This dissertation examines how narrative space is constructed in serialized print and television works across four case studies: the Victorian serial Mysteries of London, the Newgate novel Jack Sheppard, the television adaptations of Bleak House and Little Dorrit, and the television show Lost. Through these case studies, the dissertation analyzes how narrative space relates to serialization, material form, and cooperative fan practices of reconstruction. The key findings are that narrative space is destabilized by serialization, illustrations and text shape interpretations of each other, character movement constructs agency, and fan practices continuously reconfigure narrative space.

1. Narrative Space and
Serialized Forms:
Story-spaces for the Mass Market in Victorian Print and
Contemporary Television
By
Laura Buchholz
Dissertation Defense April 22, 2014

2. Purpose:
 This dissertation examines the relationship between textual
constructions of narrative space and the material forms of
serialized narratives across print and television medias (1).
 By underscoring how the act of storytelling is affected by the
distinct intersection of narrative structure, material form, and
media delivery, this project articulates how each aspect acts upon
the other in a way that acknowledges no one characteristic can
be considered by itself (1).

3. Why Narrative Space?
 “Narrative space” or “Storyworld Space” is not the same
as setting (3).
Setting: place and time, specific locations that exist
within the storyworld
Narrative space: constitutes the narrative world and
all it contains as a structure present in all narrative.
Contributes to the field in theorizing space in the context
of shift from separation of story/discourse to the
construction of “storyworlds” or mental models.

4. Why Serialization?
 Defined: Hughes and Lund: “a continuing story over and
extended time with enforced interruptions” (29)
 Material breaks already known to effect structure of
plot in time in unique way. How does space relate to
that structure?(35)
 Dichotomy of large multi-focused storyworlds
presented in fragmented and limited parts foregrounds
configurative processes (35)
 Serialization draws on a multimodality of media in
narrative discourse in a unique ways that extend the
interaction with the storyworld (35)

5. Case #1(Chapter 2): London
as Text in Mysteries of London

6. Theoretical Framework
Why Zoran?
Emphasis on
transforming space into
discourse (44)
Emphasis on the
simultaneity of process
(43)
Levels foreground how
much is left out of the
discourse (44)
Why Mysteries?
Immense open-ended
length (48-49)
Wide popularity (45,48)
Small 8 page penny-part
installments (48)
“Encyclopedic” nature
(50)

7. Implications
 Spatially- Space and time are always intertwined in narrative as
opposed to two separate modes--narration and description (90).
Spatial Units- house
 Serially-Progression from one spatial unit to another is affected by
limitations of serial installments (90). Spatial Complex/ Fields of
Visions
 Critically- Reading the spatial structures in Mysteries shows how space
is a destabilizing force throughout the story- constructing London as
ultimately unknowable/ contrasted with space outside London (90).
Total space/Storyworld

8. Case #2 (Chapter 3) Illustrations and
Verbal Discourse

9. Theoretical Framework
 Deictic Shifts- Importance of entry/narrative
beginnings (Zubin and Hewitt, Herman, Mary-Laure
Ryan, Richardson, Phelan (101-102)
 Placement of illustrations matter relative to
corresponding narration- Leighton and Surridge (99)

10. Multi-framed plates in Jack Sheppard

11. Implications
 Spatially- illustrations play a key role in establishing
cognitive entrance to the storyworld space that is masked
when moved for volume editions.
 Serially-placement of illustrations in installments matters –
presentation of space tied to prefiguring and masking
future plotted events.
 Critically- Jack Sheppard’s London is a place of
performance/stage/ and later self-aware as print media

12. Case Study #3 (Chapter 4)
Re-serializing Serials

13. Theoretical Framework
 Michel de Certeau- Stories as “spatial trajectories” that
“traverse and organize places; they select and link them
together and make sentences out of them” (164)
 James Phelan- Narrative progression is the structure by
which implied authors lead narrative audiences to
interpretive, ethical and aesthetic judgments Experiencing
Fiction. (165)
 Mathew Bolton- Rhetorical implications of transferring
“media specific affordances” as ways of authorial
expression in narrative progression “across medial
boundaries” (183)

15. Implications
 Opening episodes- establish juxtaposition between
characters that move and characters that do not in relation
to the character's potential for agency (188).
 Middle episodes- have self contained progression that
relies in part on progression through spaces in the
episode. Spatial progression becomes space a rhetorical
device that prompt and complicate audiences’ judgments
(213).
 Final episodes-As progression of plot is altered, so is
progression of spatial trajectories- space takes on a
narrative function that potential change the rhetorical
configuration and judgments (216).

16. Case Study #4 (Chapter 5):
Reconstructing Lost

17. Theoretical Framework
 Wiki’s display the product of the fan adapted narrative-
Storyworld adapted to new form with new narrative
affordances: Ryan, Murray, Booth (232).
 Wiki’s display the process of reconfiguration and judgment
making between episodes: Lang, Mittell (234-35).

18. Why Lost?
 Complex type of puzzle solving the show encouraged
included and at times necessitated understanding the
space (236).
 No “official” configuration was ever released by the
show’s creators, leaving some questions unanswered with
multiple possibilities (238).

19. Implications
 Organized information in a hierarchy that materially
separated “verifiable evidence” from “theories” (242)
 Analysis reveals how multiple approaches to configuring
space are deployed by participants in a simultaneous fashion-
showing not just each theoretical model in practice, but how
these models interact (257).
 Analysis of practice should act recursively on our theories
(262).

20. Findings:
Narrative/Seriality/Individua
l Works Narrative Studies:
 Zoren’s framework is valuable and should be explored and utilized
further with emphasis on process of recursive revision and
reconfiguration (264)
 Illustrations and verbal texts give each provide a means to “read” the
other even when discordant and counterfactual configurations are
presented.
 Spatial trajectories of characters in televised media rhetorical mode
of narration/ Changing configuration in adaptation potential changes
rhetorical judgments.
 Cooperative wiki’s demonstrate a synthesis of theoretical approaches
that accommodates cognitive dissonance in interpretation.

21. Material/Serial
 Physical limitations of the installment length affects
modulation between locations (266)
 Distance between picture and narration in placement
affects how the texts are read and reconfigured (266)
 Serialized structure enhances themes of containment/
incarceration (266)
 Fan wiki’s should how audiences fill in gaps between
episodes and constantly reconfigure based on new
information.

22. Interpretive
 Attention to space in The Mysteries of London highlights unstable
nature of the storyworld Reynolds creates, as space is destabilized by
the continuous introduction of new information. (267)
 Attention to space in Jack Sheppard highlights how London is
constructed as theatre- Jack is meant to be scene as private spaces
become spaces of performance and spectacle. (267)
 Attention to space in LD and BH shows how agency is constructed
through the way characters move through space, and how while
Dickens highlights the connection between Chesney Wold and Bleak
house at the conclusion of the novel, Davies arrangement severs the
connection more definitively. (267-8)
 Attention to how fans reconstruct the space of the Lost island shows
how locations and places always take on greater meaning- necessary
for comprehension of the whole. (268)