3.8. Description
Description is one of the limits of narrativity. While narration is concerned with time, description extends itself in space. Description could be approached as an aspect of perspectivization: it is the focalization of spatial or nonsequential aspects of the narrated world. In description, the temporal line of the story does not represent time, but space. It becomes less iconic (although it could be argued that a certain iconic mapping may still be present). Description concentrates on semantic traits as something stable, while narrative proper is an operation on trait systems, describing (or effecting) their transformation.
Description, like narrative, must submit to the successivity of language. But the successive nature of the descriptive discourse does not blur the frontiers between narration and description only: any other structure which is linguistically conveyed will have to travel in time with the chain of speech. The difference between narration and description is to be regarded as a difference between the represented signifieds. In the case of narration, the basic articulations of the text are events; in the case of description, the structure is a non-sequential pattern of traits. The opposition between events and traits is absolute precisely because it is not an opposition between given elements; it is conceptual and therefore ideal. An event might be defined as the appearance, disappearance or substitution of a trait.
Description has therefore been defined as a pause in narrative. It becomes less of a pause when it is associated to the action or perception of some character: e. g. a room may be described as a newcomer enters it, and the description reflects that newcomer's point of view; or an instrument may be described as someone operates it or builds it.[1] In this case there is a double emphasis: a description of the object and a description of the character's action. Sometimes the action is only mentioned at the start as a way of motivating the introduction of a description.[2] If both are to be kept in a dynamic relationship, the narrative will have to remind the reader of the character's perceptual or physical activity on a regular basis; otherwise the narrative value of the description will tend to fade away.
Of course, a description has a temporality of its own. Even if the descriptive discourse does not iconically represent action time, there is a temporality inherent to the semantic traits introduced by the description. They may be provisional or permanent, and therefore have an inherent temporality of their own. And of course a description is not "outside time"; it freezes the action at a given point, and that point is inevitably interpreted in its temporal relationships with the rest of the action.
Some degree of description is an indispensable element within narration. The relationship between narration and description is often paradoxical: while description can be conceived to appear without narration, whenever it appears in narration it is an ancillary mode, subordinate to the narrative element. But such an account would give too rash a view of the function of narrative structures in literary texts. Quite often, in lyrical poetry for instance, the narrative element is insignificant, a mere prop to sustain symbolic, descriptive or meditative elements (e.g. Wordsworth's sonnet "Surprised by joy"). These texts can be considered to have narrative elements, but they are not primarily narratives. This is one of the criteria traditionally used, for instance, to classify a poem as lyric or epic. We shall briefly return to this question when we discuss the different narrative genres.