Manifestations of the bias of an unreliable narrator in novel by V. Domontovich “Doctor Serafikus”

2018 ◽  
pp. 132-138
Author(s):  
М. І. Підодвірна

The results and achievements of the main schools and directions of naratology indicate the need to reread both well-known and recondite texts in order to spell out the meanings. We believe that the narrative analysis of prose by Victor Domontovich (the Ukrainian intellectual writer) is interesting and relevant. The article attempts to characterize the manifestations of the bias of an unreliable narato in the novel “Doctor Seraficus” based on the A. Nyuninga’s cognitive approach. A modern German researcher provides a set of tools that can supplemented for a multidimensional consideration of all ambiguities and contradictions in the text. An intelligent game that unfolds in the text manifests itself at different levels. V. Domontovych conducts the biggest game, the game with meaning through the pending authority of unreliable presenter. The text of the novel consists of abstract reflections, notes, dreams, illusions, fantasies, dreams and retrospective journeys. The main law of the text is the game. Irony and contradictions in the narrator’s words encourage the reader to feel dissonance, uncertainty. Therefore, in a narrative analysis, attention is focused on the speaker and who sees (the focal point). It was investigated that the artist Corvin is the narrator of the novel “Doctor Serafikus”, he tries to give as much as possible objectively the personal story. The motives for the unreliability narration based on the personal interest and bias of the character are determined. We identified the main symptoms of the unreliability of the narrator in the work, and the different levels at which the corresponding narrative is expressed, are highlighted. It is established that an unreliable narrative forces distancing itself from a narrator and takes everything that has been said with caution and detachment. Detailed narrative analysis of the work sheds light on the meanings, which for some reason masked, and allows you to establish artistic functions of an unreliable narrator. We believe that understanding this phenomenon makes it possible to make a comprehensive analysis of artistic text.

Author(s):  
Mikhail Tarasov

The article deals with the narrative text construction. The study thoroughly analyzes cognitive models that can become the basis of this process. Firstly, the author is studying the theory of rhetoricalcommonplaces. The article shows that this theory is suitable for constructing a rhetorical text, but not a narrative one. The second model discussed is the concept model. The article argues that this model is most convenient for text analysis, but not for its formation. Marvin Minsky's frame theory is analyzed in detail. It is stated that the theory of frames and individual narrative concepts, in particular those formulated by R. Barth, have much in common. It is concluded that the theory of frames can be perceived as the ontological basis of the narrative scientific description. In addition, the article briefly discusses the cognitive model by R. Quillian and R. Langacker. Their essence is to highlight the main and secondary content in the text. The possibility of using these models in the text analysis and its synthesis is proved by their conceptual similarity with G.Y. Solganik’s analysis of the novel by L. Tolstoy. Special attention is paid to the theory of R. Abelson. It is argued that the proposed hierarchy of cognitive structures has a generalizing character and is adequate to the text. The article gives an example based on a local narrative figure analysis undertaken by V.V. Vinogradov. The paper indicates the possibility to describe this figure within Abelson's theory. As a result of different cognitive models and narrative conceptscomparison, the article formulates the sequence of stages in the analysis and synthesis of text units found at different levels. The first stage of this sequence is the narrative figures analysis. The second one is the analysis of episodes, which are narrative figures associations. The third one is the analysis of the text plot structures. It is proposed to consider text units as realizations of cognitive structures. It is argued that the cognitive approach to the narrative provides its holistic and detailed adequate description.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Florij Batsevych

In recent decades, the researchers of artistic stories have paid their attention to the narrative analysis of a set of weird texts of mystical and absurd content, works of “black humour”, fantastic (khymerna) prose created by a non-anthropic narrator or by an author in a changed state of consciousness. These texts serve the field of actualizing atypical and non-usual narrative structures, the sphere of meaningful changes within the bounds of narrative categories and, which is important, of forming special communicative senses of aesthetic nature. The basic problems of the linguistic analysis of “unnatural” stories are identifying the types of changes in the narration constituents, reasons of these changes and narrative categories (first of all, events, participants, objects, chronotope characteristics, points of view, moduses, modalities, etc.). The article analyses one of the texts of mystical content aiming at the revealing of some specificities of the structure and functioning of the so-called “unnatural artistic narrations”. The object of the research is V. Shevchuk’s novel “The Beginning of Horror”. The subject of the analysis is lingual means of the narrative structure formation, the author’s objectification of the mystical artistic sense and lingual “signals” of a reader’s perception of these senses. The most important semantic means of creating mystical atmosphere of the story are predicates that ascribe the names of their referents atypical dynamic and static features connected with the Christian view of the infernal world. It helps to form narrative events that root in weird situations, which cannot take place in reality. Non-dispositional nature of these situations correlates with the reference to the mystery that goes far beyond the bounds of a usual perceptive and psycho-mental background. Among the pragmatic means of creating mystical atmosphere of the main hero’s story as well as of the novel in general, we specify the individual inimitative perception of the flow of time and modality of “real unreality” formed by the role of an unreliable narrator and a vague point of view of the described event with its perceptive, ideological and time planes of objectification. Due to the increasing interest to various expressions of the esoteric, the increase of the number of artistic works of such content and growth of their popularity, we consider it topical to proceed in further investigations of lingual-narrative aspects of “unnatural” stories, in particular, the ones with the modus of mystical in them.


MANUSYA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-153
Author(s):  
Yao Siqi

《蛙》/ua55/ (frog) by the Nobel Prize winning Chinese author Mo Yan describes China’s changing its highly controversial one - child policy and system of forced abortions over the past half-century. Frog metaphors are omnipresent throughout the novel. The present study aims to investigate these metaphors within the framework of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the “GREAT CHAIN OF BEING” system of George Lakoff and Mark Turner (1989) to deepen our understanding of their nature and manifestations. Zoltán Kövecses’s (2002) “HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS” and “ANIMALS ARE HUMAN BEINGS” were also considered as cognitive metaphorical models. Moreover, the viewpoint of “phonetic metaphor” initially proposed by Ivan Fónagy (1999) was also taken into account. Results were that in Mo Yan’s work, the frog plays an essential role in the conceptualizing conventional views of certain areas in China. The analysis demonstrates how a cognitive approach offers an effective way to explore the cognitive basis of the text’s view on the complex relationship between the basic human rights and the dilemmas of living in a repressive society. This paper also hopes to make a certain contribution to comprehending frog metaphors in terms of more clearly delineated concepts and ideology reflecting China’s real society of a one-child policy and its traditional counter - policy notion.


2022 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Rifqi Ayu Everina

Binary opposition is the most important aspect that can reveal how humans think, how humans produce meaning and understand reality (Culler, 1976). Therefore, the discovery of binary oppositions is useful in providing clues to the workings of human reason. In the context of narrative analysis, binary opposition can reveal how the logic behind a narrative is made. Based on this, this study highlights how the formation of binary opposition contained in the novel "Lettres de Mon Moulin" by Alphonse Daudet uses Lévi Strauss's theory of binary opposition (1955) and structural analysis using Freytag's plot theory (1863). The corpus of the research consists of six stories contained in the novel forming a binary opposition. After doing the analysis, it was found that a pair of words with binary opposition were included in the exclusive category and two pairs of words that were included in the non-exclusive binary opposition category. From these findings, it was found that the author of the novel, Daudet, gave directions on what was good and bad by giving a clear line of separation. This is in line with the context of making stories during the industrial revolution, which mapped the world into two things, namely traditional and modern life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-97
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Wójcik

Claude-Henri Grignon’s novel Un homme et son péché presents the life of French Canadian colonial settlers of the Laurentides region at the end of XIXth century. It depicts a realistic image of the colonisation period of Quebec history. The novel is at the origin of a media series that englobes a radio adaptation, three filmic adaptations, theater adaptations, a comic, and two television series. The aim of this article is to discuss the vision of colonisation by analysing two television series based on Un homme et son péché: Les Belles Histoires des pays d’en haut broadcast from 1956 to 1970 and Les Pays d’en haut broadcast from 2016 to 2019 on ICI Radio-Canada Télé 1. The analysis will try to trace modifications inherent to the process of adaptation on different levels (protagonists, representation of space, ideological discourse) and their influence on the vision of the colonisation period.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Victor Ondara Ntabo ◽  
Moses Gatambuki Gathigia ◽  
Naom Moraa Nyarigoti

A review of literature on pop songs reveals that composers use metaphors to communicate their feelings. In particular, the meaning of the metaphors in EkeGusii pop songs needs to be interpreted to reveal the message of the composers. The EkeGusii pop singer Christopher Mosioma’s (Embarambamba) songs have gained fame in Kenya because of their richness in the usage of metaphors. One of Christopher Mosioma’s songs, amasomo (education) which was launched in 2015 has gained acclaim from Kenyans. The song amasomo (education) is basically presented as a piece of advice to students to embrace education in order to optimally reap from its benefits. The study identified 10 metaphors in the song amasomo (education) through the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit. In order to interpret the metaphors in the EkeGusii pop song amasomo (education), the Conceptual Metaphor Theory complemented by the folk conception of the generic Great Chain of Being Metaphor were employed. The study employed four coders (including the researchers) in the identification of the metaphors. The study found that, inter alia, animal, plant and object metaphors are used in the song amasomo (education). The study concludes that the metaphors in the EkeGusii pop songs belong inherently to different levels of the generic Great Chain of Being Metaphor.


Werkwinkel ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Timothy Pareit

Abstract Although scholars in the Netherlands have already attempted to integrate literary theories on migration with the specific Dutch context, none such attempts have so far been made for Flemish literature. The current paper therefore scrutinises the novel Los by Tom Naegels, an (autobiographical) account of the riots in Borgerhout (Antwerp) after the murder on Islam teacher Mohamed Achrak in 2002. As the author also covered these events as a journalist, the analysis investigates the manner in which this topical matter is intertwined with the more personal story about the struggle conducted by Naegels’s grandfather for euthanasia. The paper leans on Jérôme Meizoz’s posture theory, which differentiates the author figure from the biographical person and the narrator. In addition, the novel is situated within the contemporary literary return towards realism and Flemish literature’s negotiation of Flemish identity. By focussing on these three elements – the theme of migration, realism and Flemish identity – the paper attempts to contribute to the development of a literary theory on migration in Flanders.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
Konul Khalilova ◽  
Irina Orujova

The current article involves the issues of losses, gains, or survivals contributing to literature in the process of translation. It represents a thorough study based on the novel “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck from English and, respectively, its translation into Azerbaijani by Ulfet Kurchayli. It investigates the problematic areas or challenges emerging from the source-text discrepancies. Furthermore, this article also concentrates on the issue of cultural non-equivalence or the losses occurring in translating English literary texts into Azerbaijani. The paper identifies the translation techniques adopted by the translator of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Adopting certain techniques rather than others has led to many losses on different levels. The translator’s important role as a cultural insider is also emphasized. The wide gap, distance, or the differences between the cultures, languages, and thought patterns of the English and Azerbaijani language speakers are the main factors resulting in various losses in the process of translation. Coping with these extra-linguistic constraints is harder than the linguistic ones as the translator has no choice in the given situations, deleting these elements from the TT or replacing them with elements that do not fit the context. This article aims at determining translation losses and gains, defining ways that the translator employs for compensating losses, through the analysis of John Steinbeck’s style in The Grapes of Wrath. The article concludes that there are some situations where the translation of a certain text from the SL into the TL embraces alteration in the whole informational content of the text, in the form of expressions or words.


Author(s):  
Antela Voulis

Petro Marko is considered by critics as one of the founders of modern Albanian prose. Scientific assessments of Petro Markos’s creativity are mainly based on long and short prose, in the form of genuine critical studies, short predictions, comments and analysis. There are papers of this nature written by scholars such as: Floresha Dado, Adriatik Kallulli, Bashkim Kuçuku, Ali Aliu, Robert Elsie and many others. The subject matter of these articles varies from simple information to moments of writer’s life, to genuine studies and analysis regarding interpretation and explanation of different elements of the structure of his literary works. In this case, we would like to highlight an article written by the author Bashkim Kuçuku, namely the novel “A name on four streets”. In this particular paper, Kucuku discusses the symbolism of the novel’s title, that even in its metaphorical form didn’t escape the punishment of dictatorship censure, closely connected with the tragic fate that followed Petro Marko. And by doing so the researcher gives us a detailed insight of the connection between his work and a broader background of Marco’s biography. In this context, together with the detailed analysis of the novel’s title, we will find the key point that paves the way for penetrating the original metaphor and symbolism of the story. According to Kuçuku, Petro Marko is a dignified, idealist, as well a stoic writer for justice and social equality. It is precisely this book, “A name in four ways”, that distinctly portrays the aforementioned author as one of the leading writers of prose in Albania and this work is one of his most distinguished among all the others. It is the aim of this study to harmonize the internal narrative analysis of the prose style with the poetic expression of all Petro Mario’s creative work.


Author(s):  
N.N. Boldyrev ◽  
◽  
B.S. Zhumagulova ◽  
D.T. Kurmanbayeva ◽  
◽  
...  

The article analyses the role of chronotope in implementing genre characteristics of different types of novels within the frame of one novel in a cognitive approach perspective. The authors proceed from the theoretical assumption that the content of any novel represents a multidimensional knowledge of the matrix format comprising various types of conceptual domains as specific cognitive contexts. These contexts refer to the knowledge not only about the plot and the composition of the novel, but also about its genre characteristics and their individual interpretation by the author of the novel. Accordingly, they choose cognitive matrix analysis as the methodological basis of the research. Particular attention is focused on the analysis of general principles and mechanisms of the author's individual interpretation and implementation of the concept of chronotope, suggested by M.M. Bakhtin, within the framework of a specific novel. In relation to the novel under discussion the authors of the article model chronotope in the form of the cognitive matrix SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM and analyze its conceptual structure as it is seen by the author of the novel, as well as his choice of means of its representation in language. The results of the cognitive matrix and linguistic analysis lead to the conclusion that typical genre features of the novel are implemented through characteristics of the basic concepts of the respective conceptual domains and means of their linguistic representation. The article also argues close relationship between all of these characteristics and the dominant role of some of them in relation to the others.


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