The notions of fictional time and space in literary text

CHAPTER 1

The notions of fictional time and space in literary text 

1.1. Style distinctive features of literary text.

      Functional styles are defined as the variants of language system, dependent on the forms of speech, its understanding and aims. There are two main styles – literary and colloquial. Within these groups of language phenomena, style variants or registers, which are often called simply styles, such as, for example, academic, poetic, publicistic – for a written speech, standard-colloquial or substandard-colloquial – for oral speech.

      Literary prose has its own functional style, the so called literary style. As an equivalent to this term I. R. Galperin suggests bellesletters style. Belleslettres style functions as the language norm. The main factor, due to which the belleslettres style becomes a norm, is a prestige of the printing industry in general and fiction in particular. Belleslettres speech becomes a norm also because of its rich vocabulary, welldeveloped syntactic constructions and public character [2, p. 216].

      The bellesletters style has developed and acquired its specific features which distinguish it from other fictional styles. Though some peculiarities of other styles can be traced in it. For example, dialogs play the most important role in balleslettres prose, as they reflect the peculiarities of colloquial style. Other styles are used more rarely, in the form of original quotations, for example officialese in the occasions when a text contains certain documents. Elements of academic style are widely used in the science fiction genre. This peculiarity of belleslettres enables to create an intense faithfulness and narrative reality. Additionally, Kukharenko states the variations of functional styles may create the contrast, which can be used for humorous effect or for intensifying the emotional coloring of the text [10, p.78].

     Style is the manner in which a writer chooses among different strategies to address an issue and the reader. It reveals the writer's point of view, but it also shows how he or she sees readers’ audience. Style reveals the choices the writer makes in syntactical structures, diction, and figures of speech.

     Pelevina analyses the position of a writer and his or her concept of the audience, which impose style constraints on the style. Fiction entertains and arouses the reader and is improved by the judicious use of figures of speech. A writer can combine personal style with the expectations of the audience, but many choices may be too personal [8, p.229].

     Depending on the mode in which the author is writing, diction can also pertain to the style. Argumentative and expository prose on a particular subject matter frequently use a set of jargon in which the subject matter is commonly discussed. Narrative and descriptive prose is open to the vast variety of words.

     Pelevina says that in some texts we may face the descriptions, which may be defined as the transformation of reality. At the first sight there are fantastic descriptions, but which have more or less realistic explanation. Usually, an explanation is a mistake of perception or some special psychological state. In one of the Edgar Po`s novels the narrator looks through the window on the distant hills range and suddenly sees the huge monster on it; then we get to know that his eyes combine a little night butterfly, which goes on invisible spider line, with the hills. The mistake of vision all alone can not become the topic of the literary text; usually such things are very important in narration or they incur symbolization. We can see it in the Po`s novel: imaginary monster is understood by the reader as an embodiment of cholera, an epidemic of which was in that places and in that time. The narration may be explained in general as an expression of thought about an insecurity of our perceptions and their dependence on our emotional state [8, p.178]. Modern science refuse the possibility of such vision as in the novel of Po, - we can not see close and distant things equally clear. Nevertheless, the topic of the narration is presented in scientific field; Edgar Po is deservedly considered to be one of the founders of modern science fiction.

     Kukharenko considers the context of literary discourse to be quite different from that of non-literary discourse in that it is dissociated from the immediacy of social contact. Literary discourse is a piece of writing, made in predominantly in fictional style which describe imaginary or real events, people, places but adding some imaginary details or characters. Fictional time and space are important components of the literary discourse as they make reader to believe the author and these indirectly influences his or her behavior through the appeal to the human emotions by reference to the space and time of the real world [6, p. 205].    

     Fictional text content in no account is automatic resemblance of the life factors – it has difficult, historically changeable, unstudied laws of structure.

      Theory and history of literature of the last years have showed that in fictional text there is always so called point of view. Usually, different points of views are combined in the text, which give the opportunity of great variety in the content narration.

      Structure of the text content also includes such notions as fictional time and space.   

1.2. The notion of fictional space and its types.  

      Dolinin states that fictional space may be defined as the description of an imaginary scene in the fictional text. Fictional space may be unusually wide, cover the whole world (space in the science fiction); in the other hand, it can contract to the size of a room. In any case, however, the fictional space has certain structure: it has limits and connection with plotlines and groups of characters.

      Space, the domain of settings and surroundings of events, characters and objects in literary narrative, along with other domains (story, time, character and ideology), constitutes a fictional universe. For the purpose of describing some features, of fictional spaces, we may assume that space is a semantic construct built with linguistic structures employed by the literary text. Yet, this distinction is based on the assumption that the components of the fictional space cannot be defined with specific textual expressions; rather, fictional constructs of space are the products of integration of dynamic bodies of spatial information. Thus, we can intend, more specifically, to describe the relations between various categories of space- constructs and their surface (linguistic) manifestations.

      There are several types of the literary space. The first one is the panoramic plane/view or so – called bird’s – eye view. A bird's – eye view is an elevated author’s view of the plot from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird.

     Bird's eye views as a genre have existed since classical times. The last great flourishing of them was in the mid-to-late 19th century, when bird's eye view presentations of the text were popular in the United States and Europe.

     The second is the close – up plane or view. In literature a close-up narration is when the author tightly frames a person or an object. Close-up view display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene.

     Close-up view is used in many ways, for many reasons. Close-ups are often used as cutaways from a more distant description of the object in the text to show detail, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity with their hands. Close cuts to characters' faces are used very often. For an author to deliberately avoid close-ups may create in the readers’ audience an emotional distance from the subject matter.

     Close-up view is used for distinguishing main characters. Major characters are often given a close-up when they are introduced as a way of indicating their importance. Leading characters will have multiple close-ups.

     Close-up narration does not show the subject in the broad context of its surroundings. If overused, close-up view may leave readers uncertain as to what they are seeing.

     And finally, the third type is the general view, which gives a reader the general description of the characters, their actions, events which take place in the text. Author uses the general view, when he tries to give the reader the biggest part of information but does not want to give details [3, p. 121].

     Pelevina, the researcher of fictional text consider its construction and sense to have the model of world as the author understands it [8, p.202]. It means not only the fact, that each fictional text reflects certain elements of reality; theorists suppose fictional text to be entire and unique exposition of the world. This case is a very controversial. Within the scope of our analysis of the texts we can not undertake the decision of such a big problem. But we think that within some relationships between fictional texts this case may be right. It only should be mentioned that the space model of the fictional text not always resembles the author’s world view. It can be one of the lots of possible space models, which corresponds the content and the mood of the text; in such case the world picture contains it according to the author’s understanding, but it does not make the entire of this picture.  

1.3. The notion of fictional time and its types.  

      Khovanskaya analyses that fictional time, in which the described events take place, imitates the real time, but does not display all its features, being more fluent. Real time passes uniformly while fictional time may speedup, slow, even stop. Real time is irreversible while in the fictional text sequence of events may me changed, more late events may come before early ones [9, p. 267].  

     There is a certain difference between grammatical and fictional time. Each text describing facts and events depicts them like those passing in time. The time of described events is not identical to the real one; it is imaginary, or fictitious time. It is referred not only to the narration of the fictitious events, but also to the depiction of the reality in the text, for example, in the memoirs; in both cases events take place in the reader’s imagination. In reference to the fictional text depicted time is often called fictional time.

      A fictional text being a fictitious narrative (though it resembles the reality), gives the author an opportunity for free depiction of the passing time and creation in such a way different notional and stylistic effects.

      Real time passes in one direction – from the past to the future that creates an irreversible coordinated sequence of events. In fictional texts chronological sequence may be broken. Often, in order to draw the reader’s attention the author starts his narration from the middle, and then gives the exposition. Sometimes, especially in detective stories, the end of the chain of events works as the beginning of narration. Rearrangement of events sometimes may appear even in the factographic text (for example, in the adventures description), but only in case when such texts have the element of fictional depiction.

      The uniformity of time is also broken in the fictional text. Usually, the speedup of time is used, its long distances are placed in the texts, which can be read from several minutes to several hours. The speedup of time is a distinctive feature of the ends of the long texts (novels); beginning with slow descriptions, the narration gathers speed, and events which takes years of life happen on several last pages. There is also slowing of time – detailed description of the events, for example landscapes, which are devoted to the same moment of time, though they are represented like a prosequence.

      Kukharenko says that fictional time is created first of all by means of the sense of narration. But linguistic means such as units of lexical and grammatical system of language are also very important. In the sphere of the vocabulary there are words, which denote the time and movement in time, such as yesterday, today, earlier, later, etc. In the sphere of grammar there are tense forms [10, p. 102].

      Tense form used for description of the events in the fictional text is called narrative time. Narrative time of verb is Past Indefinite, sometimes Present Indefinite is used. If some facts are marked as preceding the current events or they will happen in future, corresponding forms of English tense system are used. The usage of tenses in direct speech of persona is not related to the formation of fictional time, it imitates the facts of real speech. Most commonly the narration is presented in one tense, either past or present. In such cases a verb tense does not perform any stylistic function, as there is no choice factor, while stylistic effect suggests some choice and opposition. The meaning of the past and present tense in the narration is almost the same. The Past tense does not mean the events of the past, and present does not mean the events of the present; both tenses mean sequence of the events, which takes place in the reader’s imagination. Interchange of tenses in the text is another thing, as this interchange makes some sense. A sudden change from the past tense to the present flavour the narration: present tense moves describing fact closer to reader. Such usage of the present tense is called dramatic present. Interchange of tenses in the text can project different senses and stylistic gradations.

      Kukharenko states that there are different types of the fictional time. The first is a flash back (also called analepsis) which can be defined as an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial back story. Character origin flashbacks specifically refers to flashbacks dealing with key events early in a character's development. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. The technique is used to create suspense in a story, or develop a character. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to before the narrative started.

      An early example of analepsis is in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, where the main story is narrated through a frame story set in a later story [6, p. 276].

     Another early use of this device in a murder mystery was in "The Three Apples", an Arabian Nights tale. The story begins with the discovery of a young woman's dead body. After the murderer later reveals himself, he narrates his reasons for the murder as a flashback of events leading up to the discovery of her dead body at the beginning of the story. Flashbacks are also employed in several other Arabian Nights tales such as "Sinbad the Sailor" and "The City of Brass".

     Analepsis was used extensively by author Ford Madox Ford. Also by poet, author, historian and mythologist Robert Graves, as a source of inspiration.

     The 1927 book The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks to events leading up to the disaster.

     If flashbacks are extensive and in chronological order, one can say that these form the present of the story, while the rest of the story consists of flash forwards. If flashbacks are presented non-chronologically it can be ambiguous what is the present of the story: An example of this is Slaughterhouse-Five where the narrative jumps back and forth in time, so there is no actual present time line.

     The Harry Potter series employs a magical device called a Pensieve, which changes the nature of flashbacks from a mere narrative device to an event directly experienced by the characters, which are thus able to provide commentary.

     The second type is the foreshadowing, which can be defined as a literary device in which an author suggests certain plot developments that will come later in the story.

     Pelevina analyses that usually more subtle, foreshadowing works on the symbolic level. For example, if a character must break up a schoolyard fight among some boys, it might symbolically foreshadow the family squabbles that will become the central conflict of the story. Other times, it is seemingly inconsequential, with the goal of having the reader be surprised by the story's climax and yet find it justified. If a character learns that a certain man was a regular at the diner where her mother worked many years before, it helps to justify the events later in which she learns that the man is her biological father.

     If foreshadowing is not done carefully, the common experiences of life can make the foreshadowing too obvious and allow the reader to predict the outcome of the story. For example, a character behaves in an odd and erratic fashion and complains continuously of a headache, then later is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Foreshadowing can also be misused in a mystery, where a series of events which points to a conclusion is later found to be composed of unlikely coincidences which have been "dishonestly" added to the story by the author in an artificial way, with the sole purpose of drawing the audience into an incorrect expectation. In such cases, the audience feels manipulated, and the story may be less satisfying [8, p. 251].

      Arnold considers fictional time and space to be related to the paradigm of the text as, for example, the system of grammatical tenses is related to the paradigm of language. There is another approach to the text – from the point of view, which may be called syntagmatic. According to this approach, first of all two subtext text fragments cam be defined – dynamic and static. These narrative types are connected with fictional time: dynamic fragments move forward imaginary time of the events, in the static fragments time stops or moves very slowly. Dynamic fragments contain action. It can be external, physical action: movement in space, displacement, creation of something, extirpation, etc. The inner action in the text takes place in the character’s mind: something changes in the knowledge and understanding of the surrounding, in stance on it, in personality configuration. Static fragments contain different descriptions – character’s portraits, places descriptions (closely related to the structure of fictional space), season and time of day. Dynamics of the text unfolds the plot, whereas the static parts make the background. Fictional space presented as a landscape and other descriptions may function as an expression of feelings, parallel or contrast to the events described [1, p. 198].

      In each literary text fictional time and space can be defined. The antropothentric feature of the text is a man in the focus of the plot within the temporal or special settings. Fictional time is ideal, formed by switching over one temporal plane to another. There are several types of fictional time which are flashback, foreshadowing, static and dynamic time. Fictional space is a description of the place of action. It also has several types, such as panoramic plane, close-up, and general view.