Investigating Commentary In Narrative

The inherent subjectivity of human beings makes it unavoidable that narrators are doomed to indicate their feelings on and attitudes towards characters, events and even the narrating actions themselves, implicitly or explicitly, though. As a matter of fact, the narrator’s commentary, evaluation and judgement can be found present in any kind of narrative discourse, including literary narrative. The narrator’s reflection on the outlook and his understanding of life should not be clouded in the analysis of abstract semiotic symbols. Commentary studies in narrative, therefore, while emphasizing the form of the text, should deal with many essential value elements behind the text, thus contributing to both narrative theory exploration and literary creation guidance. Its great significance in both theory and practice makes it necessary for researchers to pay more attention to commentary in narrative.Based on a detailed analysis of abundant literary works, traditional and modern, this dissertation attempts to investigate both the internal and external factors in narrator’s commentary. It will be chiefly done in two aspects, with Chapters 1-3 and Chapters 4-6 devoted to each. First, it concerns a systematic examination of commentary proper, including a logical delimitation of commentary, an all-round description of commentary, and the expression of commentary in narrative texts. Secondly, it probes into the potential relationship between commentary and the other key narrative concepts, with a view to uncovering the richness and complexness of narrative world in and out.Chapter 1 examines the essence of commentary and intrusion, the two inter-related concepts, and concludes that the two terms constitute a relationship of means and objective, characterized by diffenrent criteria for their explicitness in narrative. Commentary, or commentary intrusion, to be more exact, a notion of significance in Chinese academic circle, has been further discussed and its fuzziness or incompleteness of accountability has been revealed. Therefore, it is imperative to modify and redefine commentary, which works as a starting point for continuing studies. Commentary here refers to the narrator’s intrusion realized by his evaluation or explanation of either narrative content or narrative form. The dialectic relationship between commentary and “objective” narrative is also dealt with in this chapter. While holding that purely “objective” narrative does not exist, this study argues that commentary constitutes an eternal need for narrative, working as an effective strategy through which the objective truth can be approached. The truth in art and literature can be generally regarded as a product engendered by a combination of objective reality and subjective truth.Chapter 2 offers a panoramic picture of commentary itself in narrative by focusing on its type, position, expression and their possible mutual influence. Both uncertainness and conflict can be found in the classification of different commentaries in previous studies, and a clear and logical typology is in urgent need. It is obvious that different criteria will give rise to different types of commentaries. In terms of narrative level, commentary can be of story-level or of discourse-level. In light of its functions in narrative, commentary can be illustrative, evaluative or additive. In view of its engagement in narrative texts, commentary can be explicit or implicit. These three criteria, being from different perspectives, constitute a logical “and” relationship. Despite the fact that commentary can be everywhere in narrative texts, commentary located at a certain place of texts can not be independent of its functions or its position in narrative levels. Commentaries in book title endows the entire work with the soul and at the same time implies the narrator’s attitude. Commentaries at the beginning and in the end of narrative texts aims at setting up and strengthening the tone and clarifying the goal of the entire work. Commentary in the middle of the text emphasizes on story-level judgment and evaluation. In addition, commentary in parentheses or in the Part of Notes normally adds more information. The explicit realization of commentary will also be detailed in this chapter, in which three kinds of overt commentaries are distinguished: “Junziyue”, “Poem-supported” and “exclamative”.Chapter 3 investigates the implicit realization of commentary in narrative, an area largely neglected in the existing literature, but of huge significance in creating artistic works. This will be fully explored from four dimensions: speech discourse, settings design, symbol cues and silent commentary. Being an organic component in shaping characters and developing plots, speech discourse remains to be a very important means for implicit commentaries, as can be indicated in itself and in its various ways of expressions. While the description of a single setting can be used to imply the narrator’s attitude, a juxtaposition of several settings produces a unique contrast, creating a dialogue between different sides and offering more space for readers’ contemplation. It, therefore, succeeds in implanting the narrator’s value system in readers’ minds. There are quite a number of ways to employ symbols in the creation of commentary. Three types of symbols are distinguished: mono-fixed, contrast-revealing and context-dependent. Silent commentary, as a special set of implicit commentary, can be realized either by oppressing or even quenching the sound of certain characters, or by omitting certain story plots, eliding descriptions of some settings or bypassing specific explanations and appraisals. The work in this chapter supplements and enriches the existing commentary studies which has explicit commentary at its centre, thus bringing about a systematic analysis of commentary in literary narrative.The next three chapters centre on the potential relationship between commentary on the one hand and narrative progression, narrative reliability and tellability on the other hand. This makes it different from other studies which only deal with commentary itself and do not take into account its other functions apart from evaluation, explanation, addition and generalization, thus contributing to a thorough theoretical system of commentary in narrative. Chapter 4 discusses the role of commentary in narrative progression, complementing the existing literature that almost ignores dynamic factors in the development of narrative and at the same time facilitating the demonstration of polyphony and interpersonal nature of narrative texts. It is generally accepted that commentary penetrates across the entire text explicitly or implicitly. It can be found present both in the instabilities and in the tensions of narrative works. Two patterns of commentary in narrative progression are suggested here: the linear pattern of “Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He”, and the interwoven pattern of multi-dimension. The former argues that “Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He”, a pattern used for the illustration of thematic cohesion in classical Chinese thought on “Wenzhang”, also applies to the analysis of the interpersonal thread created by narrator’s commentary. Both thematic meanings and interpersonal meanings are involved in narrative progression, giving rise to a better understanding of themes and rhetorical purposes of narrative. The latter chiefly concentrates on the role of implicit commentary in narrative progression, and can be further classified into the interwoven pattern of horizontal direction and that of juxtaposition. The first subtype indicates that narrator’s commentaries at different phases of narrative discourse might result in different effects and their combination, especially commentary at the end of the text, may lead to a clear attitude of narrators. The second subtype is characterized by two simultaneous courses of narrative progressions for the elaboration of story themes which even run opposite to each other and therefore forges a relationship of either mutual reinforcement or mutual subversion.Chapter 5 shifts to the interconnectedness between commentary and narrative reliability. Commentary, used for the expression of the narrator’s judgment or value system, is a very important factor in deciding whether a narrator is reliable or not. Commentary and narrative reliability are examined first through exploring the softening of the authoratative narrator, with a particular focus on unreliable narrating. Two kinds of unreliable narratings are dealt with in this chapter: one resulted from certain mental defects of narrators, and one of irony. It is argued that there is no absolutely reliable or unreliable narrating and the state of being reliable or unreliable is dynamic rather than static. The separation of the narrator’s attitude from that of the implied author can be embodied in the disagreement or incompatibility between the literal meaning and the implied meaning of linguistic resources. However, the tensions present in irony and the ensuing mildness and defamiliarization assit readers in approaching the genuine meanings of narrative texts.Chapter 6 presents a detailed description of the potential links between commentary and tellability. For any narrative text, it has a set goal and a certain point as well as good reasons for narrating. These elements constitute the essence of tellability by which narrative texts come into existence. Commentary serves as a very effective strategy in upgrading tellability of narrative works. A systematic explanation of tellability and its related concepts helps uncover the correlation between commentary and tellability. Commentary is analyzed from the perspective of tellability along two aspects: the selection and representation of events in narrative texts, and the maintenance of readers’ interest in narratives. The selection of both the main event and its sub-events shows the narrator’s attitude. In addition, different representations of the same event also reveal different evaluations held by narrators, overtly or covertly. The function of commentary in keeping a continuing interest in reading narratives can be identified in three dimensions: one used for the clarification of readers’ puzzlement, one for a full understanding of the complexness of characters, and one for an emotional relief in reaching the psychological state of readers.