This study focuses on the narrative picturebook, establishes its theoretical model,

Transcription

1 11. One Story and Two Narrators: The Picturebook as a Narrative SUMMARY This study focuses on the narrative picturebook, establishes its theoretical model, and analyses its semantic structure and its narrative communication, with particular emphasis on narrative perspectives in contemporary picturebooks. The leading idea is that the narrative picturebook fundamentally relies on one story simultaneously told by two distinct narrators: the verbal and the visual. The hypothesis challenges the widely accepted notion that there is only one narrator in the narrative picturebook, present in its verbal layer. Although the specific relationship between words and pictures is unanimously recognised as essential, the notion of two narrative voices in the picturebook has been largely neglected. In particular, the study describes the narrative potential and medium-specific tools of two parallel discourses (words and pictures) and the relationship of their narrators and its effects, identifies narrative perspectives in contemporary picturebooks, and describes devices and strategies adopted by picturebook narrators to convey specific points of view. It considers the implications of the results for the picturebook-specific model of narrative transmission. Theoretical background and research methodology This study is conducted within the scope of the theory of narrative and its semiotic foundations, taking into consideration recent research in children s literature and the picturebook as a multimodal entity. An extensive overview of picturebook research to date is given, which reveals major theoretical concerns. They include the word-picture relationship, interactivity, specific readership, the reading process, the semiotic aspects of picture-

2 440 ONE STORY AND TWO NARRATORS: THE PICTUREBOOK AS A NARRATIVE. SUMMARY book discourses, and its existence as a three-dimensional object. The picturebook is seen not only as a complex narrative, but also as a specific kind of artist s book. The research methodology primarily relies on the application of Seymour Chatman s theoretical models, and on Gérard Genette s investigation of the characteristics of narrative discourse. His concept of focalisation is adopted given that it is analytically clear and useful in investigating point of view across a variety of media. The methodology is modified and fine-tuned in accordance with recent insights into visual communication and intermedial narrativity and with reference to recent picturebook research. The theoretical framework is applied to an analysis of a wide range of high-quality picturebooks mostly published in an English-speaking context, and also of several Croatian publications. A selection of over 100 picturebooks has been analysed to support the findings. The theoretical model of the narrative picturebook Based on Chatman s scheme of narrative structure, a theoretical model of the narrative picturebook is developed, showing that the picturebook is founded on one story mediated by means of two distinct discourses: the verbal and the visual (see Figure 5 on p. 101). A close inspection of the place and the role of the narrator in the narrative indicates that the narrator is a narrative constant, i.e. a component of the narrative discourse (expression). Therefore, each of the picturebook discourses has its own narrator. Picturebook Discourses An analysis of the substance of expression of each of the two discourses reveals the specific strategies employed to establish particular narrative features and to convey narrative information. Semantic aspects of the verbal discourse largely depend on the features of its presentation, such as the picturebook lay-out, features of the printed text, and the way in which text is segmented, divided and arranged across the pages. The visual discourse is manifold, multi-stranded, likely to embrace parallel points of view, exceptionally interactive, and challenging for the reader. The discourses in the picturebook exchange features, and thus both become multimodal. The contemporary picturebook frequently intertwines its verbal and visual discourses into a combined dual discourse. However, the two discourses never blend completely. In contrast to comics, for instance, even in

3 ONE STORY AND TWO NARRATORS: THE PICTUREBOOK AS A NARRATIVE. SUMMARY 441 picturebooks with such a dual discourse, one story is still communicated by two narrators and their voices are distinct. Narrative situations and narrative perspectives The study then focuses on the combinations of the narrative situations of verbal and visual narration, based on Genette s table of narrative possibilities, including the categories constitutive of the narrator, including focalisation or narrative perspective (point of view). The analysis of extradiegetic narration in the picturebook reveals that both verbal and visual narrators can separately establish either a hetero diegetic or a homodiegetic relation to the story. The visual narrator generally adopts the temporal perspective from the verbal narrator. The temporal distance (subsequent temporal position) is paired with narrative distance (diegetic narration), and the lack of temporal distance may be combined with either diegetic narration or mimetic narration, or with a combination of the two. In the picturebook, mimetic narrating sometimes extends to the borderline between the heterodiegetic and the homodiegetic relation to the story. Besides, the picturebook has a general tendency towards transgression and towards challenging the borders of narrative categories. The picturebook narrators may use all the types of focalisation (zero, internal, external), as well as their combinations, in their respective discourses. In this study, examples are found of fixed, variable and multiple internal focalisation. In addition, there are examples of alterations of the dominant mode of focalisation, and there are also cases of polymodality and transfocalisation. The combination of the two narrators in the picturebook gives a dynamic narrative whole, which becomes even more complicated in the presence of intradiegetic narrators, who mediate embedded stories. The multiple voices of the narrators are frequently accompanied by various points of view, introduced into the communication by means of distinct, medium-related modes. As a result, the picturebook is a polyphonic and multimodal narrative. Narrative communication Narrative communication in the picturebook is described with reference to Chatman s model of narrative transmission. Due to two pairs of narrators and narratees of the picturebook discourses, the narrative communication is manifold.

4 442 ONE STORY AND TWO NARRATORS: THE PICTUREBOOK AS A NARRATIVE. SUMMARY However, this does not influence the unity of the implied reader and there is no need to multiply the role of the real reader in the transmission model. The narrators convey the story in a dialogic manner, and the reader is necessarily involved, and usually blends with the narratees. This creates a dialogue of two narrators, which results in an understanding of the story from the reader s side. The picturebook is an interactive, ergodic, dynamic narrative, welcoming the reader, who engages in a dialogic relationship with the narrators and together with them, in conversation, uncovers various interpretive possibilities which are offered precisely by the picturebook as a narrative in which one story is told by two narrators. Final Remarks The findings support the idea of one story and two narrators. A consistent and logical theoretical model of the narrative picturebook is constructed. It allows for the application of key narratological concepts in the investigation of the picturebook and its specific features and offers a clear and logical explanation for various combinations of narrative perspectives that may be found in its discourses. The basic model is extended to show the kinds of derivations that the picturebook, as a flexible structure, develops in testing the borderlines of its form itself. Picturebook narrators establish a mutual dialogic relationship. Various narrative situa tions are possible, and both picturebook discourses show a general tendency towards complex combinations of focalisation types, confronting different points of view. Picturebook narrators rely on media-specific features of their respective discourses and use a multitude of expressive devices and strategies to convey narrative meanings, including the semantic potential of the picturebook as a three-dimensional book. Several verbal and visual strategies specific for the picturebook are described, explained and exemplified. The picturebook emerges as multimodal and intermedial both in its discourses, and in its narrators collaboration. Besides, the picturebook frequently challenges its own conventions. The principle of its narrative communication is dialogue. The implications of this study may offer ideas for further theoretical and historical research of the various aspects of the picturebook, as well as in the general theory of narrative (interdisciplinary narratology), particularly in distinguishing the picturebook from other kinds of narratives.

5 Pripovjedne situacije u slikovnici: prikaz mogućih kombinacija obilježja pripovjedača jezičnoga i slikovnoga a analitički alat A B C D E F JEZIČNI PRIPOVJEDAČ Odnos HETERODIJEGETIČKI HOMODIJEGETIČKI Vrijeme Odmak F 0 u v 0 u v 0 u v v u 0 v u 0 v u SLIKOVNI PRIPOVJEDAČ HETERODIJEGETIČKI HOMODIJEGETIČKI 0 u v 0 u v 0 u v v u 0 v u 0 v u 0 F = fokalizacija, 0 = nulta fokalizacija, u = unutrašnja fokalizacija, v = vanjska fokalizacija Iz knjige: Smiljana Narančić Kovač Jedna priča dva pripovjedača. Zagreb: ArTresor naklada

6 Pripovjedne situacije u slikovnici: prikaz utvrđenih kombinacija obilježja pripovjedača jezičnoga i slikovnoga a rezultati A B C D E F JEZIČNI PRIPOVJEDAČ Odnos HETERODIJEGETIČKI HOMODIJEGETIČKI Vrijeme Odmak F 0 u v 0 u v 0 u v v u 0 v u 0 v u SLIKOVNI PRIPOVJEDAČ HETERODIJEGETIČKI HOMODIJEGETIČKI 0 u v 0 u v 0 u v v u 0 v u 0 v u 0 Rosie s Walk Harold and the Purple Crayon* The Hole Book Lily Takes a Walk Come Away from the Water, Shirley The Great Green Mouse Disaster Peepo!* Anno s Aesop* Nothing Ever Happens on My Block* All By Myself The Friend Now We Can Go Zoo* My Book Domaća zadaća Are You There, Bear? Voices in the Park Into the Forest* F = fokalizacija; 0 = nulta fokalizacija; u = unutrašnja fokalizacija; v = vanjska fokalizacija; za način kombinacije tipova fokalizacije u pojedinim poljima vidi slike 13. i 14. *Slikovnice koje također pripadaju i u druga polja, osim onih u kojima su navedene.

7 SMILJANA NARANČIĆ KOVAČ JEDNA PRIČA DVA PRIPOVJEDAČA

8 RASPON Knjiga 3. Urednik knjige Dr. sc. BOJAN MAROTTI Ocjenitelji Prof. dr. sc. DIANA ZALAR Doc. dr. sc. DUBRAVKA ZIMA Oblikovanje naslovnice i grafičko uređenje FRANJO KIŠ ArTresor naklada, Šulekova 4a, Zagreb, 2015.

9 Smiljana Narančić Kovač JEDNA PRIČA DVA PRIPOVJEDAČA SLIKOVNICA KAO PRIPOVIJED ARTRESOR NAKLADA ZAGREB, 2015.