1. Textual Analysis and Textual Theory
Session Five
Søren Hattesen Balle
English
Department of Culture and Identity

2. Agenda Introduction: the summary assignment for today and next time
Introduction: today’s session
Presentation:
point of view
imagery
Class room discussion:
James Joyce, ”The Dead” (1914)
the thematic functions of point of view and imagery in Joyce’s story

3. Narrative: point of view
What do we study when we study point of view?
Whose ”version” of events are we presented with?
Why has the author decided to present us with that particular version?
How does he persuade us and about what by designing the point of view in a particular manner?
The creation of sympathy and antipathy

4. Narrative: point of view
First person points of view
Third person points of view

5. Narrative: first person point of view
Witness or minor participant: e.g., Dr Watson
Central character: e.g., Robinson Crusoe, Bridget Jones’s Diary
The self-conscious narrator
The unreliable narrator: e.g., The Great Gatsby

6. Narrative: unreliable narration
Sunday 19 March 8st 12, alchohol units 3, cigarettes 10, calories 2465 (but mainly chocolate). Hurray. Whole new positive perspective on birthday. Have been talking to Jude about book she has been reading about festivals and rites of passage in primitive cultures and am feeling happy and serene. (Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary, p. 81)

7. Narrative: self-conscious narration
 Digressions, incontestably, are the sun- shine ; ---- they are the life, the soul of reading ; -- take them out of this book for instance, -- you might as well take the book along with them; -- one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it ; restore them to the writer ; ---- he steps forth like a bridegroom, -- bids All hail ; brings in variety, and forbids the appe- tite to fail.
(Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Vol I, p. 163 (1759))

8. Narrative: the third person omniscient point of view
The intrusive point of view
”telling”
The narrator comments and evaluates on events in his own voice
The unintrusive point of view
”showing”
The narrator describes and reports objectively

9. Narrative: the third person limited point of view
The narrator limits himself to what is thought, felt, perceived, and remembered by a single character
Free indirect discourse (’represented speech or thought’)

10. Narrative: an example
Mr Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was disconcerted she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.” (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 53)

11. Narrative: an example
”He did not complain. It was the way of life, and it was just. He had been born close to the earth, close to the earth had he lived, and the law thereof was not new to him. It was the law of all flesh. Nature was not kindly to the flesh. She had no concern for that conctrete thing called the individual. Her interest lay in the species, the race. This was the deepest abstraction old Koskoosh’s babaric mind was capable of, but he grasped it firmly. He saw it exemplified in all life.” (Jack London, ”The Law of Life”, p )

12. Narrative: an example
”Mrs Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person – never cried when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upwards had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull witted; in short the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously.” (George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss)

13. Narrative: an example
When the door had closed Charlie Stowe tiptoed upstairs and got into bed. He wondered why his father had left the house again so late at night and who the strangers were. Surprise and awe kept him for a little while awake. It was as if a familiar photograph had stepped from the frame to reproach him with neglect. He remembered how his father had held tight to his collar and fortified himself with proverbs, and he thought for the first time that, while his mother was boisterous and kindly, his father was very like himself, doing things in the dark which frightened him.” (Graham Green, ”I Spy”, p. 537)

14. Narrative: imagery and symbol
1. Broadest def.:
All the objects and qualities of sense perception
Literal descriptions
Allusions
The vehicles of similes and metaphors
= motif
2. Broad def.:
Specific descriptions of visible objects and scenes
3. Narrow def.:
Figurative language – the vehicles of metaphors and similes (= 1.3)

15. Narrative: imagery and symbol
Public symbols (cultural specific signification and value)
Private symbols (writer specific signification and value, i.e. used consistently by a particular writer)

16. Narrative: imagery and symbol

17. Narrative: imagery and symbol

18. Narrative: imagery and symbol

19. Narrative: imagery and symbol

20. James Joyce, ”The Dead” (1914)
The third person point of view.
How many points of view are we presented with?
Why?
How does the point of view produce sympathy or antipathy?
Identify images and symbols in ”The Dead”
How do they help to produce the theme(s)?