives in order to do this. The tense system of any language is
designed for the representation of time in any kind of text, narrative or
other. We might argue that from the
moment we find a represented time in a text we are identifying if not an actual
narrative at least a narrative trait or structure. But we come closer to the spirit of
narrative temporality proper when we define it as the use of the time of the
representation as an icon of the represented time. By virtue of this mapping of one time
into the other, the textual time becomes a representational time, and the
fabula time becomes a represented time.
Things might stop there, and the two temporal sequences would overlap in
a perfectly homogeneous way. But we
must remember that fabula time is also represented semantically by means of the
linguistic signs of the text, not merely iconically through the linguistic
chain. The mapping of fabula time
into textual time is governed by the semantics of the text, to the extent that,
far from coterminous homogeneity being the rule, no two texts present the same temporal
formula. The interplay of iconicity
and semantized time ensures that the represented temporality is distorted in a
manifold of ways and degrees. What
we experience in a narrative text is therefore not the fabula time as such, but
a represented fabula time, what we call the story time.
In
principle, therefore, narratives move forward, in an indexical way which
signals the passage of time. But
this is only the general rule, and they may suddenly jump back, against the
direction of temporal progression.
They may also jump forward, interrupting their normal pace, or move in a
variety of speeds in one direction or another, compressing or expanding the
narrated time.
We
are going to study presently the peculiar temporality of the story, which is
the result of articulating the temporality of the fabula on the different
temporal sequence of the discourse.
In doing so, therefore, we shall presuppose those structures which are
peculiar to fabula and discourse time, and which underpin the structure of
story time. The story time is the
result of the interplay of fabula time with another temporal sequence, the
textual time of the linguistic chain.
It is very frequent to meet descriptions of narrative time which assume
only two temporal threads.[1]
Either the fabula time as a necessary referent or the duration of the enunciative
act get lost somewhere in the description.
We must assume on the contrary that each of the levels of analysis we
distinguish can generate a temporality of its own: for instance, it makes no
sense to speak of the "temporality of enunciation" as if enunciation
were a simple, univocal phenomenon.
The complexity of the temporality of enunciation will mirror the
complexity of the enunciation itself, the interplay of the author's and the
narrator's voices. If the basic
scheme of fabula, story and narrative is complicated in any way, if, for
instance, any of the levels duplicates itself, the temporal structure of the
narrative will become proportionally more complex.
3.2. Fabula Time
Fabula time is pluridimensional, since a fabula is not a thin
narrative line but a volume of relationships progressing in time. But a story presupposes the encoding of
those events in a semiotic thread of signs. Simultaneity therefore will have to be
rendered implicitly or through sequentiality. Study of story time can be described as
study of how a pluridimensional phenomenon has been mapped on a limited
semiotic system; or, conversely, of how a linear and sequential text manages to
construct, to represent, the fulness of a lived temporality.
Fabula
time may exist in two main forms: objective ("real" time) and
subjective time.
Subjective time is the representation of time in the minds of the
characters in the fabula. It is
therefore an element of the fictive world, just as the characters themselves,
but it is already subject to distortion and patterning (let us remind here
Bergson's concept of dure).
Subjective time may already be considered a transitional form towards
story time, which is also a represented time. Subjective time is not represented in
language (at least not exclusively), but it is nonetheless a semiotic
phenomenon to the extent that time and identity are subjective phenomena. It is of course this inherent
semiotization of fabula time which makes it amenable to representation as a story. The characters (or people) can be
thought of as being subject to brute, shapeless temporality, but in fact they
live their experience of time in a form much closer to an ordered narrative,
with significant connections between the events of their lives, anticipations,
memories and projects. Subjective
time is in one sense a simplification and in another sense a complication of
real fabula time. Subjective time,
like narrative, involves to some extent a linearization of the multidimensional
fabula time. Consciousness can
oscillate between several threads of thought, but it can hardly encompass all
aspects of reality. It is therefore
only natural that subjective time, like the subjective realm of experience as a
whole, should be used as a partially elaborated material in the construction of
a story; it is used to motivate narrative structures at this level. But subjective time also complicates
narrative temporality in that it disrupts the uniformity of its direction:
flashbacks and flashforwards are a feature of memory work before they become a
feature of narrative. Characters
may likewise construct fictional temporal sequences through their wishes,
dreams, tales, etc. A story may use
all of these without giving the narrator the direct responsibility for any of
them, since they are in a sense ready-made, a part of the fabula. Of course they are only significant for
analysis due to the fact that they are a part of the story as well, but it is useful to distinguish
these features from those which are introduced at story level, since they give
rise to different narrative structures.
3.3. Story time: Order
Genette divides the temporal relationships between fabula
and story into three types:
we
will study relations between the time of the story and the (pseudo-) time of
the narrative according to what seem to me to be three essential
determinations: connections between the temporal order of succession of the events in the story
and the pseudo-temporal order of their arrangement in the narrative . . . ;
connections between the variable duration of these events or story sections and
the pseudo-duration (in fact, length of text) of their telling in the
narrative--connections, thus, of speed . . . ; finally, connections of
frequency, that is . . . relations
between the repetitive capacities of the story and those of the narrative. (Narrative Discourse 35)
Let's concentrate for the moment on order. The natural order of events in the
fabula is chronological. The story
can distort the order of the events in various ways. Those distortions are called
anachronies. Anachronies have
always been common in literature.
In fact, Aristotle seems to have been the first one to make a remark on
this phenomenon, when he compares the temporal structure of the tragedy and the
epic:
In
tragedy we cannot imitate several lines of actions carried on at one and the
same time; we must confine ourselves to the action on the stage and the part
taken by the players. But in epic
poetry, owing to the narrative form, many events simultaneously transacted can
be presented (Poetics 63, XXIV.4)
Of course this feature is not a necessity, but a convention
of the Greek stage. However, it
does suggest that linguistic narrative easily yields to temporal distortions,
and that the time scheme of a novel will usually be more complex than that of a
play (or a film).
The
most famous classical reference to this issue, however, is usually assumed to
be Horace's differentiation between narration in medias res and narration ab ovo. These terms are introduced in a
paragraph discussing the problem of how to give a well-known subject a brilliant
treatment, or, more to the point, of how to turn a traditional fabula into an
artistic story. Horace, following
Aristotelian suggestions, sets Homer's practice as an example:
He
does not begin a "Return of Diomede" from the death of Meleager, nor
the war of Troy from the twin eggs [gemino ab ovo ]. He ever hastens to the issue, and hurries
his hearers into the midst of the story [in medias res ], just as if they knew
it before; and what he thinks his touch will not turn to gold, that he lets
alone. (Art of Poetry 70, lines
146-50)
Usually these terms are used in a different way nowadays. While Horace seems to imply that
preliminaries can be dispensed with, we usually understand that a story begun
in medias res will retake the lost
expositional events by means of an anachrony, a flashback.
So,
there are two basic story orders: the simple, unmarked order of chronological
succession of events, and the complex order that includes some kind of temporal
distortion. This was also the
assumption of medieval rhetoric.
Pushed
to the extreme, the first variety of narrative order keeps the reader
completely informed of the progress of the fabula: there is no need of coming
back to retake some unexplained event; everything has been told and therefore
the attention of the reader is riveted on the future, not on the past. The peculiar emotion produced by this
kind of straightforward narrative is suspense: the reader wonders what will
happen, and the whole of his
interpretive attention is projected to the future. The model for this kind of narrative is
perhaps the adventure story: war tales, westerns, science-fiction, children's
tales...
If
we push the second variety of narrative ordering to its logical conclusion, we
find that here the logic is double: as in straightforward narrative, we wonder
what will happen next, but, since important facts are being concealed from us
for the moment, we also wonder what has happened. That is, curiosity is the reader's main passion here, or
curiosity combined with suspense.
We wonder about the nature of the past in order to explain the present,
but we also wonder about the way in which the past will be revealed, the
revelation of its full hold on the present. The prototype for this kind of story is
the detective story, which unfolds simultaneously toward the origin and toward
the conclusion of the fabula.
This
second kind of story can't be content with a simple, one-way progression into
the future. It needs to come back
on itself, and finish what was left unfinished, tell us the mystery which has
been hidden all through the story.
A temporal distortion is needed, the most basic one, a return to the
past which will enable us to understand the present. It is now time to refine the concept of
anachrony. The study anachronies
was undertaken by German and Russian Formalists (Friedemann, Tomashevski). The most complete system is expounded by
Genette.
We
have defined an anachrony as a temporal distortion between the time pattern of
the story and the time pattern of the fabula. There are two kinds of anachronies: an
anachronical event may belong either to the past or to the future with respect
to the events which form its immediate context. We call the first type analepsis or flashbacks; the second type is
prolepsis or
flashforwards. It is important to
realize that these distortions have to be apprehended at some point as we move
through the story. We cannot define
the temporality of the story as a simple formal scheme: time must enter the
description. From the moment the
reader constructs a coherent series of events he has a temporal orientation and
a "now" moment; any anachrony will be perceived to be a flashback or
a flashforward with respect to that moving present. It is important to realize the nature of
this definition: anachronies are not measured with respect to the time of the
enunciation (as, for instance, verbal tenses) but with respect to a narrative
reference point created by the ordered unfolding of events. Genette calls that unfolding of events
the "first narrative".
His definition is "the temporal level of narrative with respect to
which anachrony is defined as such" (ND 48). It goes without saying that the relative
coherence of the first narrative will reinforce the subordinate character of
the anachronies. If no coherent
first narrative is formed (as in Molly Bloom's monologue) there results a
temporal constellation in which every element is defined and defines the others
in equal measure.
Most
elements in the fabula have a simple temporality, being merely signified
events. But some of the fabula
elements (objects or events) are signs, and as such may have a double
temporality: the temporality of the signifier and the temporality of the
signified. Therefore, the temporal
status of these elements will have to be described at two levels of
signification: the standard semiotic level of the story and the signified
semiotic level of their referent.
For instance, an epic narrative may suddenly give way to a description
of past events which are depicted in a present work of art portrayed by the
narrator (e.g. Aeneas looking at paintings of the destruction of Troy in Dido's
castle). Or a character may
reminisce through a story: the telling of the story, the story-as-sign, is
located in the present; but the events depicted in the story take us to the
past. There is no anachrony in one
sense, since the present goes unfolding itself. But there is an anachrony in a sense,
since we learn about the past or the future.
That
is, "real" anachronies can be introduced by the narrator, but they
are not the only possible ones.
There are also anachronies present in fabula elements (speeches,
stories, works of art, memories) which are capable of signifying a temporal
moment. Genette speaks of objective
versus subjective anachronies (47), but the opposition remains
undeveloped. Moreover, the terms
seem to refer only to anachronies introduced by speech or psychical
processes. Maybe it is better to
speak of fabula anachronies as opposed to story anachronies. In the last chapter of Ulysses, which
contains Molly Bloom's interior monologue, there are no story anachronies: the
rhythm and sequence of the mode of presentation, a sequence of thoughts, are
uninterrupted. But there is a
complex anachronical structure in the contents of those thoughts. This ability anachronies have to contain
other anachrnonies inside them can greatly complicate the temporal
articulations of the story. A
prolepsis can contain a second-degree analepsis which contains a third-degree
prolepis, and so on.
Both
prolepses and analepses can be external or internal (with respect to the
beginning and end points of the main story) and have two relevant dimensions:
reach and extent. They may also be
homodiegetic or heterodiegetic, that is, dealing or not dealing with a fabula
line which is narrated earlier or later in the main story. Internal homodiegetic analepses are used
to recapture previous fabula material.
They may add something new or just repeat previous information. Repeating analepses, or recalls, tie the narrative to its own past and,
if they do not add to the narrative information, can be an important principle
of stylistic construction.
Completive analepses, or returns,
"fill in, after the event, an earlier gap in the narrative"
(ND 51). This play of
creation and filling in of gaps contributes to create a specific kind of
narrative interest.
We
have mentioned two prototypical kinds of story, depending on whether they
follow the logic of succession or the logic of retrieval and completion of
information; the adventure story and the mystery story. Since we define these two kinds of story
with respect to the kind of expectation they arouse in the reader, it is
obvious that a formal description of a story has to take into account the
temporal development of the story: a story is not only what it 'really' is, but
also what the reader thinks it is when it is being read. A suspense story might reveal itself in
the end as a mystery story, and it is this succession of expectations in the
reader which provides an adequate account of its form.
A
mystery story necessitates that the reader ignore part of the fabula. This can be achieved in various
ways. The story can begin in medias
res, and the delayed exposition
appears gradually later on. These
stories are born with a mystery in them.
However, the mystery may develop during the unfolding of the story. It consists then in a control of the
information available to the reader.
A mystery can be described as a gap in our knowledge of the story
(Sternberg 238 ss). A mystery story
is therefore a system of creation and resolution of informational gaps. Gaps can be divided into permanent
(unsolved mysteries) or provisional.
The nature of gaps can usually be determined objectively, but the
analyst must take into account the impression of the reader: a gap which
normally belongs to the class of provisional gaps can sometimes be left open
forever (cf. John Fowles's story "The Enigma", in The Ebony
Tower). So, we can
establish an opposition between provisional and permanent gaps. On the other hand, we can take into
account the reader's perspective in order to distinguish (with Sternberg 244f)
between curiosity gaps, those which
are recognized immediately, and surprise gaps, informational restrictions which only
reveal themselves in their full extent from a later perspective. These may be related to Genette's
paralipsis, an information which
suddenly reveals itself to have been skipped while it should have been
available under the existing mode of presentation (ND 52).
Actually,
the two kinds of narrative are extremes, and most narratives combine both kinds
of interest. And that is because,
from its very definition, narrative has two main movements; it looks both to
the immediate future, following the logic of succession, and towards some point
in the past, following the logic of repetition--any narrative is in a sense a
repetition of the events it tells.
Prolepses
are less frequent than analepses, although they are perfectly coherent while we
remain in retrospective narrative.
But when they are present they also contribute to the structure of
expectation, curiosity and suspense, to the activity of gap-filling and
construction of coherence which is the task of the reader of narrative. Sometimes an otherwise straightforward
narrative may include prolepses which accentuate the feeling of curiosity: how
shall we reach the stage adumbrated by the prolepsis? A novel with a complex temporality such
as Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
makes a constant use of this kind of curiosity-goading prolepsis.
Narrative
is a transformation not only of the fabula material, but also of the reader's
impressions; both returns and recalls help effect this transformation. It is important to note that the
difference between recall and return is not a clear-cut one. New aspects of a phenomenon may appear
in a later recall; the same event may be modulated in a different way through
the attitudes of the narrator or the characters (this is clear from Genette's
examples, e.g. ND 58). Here as elsewhere, the concepts we
introduced should be used as measuring rods rather than pigeon-holes.
1.3.4. Story Time: Duration
Narrative duration or speed is defined by Genette as
"the connections between the variable duration of these events or story
sections and the pseudo-duration (in fact, length of text) of their telling in
the narrative" (ND 35).
This definition disregards, as Genette's model does as a rule, the
complexity of discourse structures.
At textual level, time may be fictionalised; the telling of the story
may be a story in itself, and the time of the fabula may be measured with
respect to this fictional time which surrounds the act of narration. Genette's "narrative time" is
ambiguous: it may refer both to the idealised reading time or to the represented
time in which the narrative discourse unfolds. As this fictional time may have its
variations of order, duration and aspect, the formula for story duration may be
extremely complex. This only means
that time can be subjected in narrative to an infinite modulation. But while a small amount of experimental
narratives seek to explore the complexities which underlie the representation
of time, most narratives yield themselves to analysis using Genette's system of
story durations.
The
speed of the narrative consists in the relationship between equivalences
between the duration of the fabula and the idealized duration of the reading
process. The ideal coincidence at
all points between the speed of the fabula and that of the narrative is what
Genette calls an isochronous narrative, and then declares to be a
chimaera. But isochronous
narrative, narrative without variations of rhythm, is perfectly possible. Simultaneous reporting of sports is a
non-literary instance; the interior monologue is a literary one. But it is more usual to find narratives
with variations of speed or anisochronies. Anisochronies will involve a
passage from summary to ellipsis, from scene to description. These are the four basic movements
described by Genette:
We could schematize the temporal values of these four
movements fairly well with the following formulas, with ST designating story [fabula] time and
NT the pseudo-time, or conventional
time, of the narrative:
pause:
NT = n, ST = 0. Thus: NT >ST
scene:
NT =
ST
summary:
NT < ST
ellipsis:
NT = 0, ST = n. Thus: NT < ST.
The formulae seem to fit neatly. Only, according to our definition, these
movements would be movements of the narrative text and not of the story proper, and this
brings along a number of conceptual modifications.
First
of all, concerning pauses. The
story is the transmission of the fabula; when there is no fabula being
constructed, as in a digressive pause, there is no story, while there is still
a narrative text--narrative, because the materials woven into it, story and
digression, are organically linked into a communicative act which is mainly
narrative. There are, of course,
descriptive pauses which are narrative insofar as the elements described are a
part of the narrated world. There
are also narrative pauses, which are caused by the interruption of one story
line by another.
With
respect to scenes, we should note
that the identity between the time of reception and the fabula time rendered in
the scene is hypothetical, a constructed convention. The two temporalities are rarely to be
measured by the clock. This would
seem to contradict the very definition of scene. In a scene, the duration of the time of
reception should in principle be used iconically to signify the duration of
fabula time. And it is so, with the
proviso that iconicity is also a constructed relationship of
signification. It may use more
"natural" elements of the signified, but it articulates them in an
arbitrary structure, just like symbolism.
This is why we usually get so many "accelerated" scenes, most
noticeably in dramatic or filmic narrative, without any breach of
verisimilitude. Generic conventions
determine the latitude which can be given to this supposed identity between
represented time and representational time.
Be
as it may, scenic narrative requires a presentation without noticeable gaps,
one which provides a kind of immersion into the fictive world, at maximum
distance from narrative mediation (and, therefore, from both authorial digressions
and from omniscient summary). This
maximum distance from the narrative presence can be effected mainly by two
means: immersion in the characters' verbal world and immersion in the
character's unspoken perception of the narrated world. In the first case, we get a dramatized
dialogue with a minimum of narrative indications, which usually involves external presentation of the
characters. In the second, the scene
is filtered through the consciousness of a character, a focalizer, and the
impression of scenic time is created through the sequence of his narrated
perceptions, thoughts and emotions.
Scene
is one of the basic movements of novelistic narrative. This consists most frequently in an
alternance of scene and summary, with the first scene marking the beginning of
the first narrative and creating a reference point for the reader (Sternberg
8). Summary was used traditionally as a starter (for
instance, in Jane Austen) but its place is more and more restricted in more
recent narrative, which tends to do away with transitions between scenes.
Summary is used
whenever happennings are filtered through an interpretive mind, be it the
narrator's or the character's (for instance, in a subjective analepsis). Summary is usually the
"marginal" element of narrative, the necessary scaffolding which will
set the stage for the subsequent scene.
Therefore, it will rarely contain the bound motifs of a fabula; its
function is orientative with respect to the reader.
Ellipsis would seem to be a problematic
concept, since the fabula only exists through its rendering in the story, and
ellipsis is defined as that part of the fabula which is omitted in the
story. The definition of ellipsis
needs, therefore, a different kind of knowledge to justify its presence, and
this is usually the result of the literary competence of the reader and the
predictability of fabula patterns, apart from the more general scenarios which
govern our everyday behaviour. Our
concept of ellipsis should take these phenomena into account. Story schemata both organize the pattern
of presence and ellipsis and guide the reader in determining which
ellipses are significant and which are caused by redundant information. Ellipsis is therefore connected to the
driving principle of the narrative, the narrative design which shapes relevance
and interest, the plot. So many
ellipses are mere time gaps which are used to give shape to this plot, to
emphasize causal over temporal connection by modelling the temporal sequence on
the model of the causal one. A
relevant ellipsis, on the other hand, is a narrative gap which is flaunted in
some way as significant, through explicit comment or through the break it
causes in fabula sequence which we interpret through a well-known intertextual
model. Usually the gap will be
filled later on through the use of anachrony.
Genette
divides ellipses from a formal point of view into explicit, implicit, and
hypothetical. According to a
temporal criterion into definite and indefinite. Usually the the definiteness of the
ellipsis is not explicit, and is left to the inference of the reader.
3.5. Story Time: Aspect
The order of events is not only temporal, but also
causal. That is, temporality by
itself is not the only explanation for the effects of sequentiality and order
which a story provokes in the reader.
Sequences of events can form wholes which are temporally disrupted but
causally connected.
Therefore,
we shall use the term aspect,
inspired on the verbal category, to refer to a temporal perspective
grounded on the nature of the action sequence itself and of its causal
connection to other elements of the fabula. Genette notes the grammatical
relationship (ND 113) but
disregards aspectual distinctions other than those of frequency.[2]
The triangle singulative / repetitive /
iterative is only one possible
aspectual structure. Grammarians
have introduced other aspectual distinctions. To the dimension of frequency
(singulative / repetitive / iterative aspects), we might add the dimensions of
unfolding (inchoative / progressive / terminative / perfective aspects) and
inherent duration (punctual / durative / permanent aspects).
3.5.1. Frequency
Genette defines frequency as the relationship between the
repetitive capacities of the fabula and those of the story. As we noted in our first section, the
notion of repetition depends on identity, and this is an operative concept. Repeated elements are being considered
insofar as they are alike; this does not mean that there are no differences
between them (cf. Genette 145f).
Genette speaks of three types of frequency: singulative, which involves a one-to one relationship
between fabula events and their rendering in the story; repetitive, when the same event in the fabula is
narrated a number of times (for instance, from a variety of perspectives), and
iterative, when the story gathers
into a common mention a number of similar occurrences in the story. Proustian narrative, according to
Genette, is dominated by iterativity.
Bal (Narratologie 129f)
notes the possibility of yet another movement, half-way between the singulative
and the iterative, when the story narrates a number of times an event which is
itself repetitive in the fabula.
3.5.2. Unfolding
This is an aspectual category which requires an referential
point from which the degree of unfolding is measured. The moment of enunciation is a central
point of deictic orientation in narrative texts. There are, however, other possible
"now"-points which can act as a reference, such as the
spatial/temporal position of the focalizer, and that of the characters as
well. Both are logically
subordinated to the enunciative now-point.
Their use as reference points is therefore not a necessity but a
rhetorical figure. An action which
is finished from the point of view of the narrator can be presented in the
course of its development if we adopt the perspective of the focalizer. An event may be perfective for the focalizer,
progressive for a character.
Genette's
study of snares and false snares (ND
77), based as it is on the standardized nature of fabula materials and
of the causal sequence between them, could easily fall under the heading of
aspectual unfolding. Also, stress
may fall either on the inception or on the conclusion of action sequences, or
of the fabula itself. If a
narrative shows a marked preference for the suggestiveness of sequential
inceptions, we may call its aspect inchoative; if it prefers to begin in medias
res and place stress on endings,
its aspect will be terminative.
3.5.3. Inherent Duration
As a category of verbal aspect, duration is implicit in the
verb itself. Or maybe we should say
it is a form of predication. We can
use the classifications of forms of predication at sentence level as a
reference point for the study of the inherent duration of narrative events.[3]
Predications
Properties Situations
States Occurrences
/ actions
Processes
/ activities events
/ performances
Developments
/ Accomplishments
Punctual ocurrences /Achievements
Each
predication in the story refers to a state of affairs in the fabula. A specific segment of the story will
refer to a state of affairs which will be more or less durative or
transitory--a character trait, a mood, a sudden event. The representation of punctual
occurrences is closest to the mimetic illusion of coincidence between action
and discourse, while more durative fabula traits will require a variety of
techniques if their permanence or rhythm is to be given a role in the
narrative. The aspectuality of
fabula events is potential and manifold, and the story may favour certain
aspects, certain types of development, which will constitute the actualized
aspectuality of the story.
3.6. Time and Status of the Narrating
Up to now we have been discussing the temporality of the
story, which is a set of structural relationships between the fabula and its
representation in a text. But a
text is something which is produced, enunciated, at some moment in time. An ordinary speaker always speaks in a
specific space and time, and these can leave a trace in the discourse. Spatial reference leaves its traces in
the adverbs and deictics of the narrative--in general, in its way of
constructing and naming location, space, distance. It would merit separate study, but here
we will concentrate ourselves on discourse time.
Genette's
temporal analysis of the narrative act is suggestive, but it goes a bit too
fast. Before we classify the
temporal situation of the narrator and the fabula, we should determine whether
such a relationship exists.
Everything may seem to exist in time, so the existence of a temporal
relationship between the fabula and the narration would seem to be a necessary
one. But as a matter of fact there
is a whole realm which escapes this condition: fiction. Fiction exists in time,
but in its own time, in quite another time and place whose relationship with
our real world cannot be measured by the clock. Literature, narrative literature, is not
all fictional, but it is mostly so.
It is in fiction that literature finds the ideal conditions for its
expansion and proliferation, since a fictional world is par excellence a
self-contained entity which requires attention for its own sake--just as in
literature the text requires attention for its intrinsic interest.
In fictional
narrative not only the events may be invented: the narrating of those events
may be a fiction, too. This is fine
for the study of the time of the narrating. The problems begin when the narrating is
not a fiction: how should we measure then the time between fiction and
nonfiction? It is clear that there
is an operation previous to the classification of narrative temporality: it is
the determination of narrative status,
that is, of the ontological relationship between the narrative and the
fabula. Genette's distinction between
homodiegetic and heterodiegetic narratives does not really cover this question
of status, since it refers only to the narrator's involvement in the
action. An heterodietic narrator
need not always tell a fictive tale (cf. the use of the term heterodiegetic in
ND 50, where it clearly
refers to causal connection in a line of action, not to ontological level).
There
are three main relationships in this respect: fictionality, nonfictionality,
and indeterminacy. The status of
the narrative must be distinguished from the status of the work itself (fiction
or nonfiction). A nonfictional work
may use narratives of fictional status, and vice versa.
Temporal
relationships proper only exist in a nonfictional narrative (caution: not in a
nonfictional work). There we
may rely on Genette's scheme.
Nonfictional narratives are (paradoxically) those in which the narrator
is clearly fictional. The narrative
may then be motivated through some textual-producing device: a diary, a report,
letter-writing, etc.
Indeterminate
and fictional narratives may make use of the same modes and strategies, but
they assume here a different role; they become a mere tool, a constructive
principle whose referential structure to the narrated world may be far more
complex. Usually, however, they
make use of the simplest of temporal devices: verbs in the past tense. Since the indication of time is
inscribed in the form of language itself, since the narrative cannot avoid
using tenses, it uses a petrified form which is the most neutral one from a
narrative point of view; narrative is a recreation of the past, and fictional
narrative uses this general form as a convenient vehicle, a ready-made
structure whose meaning is not really temporal.[4]
We can distinguish at least two
temporal dimensions: situation and duration. These may remind us of the temporal
distortions we have mentioned before when speaking of story time, order and
duration. But there is an important
difference: order and duration in story time were measured with respect to a
now-point determined by the immediate context of the narrative. The temporal dimensions of the narration
are measured with respect to another reference point: the moment of
enunciation.
All
this refers to the self-representation of the act of narration. There is of course a further temporal
dimension which is far more significant from a critical point of view: the
situation in time, in the interpretive tradition, of the author, the text and
the reader. We disregard this
dimension here because it is not a specifically narrative one: this does not
mean that a critical analysis of a narrative text should ignore it.
3.6.1. Situation
Situation refers in Genette's theory to the relative
position in time of the narrator and his act of narration vis--vis the events
of the fabula. Genette
distinguishes four possible types: prior narrating, simultaneous narrating,
subsequent narrating, and a mixed type, interpolated narrating.
Subsequent
narration is the most frequent one (though we should always study to what
extent the temporality of the narrative past is really functional). Just as the use of the past does not
imply subsequent narrative, the use of the present tense should not be confused
with simultaneous narrative. The
historical present used for the sake of immediacy is quite common in subsequent
narrative.
There are other
significant relationships of situation, because the fabula events and the
moment of narrating are not the only possible reference points. Other possible reference points can be
the moment of fictional reception, the date of reading (insofar as it is
foreseen by the text), the date of writing. A variety of temporal patterns are
established as we measure narratives with these axes. For instance, science fiction is usually
set in the future of both writing and reading time, but it rarely uses anterior
narration: the fictive enunciation is therefore either neutralized or set in a
more or less concrete moment in a subsequent future.
3.6.2. Duration
Narrating takes some time,
and the narrative discourse may thematize this duration. As Genette notes, this does not happen
very often. The use a
narrative makes of its duration is obviously related to a great extent to the
artifice it uses for its motivation: a diary, a report suggest different kinds
of durative distribution.
.