As Nünning (2004, p. 354) Fludernik (2009, p. 88) and others have pointed out,
there are a number of narratological typologies in current use – so many that it seems
unsuitable to discuss narratology as if it is a uniform discipline or singular framework.
While many of the new narratological methodologies appear to derive from Genettean
and/or Stanzelian models, they have diversified into a variety of approaches through
encounters with structural linguistics, phenomenology, poetics, psychology and other
discourse areas (Barry, 1990; Fludernik 2000). Despite their various modifications and
amendations, what these approaches have in common is the assumption that it is
imperative to conceive of narrative as an active agent – something which is dynamically implicated in the production of historical and cultural (in this case, literary-cultural)
developments – therefore rendering semiotic studies of narrative vital and even central to
cultural-historical and thus literary critique. As Ansgar Nünning argues, agreement on
the functions and modes of signification in texts is essential for a reasonable and coherent
discourse: “it does make a difference whether we can establish a consensus about textual
features or not, and it is the descriptive toolkit of narratology that provides us with the
terminological categories needed as the basis for rational argument” (2004, p. 358).
Perhaps Nünning’s ideal of unified typology is a little hopeful, but it does make sense
to outline a reasonably stable and accessible set of terms for use in the remainder of the
study. This section begins by outlining the Genettean narratological model as a
theoretical framework, and includes the most useful variants, suggestions and
Seymour Chatman, and, more recently, Nünning himself. Within this framework, I
locate the more specialised functions and techniques of metafictional narratives, adapting
useful terminology and categories provided by earlier studies of reflexive fiction by Patricia
Waugh, Linda Hutcheon, and Robert Stam.
The basis of this framework derives from Gérard Genette’s structuralist analysis
Narrative Discourse: an Essay in Method (1980) and its revised companion, Narrative
Discourse Revisited (1988). In the former, Genette begins his framework by dividing
narrative into three levels: story, “the signified or narrative content” (p. 27); discourse (that
which is narrated (p. 28); and narration (or “the narrating action”“ (p. 28). He goes on to
posit three further categories which reveal how the relationships between these levels
function – these he terms the “three basic classes” (1980, p. 31) of narrative: tense, mood (here “mode”), and voice (revision of mood/mode: 1988, p. 41):
Tense in the Genettean framework is comprised of three subcategories: order,
duration and frequency. The first pertains to the “temporal order” (p. 35) which accounts
for how events are directly or indirectly arranged within the narrative: here analepsis
(retrospective action) and prolepsis (anticipatory accounts of action) function as
anachronies – “the various types of discordance between the two orderings of story and
narrative” (pp. 35-36) while any event devoid of any temporal placement - such as those
discussed in the forthcoming chapters on Haley and Randall - is termed an achrony (p.
84). Along with the ordering of narrative events, Genette distinguishes between various
kinds of duration – anisochronies – modulations or shifts between narrative time and story
time. Common to traditional narratives are ellipsis: the omission of story-events from the
narrative; summary : condensing of story-time in narrative; scene: which (often found in dialogue) equates to or “realizes conventionally the equality of time between narrative and
story” (p. 94) ; and lastly, pause, in which the story-events are interrupted by narratorial
discourse and description. To this model Seymour Chatman has usefully added the
category of stretch, where “discourse-time is longer than story-time” but story-time is not
paused (1980, p. 68). As Fludernik points out, stretch is likely to have developed in
modernist narratives, such as depictions of thought and mind-states in “imitation of the
filmic technique of slow-motion” (2009, p. 101) an idea I will discuss in relation to C.K.
Stead’s modernist techniques in All Visitors Ashore. Finally, under the subcategory of
frequency, Genette describes the relationship between the number of times an event takes
place in the story and the number of times it is discussed in the narrative: where
repetitive frequency refers to one event mentioned more than once, and iterative frequency
relates one time an event which occurred on several occasions (1980, pp. 114-116 ).
If Genette’s category of tense is useful in discussing the technical minutiae of
metafictional texts, then his second and third categories – mode and voice - are vital tools
for discussing the performative aspects of reflexive fiction. Genette’s mode (or mood) is
concerned with the seer’s perspective and is governed by narrative perspective, or what
Genette terms focalisation, the point-of-view from which the story is told. Zero
focalisation or nonfocalised narrative represents what Genette terms the “classical”
omniscient perspective in which the authorial narrator hovers above the diegesis with
transcendental access to the story-world (p. 189). Also helpful is his additional
delineation is between internal focalisation (diegetic - where the only information presented is filtered through the subjective perceptions of a character) and external
focalisation – which is extradiegetic – the information available to the narrator is less than
that available to the character/s, and the narrator follows the character’s actions “without
ever being able to know his thoughts or feelings” (p. 190).
Distinctions surrounding mode are particularly important to performative
descriptions of metafiction in that they clarify the relationships inherent in the
presentational process. While fictional performances - in the general sense of what Berns
terms “imitative” or “illusional” (2009, p. 96) - function on both the story and on the
discourse levels in narrative fiction (characters perform actions, while the narrator
narrates), the metafictional mode complexifies this performativity by self-consciously
subverting mode and focalisation. For instance, Charlotte Randall’s Within the Kiss
internal modes of focalisation to the narrator and non-focalised omniscience to the
characters themselves, so that it becomes increasingly uncertain just who is speaking, or
on what modal echelon the narrative is functioning.
In addition, Genette’s typology surrounding “voice” is important to the discussion of
authorship, and the (implied) status and reliability of the narrator. Genette resolves
ambiguities of first-second-third person narration by distinguishing between
homodiegetic narrators, who are also characters in the story, and heterodiegetic narrators,
who are not. As Fludernik explains:
The major advantage of this terminological innovation is that there is no confusion
about the use of the first-person pronoun […] By contrast, the standard term ‘first-
person narrative’ ostensibly indicates that the first-person pronoun refers to the central protagonist on the story level just as third-person narrative uses a third
person pronoun, he, she or they, in referring to the main protagonist(s), or a
second-person narrative refers to the central protagonist by means of you or an
equivalent address pronoun. (2009, p. 98)
Genette also disntinguishes between four kinds of narrating: subsequent - the
conventional positioning of past-tense narrating which tells of events after they have
occurred; simultaneous – narrating that occurs contemporaneously with the action; prior -
predictive narrating, usually in the future tense; and interpolated – narrating that occurs
between the moments of action (1980, 216-217).
Most useful for a study of multileveled fictions are Genette’s distinctions of narrative
levels. The diegetic level is naturally to be understood as the story-level of the characters
could be otherwise termed the temporal-spatial level of a narrator who is not a part of the
story (1980, p. 228-229). For Genette the metadiegetic level is one that is implanted in
an original diegetic level (often a “story within the story”); however, because the term
causes some ambiguity (“meta” seems to implies a level beyond or above the diegesis
rather than within it) Mieke Bal’s revisionary term hypodiegetic is used here to denote
embedded narratives (2006, p. 16). This should clarify the use of the term meta in
referring to levels outside, rather than within, the primary diegesis of the narrative.
As Ansgar Nünning has also pointed out, there has been some confusion in
narratological terminology surrounding the use of the term meta that originated in
English translations of Genette:
The rather shabby and contradictory treatment of different forms of metanarratives is indicated by the fact that in the English translation [...] the term ‘metanarrative’
appears in two quite different sense: On the one hand, it refers to the phenomenon
of narrative embedding and to narratives on a hierarchically lower level [...] On the
other hand, Genette and his translator both use the term as an unspecific umbrella
term to thematize the ‘internal organization of the text’, i.e. for different forms of
self-reflexive narration (2004, p. 15).
Nünning develops this point to propose a further distinction between metafiction and
metanarrative in general. While both terms refer to variations of self-reflexivity, they
imply different uses: metanarration refers to reflections on the discourse or process of
narration, and metafiction to comments on the fictionality of the text or narrator. This
distinction implies a possible solution to the problem raised in my introduction – the
Hankins, Jones and Morrissey. Does metafiction, and/or reflexivity in general, serve to
undermine mimesis and expose the illusions of narrative? Or does it impel the reader
deeper into its construction of reality? Under Nünning’s distinction, metafiction which
comments on the fictionality of a given text, may do the former, while metanarration
which provides general comments on discourse - may well contribute to the appearance of
authenticity in a narrative, thereby supporting realist strategies. However, Nünning’s
distinctions may cause further ambiguities when variations are introduced: for example, in
instances where fictionalised metanarration occurs hypodiegetically (in Janet Frame’s
novels), or where metafictional commentary occurs in a work of non-fiction (in the
anthropologically-based works of Michael Jackson for example). The most important of
these lexicological difficulties are discussed briefly in the following Description of Terms (1.4).