Topic picked:
Discuss the effect narrative voice and focalization have in prose writing. Refer to at least two types of
narrative situation from at least two works of British literature.
Different perspectives lead to different ways we respond to things. In literature, we as the readers
are lead through a whole story by its narrator and his or her narration. There can be various
narratives situations. To distinguish just broadly: We can either be part of the story or just being
informed about the events being told in there. Genette introduced terms as homodiegetic and
heterodiegetic to differentiate between a narrator who is also one of story's acting characters or not
present in the story but just the “story-teller”. To have an example for both I will contrast Margaret
Drabble’s The Millstone to Hemingway’s short story The Killers.
When talking about narration, the question of “who speaks?” is linked to it. A reader can “hear” a
textual “voice” with his or her "mind's ear". By this, the reader will know during the first lines of a
story who the narrator is, how much he knows about other characters, if he or she is one of them or
just an observer telling the story. To even go deeper, the narration has a focalization in it as well. The
narrator “sees” what is happening and thereby either knows less than the character (internal
focalization) or has restricted omniscience (internal focalization). This is, for us as the readers, the
moment at which we either trust our omniscient narrator blindly or need to find out more about the
other characters in the story because our narrator might not know everything.
In a heterodiegetic narration you need to pay highest attention on what is being told and, even more
precisely, what is not being told. The narrator in Hemingway’s The Killers is not present as a character
of the story and far away from being omniscient. Moreover, no information of inner emotion is
given, no possibility for the reader to have access to the narrator’s thoughts, just plain information
about the events and what is being said. The narrator-focalizer gives a synchronic view on the
happenings of the story. Most of the story is presented in form of a dialogue. Therefore much
remains untold (for example the killers motives). Because the story is told by this observer narrator it
keeps the reader in his outside position as of a witness.
In contrast, Margaret Drabble’s homodiegetic narrative The Millstone already starts as a story of
personal experience. Right at the beginning the reader knows about the narrators relation to the
story - that the narrator is present as a character in the story as well and, in addition to that, that the
narrator is reliable as reflecting, commenting and analyzing the past. In addition to that, a total
characterization is given by the narrator as the main character. The interior monologue of the
character who interprets all events through his or her perspective definitely shows an internal
focalization. Shortly after the beginning the reader gets the impression, it is told by a female “voice”.
It was not only Dubbler who put such reflection skills on her narrator. One can also have a look onto
several pieces of Virginia Woolf, such as “To The Lighthouse” which is also a narration with a high
amount of reflecting emotions within. We as the readers can have access to the narrator’s
experiences, feelings and motivations if being told. We can thereby either be witnesses or
companions in crime. The matter of perspective is never to be neglected.
Autor: Romina Weilbächer
Lektor: John Westwood (Klausurenkurs SS 15)