The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative is designed to help readers understand what narrative is, how it is constructed, how it acts upon us, how we act upon it, how it is transmitted, and how it changes when the medium or the cultural context change. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in the arts but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. Abbott grounds his treatment of narrative by introducing it as a human phenomenon that is not restricted to literature, film, and theatre, but is found in all activities that involve the representation of events in time. At the same time, he honors the fact that out of this common capability have come rich and meaningful narratives that we come back to and reflect on repeatedly in our lives. An indispensable tool for students and teachers alike, this book will guide readers through the fundamental aspects of narrative.
H. Porter Abbott is Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Fiction of Samuel Beckett: Form and Effect, Diary Fiction: Writing as Action, Beckett Writing Beckett: the Author in the Autograph, and editor of On the Origin of Fictions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, a special issue of the journal SubStance.
Contents
List of illustrations Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Narrative and life
The universality of narrative I
Narrative and time 3
Narrative perception 6
Chapter 2
Defining narrative 12
The bare minimum 12
Story and narrative discourse 14
The mediation (construction) of story Constituent and supplementary events Narrativity 22
Chapter 3
The borders of narrative 25
Framing narratives 25
Paratexts 26
The outer limits of narrative 27
Is it narrative or is it life itself? 31
Chapter 4
The rhetoric of narrative 36
The rhetoric of narrative 36
Causation 37
Normalization 40
Masterplots 42
Narrative rhetoric at work 46
Chapter 5
Closure 51
Conflict: the agon 51
Closure and endings 52
Closure, suspense, and surprise 53
Closure at the level of expectations 54
Closure at the level of questions 56
The absence of closure 57
Chapter 6
Narration 62
A few words on interpretation 62
The narrator 63
Voice 64
Focalization 66
Distance 67
Reliability 69
Free indirect style 70
Narration on stage and screen 72
Chapter 7
Interpreting narrative 76
The implied author 77
Underreading 79
Overreading 82
Gaps 83
Cruxes 85
Repetition: themes and motifs 88
Chapter 8
Three ways to interpret narrative
The question of wholeness in narrative 93
Intentional readings 95
Symptomatic readings 97
Adaptive readings 100
Chapter 9
Adaptation across media 105
Adaptation as creative destruction 105
Duration and pace 107
Character 109
Figurative language 111
Gaps 114
Focalization 115
Constraints of the marketplace 118
Chapter 10
Character and self in narra
Character vs. action 123
Flat and round characters 126
Can characters be real? 127
Types 129
Autobiography 131
Life writing as performative 134
Chapter 11
Narrative contestation
A contest of narratives 138
A narrative lattice-work 142
Shadow stories 144
Motivation and personality 146
Masterplots and types 148
Revising cultural masterplots 150
Battling narratives are everywhere
Chapter 12
Narrative negotiation
Narrative negotiation 157
Critical reading as narrative negotiation Closure, one more time 168
The end of closure? 171
Notes 176
Bibliography 183
Glossary and topical index 187
Index of authors and narratives 198
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