3.4. Mode

Definition

Distance

Perspective

Definition

The term "mode" is, like most everyday words used in narratology, somewhat vague in its meaning. It can be used to encompass questions of time and narrative voice. Here, however, we shall use it as a generic term to show the closeness of the story to the action it represents, the way the action is filtered to reach the reader. It will encompass questions of distance, or detail of presentation, and perspective, or viewpoint. These two subdivisions of mode have one common ground: mediation. Modalization is an interpretive activity, a mediation between the action and the reader which the narrator carries about. A narrator chooses the detail with which to convey the events, existents or words of the action (distance). The narrator also plays with the dynamics of perception and interpretation available to the characters, in order to slant the presentation of the story and favour a given perspective or point of view. Distance, therefore, is modalization presented as if it were inherent in the things themselves; perspective is mode as naturalized or motivated by the subjectivity of the narrator or the characters. Different modalizations of the same basic sequence of events would result in the action being told in greater or lesser detail, or seen from different viewpoints.