stylistics
Salemiiv
SEUENG380Week09ChapterPPT_Simpsonunit07.pptxUnit 7, Sections A and B : Style and point of view Approaches to point of view
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Section A: Style and point of view
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Point of view is the perspective through which a story is told.
A useful technique to explore the narrative is to film it! Camera angle and viewing position
There are textual clues to help decide where to locate the camera
Style and Perspective
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Narrative modes:
1st person: “ I” Participating character/ internal/ same level of the story
2nd person: “you” addressing another character/reader – not comon
3rd person: “He-she-they” detached/invisible character/external/outside the story
Omniscient “knows-all”: has access to feeling and thoughts as well as the events.
Restricted omniscient: detached and reluctant about feelings and thoughts and has access to event only. (index of characterization)
Style and Perspective
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ENG 380: Stylistics
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Core distinction in point of view theory:
Who tells: detached, omniscient narrator
Who sees: McHoan (the character in the story and reflector of fiction)
audience sees what McHoan sees as his perspective unfolds
Iain Banks’s novel The Crow Road
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Dynamic of point of view in a narrative
Heterodiegetic: the narrator is ‘different’ from the exegesis that comprises the story
Homodiegetic: the narrator is internal to the narrative, on the same plane of exegesis as the story
Brings audience psychologically closer to the main character
Alternatively, narrative loses the ironic space between the narrator and character
Iain Banks’s novel The Crow Road
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ENG 380: Stylistics
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Stylistic cues of viewing position
Deixis:
Situates speaker in physical space (camera)
the reflector of fiction forms a deictic centre, an ‘origo’, around which objects are positioned relative to their relative proximity or distance to the reflector.
Zoomed: move toward
went back instead of came back: move away
Locative expressions
Grammatical units telling location, direction and physical setting
Adjuncts: ‘just upstream’, ‘from falls to bridge’, ‘into the cutting’, etc.
Iain Banks’s novel The Crow Road
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ENG 380: Stylistics
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Point of view device: Attenuated focalization
Point of view is limited due to a blocked or distanced perspective = blurry vision
Marked by nouns with generalized/unspecific references
‘thing’, ‘shape’, ‘stuff’
Cues that narrative is temporarily restricted to the visual range of a particular character
McHoan’s character first saw ‘a grey shape’ which was later identified as an owl
Iain Banks’s novel The Crow Road
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ENG 380: Stylistics
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Section B: Approaches to point of view
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ENG 380: Stylistics
This model has proved significant in shaping much stylistic work on point of view because it helps sort out different components in narrative organisation.
Point of view rests on four planes (levels) :
ideological
temporal
spatial
psychological
The ‘Fowler-Uspensky Model’
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Ideology: A person’s beliefs or values system
Ideological plane examines how a text mediates the character’s, narrator’s or author’s ideological beliefs.
Author’s beliefs and values system shape the ideologies articulated in their work.
Characters serve as vehicles for ideologies which may or may not accord (be in agreement with) with those of the author.
The more the different value systems articulated in a work compete with one another, the richer and more interesting becomes the work itself.
a novel ‘gives an interpretation of the world it represents’ (Fowler)
The Ideological Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
The domain of ideology is so broad that just about any aspect of narrative can be brought within its compass. “bucket category”
Techniques:
Narrative voice: author, narrator, character, persona
Emblem (symbol)
Theme
Motif (reoccurring idea in artistic works)
Characterisation
The ideological point of view needs to be treated with some caution because it is simply too wide to have much explanatory power.
The Ideological Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
“The way relationships of time are signalled in narrative” (Simpson 2004).
Stylistic Techniques:
Repetition
Analepsis (flashback)
Prolepsis (prevision or flashforward)
Duration (impression of acceleration/deceleration of events)
Temporal point of view basically covers any kind of manipulation of time sequence in narrative.
An analysis under the umbrella term ‘temporal point of view’ is to do with temporal organisation as it relates to narrative structure.
The Temporal Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Spatial point of view is the narrative Camera angle
What visual perspective is mediated through the text?
Techniques:
Deixis
Locative Expressions
The Spatial Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
“References to the reflector’s senses, thoughts and feelings” (Simpson 2004).
Uspensky classifies such cases where ‘the authorial point of view relies on an individual (a character) consciousness (or perception)’ as point of view on the psychological plane.
spatial viewpoint is really one dimension of the broader technique of psychological point of view.
Psychological point of view interplay with spatial representations. See the following example:
The Psychological Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
The Psychological Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
The spatial perspective dovetails (merge) into psychological perspective.
Rose Garmony is clearly the reflector of fiction.
deictic markers: “looked down at the group”, “bringing” instead of taking
‘What could they ever hope . . .’ marks a further shift into the conscious thought processes of Rose Garmony
Shifting from a spatial perspective into the cognitive field of a character is an extremely common progression in prose fiction.
The Psychological Plane
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Ideological: too broad and must be treated with caution.
Temporal: is more about narrative structure than perspective and must be treated with caution.
Spatial: one dimension of the broader psychological level.
Psychological: an extremely rich site for stylistic analysis and creativity.
Final notes about examining the planes
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ENG 380: Stylistics
Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415644969 (print edition).
References
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ENG 380: Stylistics
