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Tzvetan Todorov's Narrato Logy

This document discusses Tzvetan Todorov's theories of narratology and structural analysis of narratives. It outlines Todorov's focus on the syntax of narratives and describes his analysis of plot structures in Decameron stories using basic units like characters as nouns and actions as verbs. The document also discusses criticisms of Todorov's approach for being too reductive and not accounting for narrative complexity.

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Ademar Júnior
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75 views

Tzvetan Todorov's Narrato Logy

This document discusses Tzvetan Todorov's theories of narratology and structural analysis of narratives. It outlines Todorov's focus on the syntax of narratives and describes his analysis of plot structures in Decameron stories using basic units like characters as nouns and actions as verbs. The document also discusses criticisms of Todorov's approach for being too reductive and not accounting for narrative complexity.

Uploaded by

Ademar Júnior
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tzvetan Todorov’s Narrato

logy
2003/10/7
Outline
 General Questions
 Narratology and Todorov
 “The Structure of Narrative”
 Examples
General Questions
 What are the possible basic
structures of narratives?
 What are the functions in getting the

basic structures? And the possible


limitations?
Structuralist Narratology
 Narratology – the science of narrative; pop
ularized in 1970’s.
 Contemporary narratology includes compar
ative narratolgy, theories of authorship, en
unciation, action, story and narration, rece
ption, self-referentiality and intertextuality.
 Applied narratology: psychoanalysis, gend
er studies, reader-response, ideological crit
ique.


Narratology
Social contexts,

History cultural conventions
5. semiologoi
st, marxists
3. Point-of-view

authors narrator narrative reader


4. reader-
response

2. Russian
formalists
Literary Formal analytic
Traditions frameworks
(literary, linguistic, Martin 29
interdisciplinary)
Structuralist Narratology: Major The
orists
 Levi Strauss – four terms (2 sets of binaries)
 V. Propp –7 spheres of actions (Villain, hero, false
hero, sought-for person, etc.) and 31 functions o
ut of Russain fairy tales
 T. Todorov –focuses more on syntax;
 Greimas –focuses on semantics (actants—Subject
/Object, Sender/Receiver, Helper/Opponent, and
3 structures—contractual, performative, disjuncti
ve)
 Claude Bremond -- virtuality (a situation opening
a possibility); actualization or nonactualization of
the possibility; achievement or nonachievement.
 Roland Barthes – 5 different codes (S/Z).
 etc.
Structuralist Narratology: Possible
Criticisim
 Reductive;
 too static and unable to characterize the very engi
ne that drives a narrative forward to its end, the v
ery dynamics that dictate its shape.
 Ignore context –depends on how it is used;
 The possibility of a coherent narratology, one that
successfully integrates the study of the what and t
he way, has been put into question by poststructu
ralist theorists and critics invoking the so-called do
uble logic of narrative (e.g. story and discourse, e
vent and meaning).
 (Ref.
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory
/narratology.html
)
T. Todorov
 3 aspects of the narrative: semantic, synt
actic and verbal (Todorov’s focus is more
on syntax.)
 Grammar of narrative –sentence structure
with the following basic units:
 1. Propositions and sequences//sentences
and paragraphs
 2. parts of speech – characters as nouns; t
heir attributes as adjectives, actions as ve
rbs.
T. Todorov:
“Structural Analsys of Narrative”
Outline
1. Structural approach to literature def
ined;
2. Exemplified by his analysis of plot i
n Decameron;
3. The nature of narrative and the prin
ciples of its analysis.
I. Structural approach to literature d
efined
 Theoretic but not descriptive, logical but not spati
al. (2099)
 Different from both Marxism (external, an abstrac
t structure out side of the work) and New Criticis
m (internal).
 Structuralism – “its object is the literary discours
e rather than works of literature, literature that is
virtual rather than real.” (2100).
 New Criticism (description)—articulates a paraphr
ase;
 Structuralist (poetics) – lit. works  abstract liter
ary properties
I. Structural approach – further com
pared with modernist views
 Henry James – p. 2101 -- disagrees with 1)
isolating a text’s dialogue, description for
analysis; 2) disregarding the novel as ‘a living
thing, all one and continuous.’
 T’s responses –
1) A theoretical concept (e.g. temperature) does
not need to exist in ‘a pure state’;
2) The fact that we find them (blood, muscle, etc)
together does not prevent us from
distinguishing them.)
3) Subjectivity is inevitable in studies of humanities
(or social science) but we can limit it.
II. Decameron
 From some stories he finds
1. Plot unit shown as a clause;
2. Characters as proper nouns; with adjectives; th
ree actions as verbs – violate, punish, avoid;
3. Actions with different statuses (e.g. negation)
4. Modality – legends –imperative, fairy tale– opta
tive, a wish;
5. perception
6. Relations between clauses (e.g. causal, tempora
l, spatial);
7. common sequence of a group of stories (punish
ment avoided)
II. Decameron (2)
 8. further analysis:
 a. more concrete analysis of syntax
-- each clause can be written as an
entire sequence;
 b. thematic study: study the
concrete actions;
 c. rhetoric study: examines the
verbal medium
II. Decameron (3)
 His goal – not knowledge of Decam
eron but an understanding of literat
ure and plot.
 1) avoid punishment: From equilibri
um to a new equilibrium.
 2) conversion
 The story illustrates the superiority
of the individual over the social, or
nature over culture.
III. Conclusion
 Literature and poetics
 (2106) Ambiguity in moving back

and forth between the two poles:


auto-reference and its object
II. Grammar of Decameron
e.g. 3 adjectives – states, interior properties
and exterior conditions (status)
3 verbs – to ‘modify’ a situation, to ‘transgre
ss,’ and to ‘punish.’
(3 modes—indicative, predictive and obligat
ory, 3 relations between propositions, 3 se
quences)
Ambiguity – at both the levels of proposition
and sequence.
 Boccaccio – a defender of free enterprise
and even, . . . , of nascent capitalism.
T. Todorov:
Grammar of Decameron e.g.
Peronella’s story (of hiding her lover in
a barrel) –
X commits a misdeed  X modifies the
situation  X is not punished.
T. Todorov:
another example
Given by Robert Scholes
X – A+ (XA) opt X  Xa  XA
X = Boy
A = Love, to be loved by someone
A = to seek love, to woo
Opt X = Boy (X) wishes (opt)
- = negation of attributes: -A lack love
T. Todorov:
another example
Given by Robert Scholes
XA + XB  X-C + YaX + (X-A+X-B  XC) pr
edX (XbY)predX+XA!  (XB+X-C)!imp
X –Eveline, Y – Frank,
A—a Dubliner, B—Celibate,
C—happy—respected, secure,
a – to offer an elopement; b-to accept elope
ment
-- negative of attribute, not negative of verb
pred –predicts or expects, imp – is implied b
y discourse
T. Todorov:
Questions for Discussion
1. What could be the advantages of sci
entific and abstract descriptions?
2. Can we use Todorov’s method on a
novel such as Heart of Darkness?
Or a story from The Dubliners? A H
ollywood film, The Titanic?
Possible Attempts
 Chinese-American uses of traditional legen
ds (e.g. Fox, Tang-Ao) to re-write canonic
al history  as initial causes for disequilib
rium; later confirmed to bring up a new eq
uilibrium;
 How/where modification of situation is pos
sible.
• The Heart of Darkness: no equilibrium, or in t
he final sympathy between Kurtz and Marlow.
• The Titanic: transgression  obstacles (human
and natural)  a new equilibrium in spiritual lo
ve and death.
• The Working Girl: transgression by the women
(first the boss and the secretary), mutual punis
hment, modification by the man.
T. Todorov: critique
 Jonathan Culler’s critique in Structuralist Po
etics
• – Modification can be done without the use of ru
se or deception.
• -- anything which modifies a situation will receiv
e the same structural description.
• “Todorov has not considered what facts his theor
y is supposed to account for and so has not consi
dered the adequacy of the implicit groupings whi
ch it establishes” (217)
• Another example – ‘the sentence “The man out o
f the last house passed on his way home” can be
excluded from any account of the plot’ -- since i
t has no consequences. (Barthes kernels + sa
tellites)
T. Todorov: critique (2)
 Seymour Chatman’s Story and Discourse
• p. 92 to transfer Propp’s and Todorov’s method
to any narrative macrostructure whatsoever is q
uestionable. Most do not have the necessary ov
erarching recurrences. The worlds of modern fic
tion and cinema are not two-valued, black and w
hite, as are the Russian tales and the Decamero
n.
• P. 93 Whatever success Scholes achieves in his
analysis of ‘Eveline’ depends on his knowledge of
the overriding thematic framework of the Dublin
ers. “Why a Dubliner instead of an Irishwoman
or a European or a female? Why celibate instead
of poor. . .?”

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