1. • Maharaja Krisnkumar sinhji Bhavnagar University
• Literary Theory and Criticism paper no: 7
• Presentation topic: Five important concepts of
Genetee’s narratology
• M. A. Sem: 2 Year: 2014 Roll no: 7
• Presenter: Drashti V. Dave
• Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi.Department of
English
2. Gerard Genette: Structuralism and literary criticism
• Genette is a French
literary theorist, he
adopted the concept of
“bricolage” from Claude
Levi-Strauss and Roland
Barthes.
• In literary theory
structuralist criticism
relates literary text to a
larger structure which
may be a particular genre,
or a system of recurrent
patterns or motifs.
Structura
list critics
Roland
Barthes
Tztevan
Todorov
Julia
Kristiva
Gerard
Genette
3. • Literary critic applying a
structuralist literary
theory might say that the
authors of West side
story did not write
anything ‘really’ new, but
their work has the same
structure as
Shakespeare’s Romeo
and Juliet.
• Structuralist literary
criticism argues that the
“novelty value of a
literary text”.
4. Important concept in Genetee's narratology
• Genetee’s narratology is
derived from Narrative
Discourse: An Essay in
Method.
• Five main concepts used
by Genette in
narratology……
• That five aspects are;
• 1) Order 2) Frequency 3)
Duration 4) Voice 5)
Mood.
Existence
Characters Setting
Story
Events Existence
Narrative text
Discourse Story
5. 1) Order:
• Order is the relation between
the sequencing of events in the
story and their arrangement in
the narrative.
• A murder occurs (a); than
circumstances of the murder
are revealed to a detective (b),
and finally the murderer
caught (c).
• Events done this way A1, B2,
C3, discovery, flashback and
resolution goes with B1, A2
and C3.
6. 2) Frequency:
• Frequency goes with
separation between event and
its narration allows with four
possibilities.
1. Event can occur once and be
narrated once (singular).
2. Event can occur times and
narrated once (iterative).
3. Event can occur once and
narrated times (repetitive).
4. Event can occur n times be
narrated n times (multiple).
7. 3) Duration:
• Two elements are main in
duration, i) discourse time and
ii) narrative time.
• It is usually hard to define
exactly the duration of an event
within a narrative.
• Genette proposes that we
define relative duration of the
event is written on per historical
duration of the event
8. 4) Voice:
Voice is concerned with two
question who narrates? And
from where? 1) Intra- diegetic 2) Extra diegetic:
10. • It is a intra- homo diegetic
• Narrator as a character in
the work. (Homo)
• And inside the text. (Intra)
11. 5) Mood:
Mood is depended on the ‘Distance’ and ‘perspective’ of
the narrator, author and director.
Mood is at some extent related with voice. Perspective of
the narrator or director is known as ‘focalization’
