A Final Project Story: Gérard Genette's Theory

I have to say that lately is indeed soooooooooooo complicated yet great.

What I'm going to post is about my final project (you might be call it thesis).

It is about Gérard Genette's theory regarding narrative.

Gérard Genette's work (1972 and 1983) pointed out that internal analysis, like any semiotic analysis, reveals two characteristics. Firstly, it is concerned with narratives as independent linguistic objects, separated from their context of production and reception. Secondly, it aims to reveal an underlying structure that can be identified in many different narratives.

Using an accurate typology, Genette has developed a theory of narratological poetics that may be used to address the entire inventory of narrative processes in use. According to Genette, every text reveals traces of narration, which can be studied in order to understand exactly how the narrative is organized. The approach sponsored here clearly addresses a level that lies below the access of interpretation, and as such, it constitutes a solid foundation, complementing other research being done in the social sciences, e.g., in sociology, literary history, ethnology and psychoanalysis Genette narratology consist of: narrative mood, narrative instance, levels, and narrative time.

ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES	ELEMENTS ANALYZED	COMPONENTS
NARRATIVE MOOD	DISTANCE	Narratized speech			Transposed speech, indirect style				Transposed speech, free indirect style			Reported speech
	FUNCTIONS OF THE NARRATOR	Narrative function	Directing function				Communication function			Testimonial function				Ideological function
NARRATIVE INSTANCE	NARRATIVE VOICE	Homodiegetic narrator				Heterodiegetic narrator					Autodiegetic narrator
	TIME OF NARRATION	Subsequent narration		Prior narration				Simultaneous narration					Interpolated narration
	NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE	Zero focalization				Internal focalization					External focalization
NARRATIVE LEVELS	EMBEDDED NARRATIVES	Extra-diegetic			Intra-diegetic				Meta-diegetic			Meta-meta-diegetic, etc.
	METALEPSIS	Breaching of narrative levels
NARRATIVE TIME	ORDER	Analepsis			Prolepsis				Reach			Extent
	NARRATIVE SPEED	Pause			Scene				Summary			Ellipsis
	FREQUENCY OF EVENTS	Singulative				Repeating					Iterative

 Summary of Genette's Narratology

For Genette, all narrative is telling, in that it can achieve no more than an illusion showing by making the story real and alive. Then, a narrative cannot duplicate reality. No matter how realistic it is intended to be a fictional act of language arising from a narrative illustration. "Narrative does not 'represent' a (real or fictive) story, it recounts it – that is, it signifies it by means of language [...]. There is no place for imitation in narrative" (Genette, 1988). Genette claims that in no case is the narrator completely absent.

My supervisor said, "Are you sure about it? Our prof is now learning about this theory in U. S for 3 years, and his study is so complicated. We have to mastering France first."

Well, I am sure. Wish me luck.

D