Narrative style, frame narrative, box within box, story within story, and point of views in the Frankenstein.

1. Narrative Technique in
Frankenstein
Milan Paramar
(GSET, M.Phil)
Visiting Faculty
Department of English
MKBU

2. Narratology
A narrative is a story, whether told in prose or
verse, involving events, characters, and what
the characters say and do
Narratives are told by a narrator.
Narratology, in literary theory, is the study of
narrative structure
Narratology looks at what narratives have in
common and what makes one different from
another
Gérard Genette codified a system of analysis
that examined both the actual narration and the
act of narrating as they existed apart from the
story or the content

3. • It deals especially with types of narrators, narrative
structures, and recurrent device.
• Has its origin in Russian formalism and French structuralism.
• Narratologists see a story—the mere sequence of events in
time—into the organized and meaningful structure of a
literary plot
• How one thing leads to another.
• Narratologists differentiate between Fabula and Syuzhet.
• Fabula - The elemental materials of a story
• Syuzhet- The concrete representation used to convey the
story.
• Gérard Genette’s Narrative Discourse, and Figures of Literary
Discourse are foundational work in narratology.

4. Point of view in narrative
fiction
 Signifies the way a story gets told—the mode (or
modes) established by an author by means of which
the reader is presented with the characters, dialogue,
actions, setting, and events which constitute the
narrative in a work of fiction.
• Three different types of narrative/point of views
First Person point of view
Second person point of view
Third Person Point of view
It can be recognized by asking three
simple questions
Who tells, what, to whom?

5. First-person Narrative
first-person narrative the narrator speaks as
"I," and is to a greater or lesser degree a
participant in the story.
who is a participant in the story or who is
himself or herself the central character in the
story
limits the matter of the narrative to what the
first-person narrator knows, experiences,
infers, or can find out by talking to other
characters.
"I“ Narrator (Marlow in Heart of Darkness,
Imail in The Mobydick, Nick in The Great
Gatsby)

6. Second Person Narrative
In this mode the story gets told solely, or
at least primarily, as an address by the
narrator to someone he calls by the
second-person pronoun "you.“
This second person may turn out to be a
specific fictional character, or the reader
of the story.
the story may unfold by shifting between
telling the narratee what he or she is now
doing, has done in the past, or will in
future.
(“You are about to begin reading Italo
Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night
a traveler.”)

7. Third Person Narrative
• The omniscient point of view -:
 The narrator knows everything that needs to be known
 Free to move in time and space
 Can shift from one character to another
 For example, Fielding's Tom Jon, and Tolstoy's War and
Peace
• The limited point of view
 The narrator tells the story in the third person, but stays
inside the confines of what is perceived, thought,
remembered and felt by a single character within the
story. Later developed as stream of consciousness
technique.
 Ex. Katherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’, most of Henry James
novels.

8. Unreliable Narrator
• Often called fallible narrator
• As a reader we can not rely on Narrative
narrated by the narrator.
• Often misguide or keep reader in illusion
• Usually first person narration.
• For ex. Shyam in One Night at the Call
Center, Tony in Sense of an Ending,
Balram in The White Tiger.

9. Narrative Pattern in Literature
Rising
action
Beginning
Falling
action
Climax ResolutionEnding
A
BC
C
BA
B
CA
A
CB
B
AC
C
AB

10. Narrative Style in Frankenstein
• Frame Narrative
• Story within story
• Mary Shelley's work, thematic search in
the story for something deep, dark, and secret at
the heart of the narrative.
• The nature of the narrative in Frankenstein is
inseparably linked to its structure, which combines
three different narrative strands:
• Captain Walton
• Victor Frankenstein
• the monster.
• These narratives sit within
one another, like a set of boxes

11. • Captain Robert Walton writes to his sister Margaret
Saville about his adventures, which the reader looks
in upon in a typical epistolary novel manner.
• Then Victor recounts his story to Walton, who takes
notes and sends them to his sister
• Then the monster tells Victor about his or its
adventures, which Victor recounts to Walton.
• Finally, the monster quotes the DeLaceys.
• Tracing the time structure of the narration would
also be interesting. The novel begins, in classical epic
form, in medias res, in the middle of things, and
then launches into a series of flashbacks (which
quite conveniently provide non-omniscient narrators
with the ability to foreshadow coming events)

12. There are thus at least five audiences with four
levels of mediation in the narrative structure:
Narrator 1st Audience 2nd Audience 3rd Audience 4th
Audience
5th
Audience
Walton Saville Reader
Frankenstein Walton Saville Reader
Monster Frankenstein Walton Saville Reader
De Laceys Monster Frankenstein Walton Saville Reader

13. Narrators in Frankenstein
 Victor Frankenstein -:
 The structure is further complicated by the fact that
Victor includes in his narrative:
 letters from Elizabeth and his father
 Justine's account of William's murder.
 The Monstor -:
 Recount the story of the de Laceys
 Refer to Victor's diary of the months leading up to his
creation.
 Robert Walton -:
 He introduces and ends the book with his letters to his
sister, Margaret
 He also retells Frankenstein's story and Frankenstein's
account of the monster's story.

14.  The first narrative was taken by Walton Who
writes to his sister Mrs. Saville.
 4 letters written by Walton to his sister Saville.
 Since the plot of the novel in this section is
carried on by 4 letters, at this stage the
epistolary narrative has been employed from
there the embedded structure of the narrative
is taken up by Victor from chapter 1 to 10.
 Victor’s narrative then gives a frame to the
narratives of Monster from chapters 11 to 16.

15. From there again the turn of narrative is
carried further by Victor up to 24 and
Walton takes over the narratives to the
concluding part of the novel and the
frame is closed up.
The structure is tight because of
embedded narrative.
It is written in 1st person narrative, but
there are three 1st person narratives.

16. References
• Work Cited :-
• A Glossary of Literary Terms ed.11. M.H.
Abrams.
• Frankenstein. 1818. Mary Shelley.
• http://crossref-
it.info/textguide/frankenstein/7/374
• https://www.virtualsalt.com/lit/franken.htm
• https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishan
damericanfiction/narrative-technique-in-
frankenstein.html#.WjaxmyOWbIV