Narrative Perspective in Fiction: A Phenomenological Meditation of Reader, Text, and World 9781442677531

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: The Meaning of Narrative Perspective
1. Language of Experience: Hans-Georg Gadamer and Consciousness Exposed to the Effects of History
2. Perception of Language: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Perception
3. The Experience of Perception: Paul Ricoeur and Phenomenological Hermeneutics
4. The Concept of Narrative Perspective
5. Figuring out Narrative Perspective: Facets of Structure
Part Two: Playing Narrative Perspective
6. Narrative Perspective in the Reading Experience
7. The Fabulous Metaphor of Cien años de soledad
8. The Ironic Parable of Jacob’s Room
Concluding Considerations
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

N A R R A T I V E P E R S P E C T I V E IN FICTION

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DANIEL FRANK CHAMBERLAIN

Narrative Perspective in Fiction: A Phenomenological Mediation of Reader,

Text, and World

U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press 1990 Toronto Buffalo London ISBN 0-8020-5838-8

University of Toronto Romance Series 59

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Chamberlain, Daniel Frank, 1951Narrative perspective in fiction (University of Toronto romance series ; 59) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8020-5838-8 i. Point of view (Literature). 2. Fiction - History and criticism. 3. Narration (Rhetoric). 4. Phenomenology and literature. 5. Hermeneutics. I. Title. II. Series. PN3383.P64C48 1990

808.3

€89-094869-0

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Again and forever to Monica

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

Introduction 3 Part One The Meaning of Narrative Perspective i Language of Experience: Hans-Georg Gadamer and Consciousness Exposed to the Effects of History 7 2

Perception of Language: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Perception 17 3 The Experience of Perception: Paul Ricoeur and Phenomenological Hermeneutics 46 4 The Concept of Narrative Perspective 77 5 Figuring out Narrative Perspective: Facets of Structure 130

viii Contents Part Two Playing Narrative Perspective 6 Narrative Perspective in the Reading Experience 161 7 The Fabulous Metaphor of Cien anos de soledad 165 8 The Ironic Parable of Jacob's Room 198

Concluding Considerations 226 NOTES 229 REFERENCES 245 INDEX 253

Acknowledgments

The following pages are the result of a great deal of effort and dedication on the part of family, friends, and faculty. Although I am indebted to all, a few deserve special mention. I would like to thank my mother and father for their encouragement and constant faith in me. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Mario J. Valdes, whose patient guidance has taught me much more than this inquiry could ever hope to reveal. My readers and editors, particularly Ron Schoeffel of the University of Toronto Press and copy-editor John St James, merit special thanks for their careful reading and tactful advice. My wife Monica deserves much more than thanks. Without her unfailing support this book would not have been possible. DANIEL FRANK C H A M B E R L A I N

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N A R R A T I V E P E R S P E C T I V E IN FICTION

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Introduction

Narrative perspective has been described as the essence of the narrative art (Scholes and Kellogg 240). It plays an essential role in the writing and reading of texts and has become a major issue in the theory that narrative gives rise to. Different theoretical approaches have sought to define it with terms such as 'person/ 'point of view/ 'reflector/ 'voice/ 'central consciousness/ and 'localization.' Despite the variety of approaches and the ongoing debate concerning the essence of narrative perspective, most theories agree that perspective is in one way or another involved in the more general process of perception. Perception, however, is often understood as an impression upon the senses of data proceeding from the outside world. When understood as an impingement upon the senses, perception is often reduced to one of its essential dimensions. The concept of data from the world falling upon the senses and marking an otherwise blank mind gives the spatial dimension of perception an 'objective' and 'unquestionable' authority to which theorists often appeal. The temporal dimension and the selection of meaningful data in the experience of perception are often left unheeded. Thus, narrative perspective is often approached from the presupposition of a passive reader and an active author or text. The aim of this study is to inquire into the nature of narrative perspective in a manner that does not presuppose a passive definition of perception. I shall depart from an understanding of perception as an 'opening' through which one's self-awareness and an awareness of the world are correlated. Thus, I understand perception as also being an active 're-creation or re-construction of the world at every moment' (MerleauPonty 1962, 207). In this way the temporal dimension is not ignored

4 Narrative Perspective in Fiction and perception can be related to both language and experience in a more general process of consciousness. From this understanding of perception as a dialectic of space and time and of the role it plays in the process of consciousness, I intend to address the specific question, 'Can narrative perspective provide a medium through which to disclose potential meanings and through which to share the lived experience of narrative texts from both familiar and culturally different worlds today?' I shall address this question by organizing my inquiry according to a process of understanding, explanation, and comprehension. At the first level of this process I follow the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and particularly his notion of consciousness as being exposed to the effects of history.1 This notion of consciousness exposed to the effects of history in turn is divided into four interrelated parts proceeding from language to perception, experience, and concept. Language, understood as a mode of being in the world rather than as a closed system, is 'prior to everything else' in the hermeneutical study of narrative perspective (Gadamer 1975, 340).2 The structure and character of consciousness can be understood in terms of a dialectic of question and answer as well as a conversation with the world through discourse. Following the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, awareness is also divided into four levels.3 Perception, representation, illusion, and hallucination vary in degree from an open and shared awareness of the world and one's self to a closed and private one. Perception's essential dimensions of time and space are correlated to two senses and two perspectives that have played important roles as media of narrative transmission. Perception gives way to experience. Paul Ricoeur's notion of narrative as both emplotment (temporal muthos) and the imitation of action (mimesis) provides an understanding of the character and structure of the narrative experience. The 'essence of narrative art' functions at all moments of the narrative experience. The different dimensions of perception and the different moments in the process of narrative can provide various points of departure for the concept of narrative perspective. While this study does not intend to provide a critique of philosophical traditions, it is only by delving into philosophical questions presupposed by 'narrative' and 'perspective' that a greater appreciation of the creative potential and impact of narrative perspective can be achieved. An exploration of the concept of narrative perspective fulfils the primary level of understanding and opens to the second level of explanation.

5 Introduction The explanation of narrative perspective concentrates on three dimensions: that of the narrative voice, that of the narrative world, and that of the reader's perspective. Each of these dimensions is divided into four interrelated facets. These facets are in turn related to language and perception through the tropological character of discourse, on the one hand, and the particular sense brought to the fore by the predominant medium of cultural transmission, on the other. The similarity and difference of narrative perspective can then be comprehended as an interplay of facets. The understanding and explanation of this 'essence' is not fully realized until the process includes a comprehension of texts recognized as moments of achievement in 'narrative art.' The comprehension of Cien anos de soledad and Jacob's Room brings together two texts representative of narrative achievement in their respective linguistic milieus as well as two narrative perspectives representative of the dialectic of perception's temporal and spatial dimensions. The comprehension of these texts is accomplished through the interplay of facets of narrative perspective in the reading experience itself. I do not intend to provide a survey of critical evaluations concerned with the texts or their authors. This level of comprehension, therefore, presupposes a careful reading of the texts. The intention of this investigation is, then, to offer an understanding, explanation, and comprehension of narrative perspective to a community of readers who share their experience of texts through the 'tradition of textual commentary' (Valdes 1987, 54). The design of my inquiry is necessarily complex. There is very little in the narrative art upon which its essence does not come to bear. This concern for the essential may lead, however, to a misunderstanding that the study intends to close the issue by way of an implicit claim to universality or absolute truth. Once an inquiry proposes the perception and experience of texts as its point of departure, any claim to universality, any claim to absolute truth, is dismissed in favour of a deeper level of understanding, a level in which communication between different perspectives becomes the rule. Any study of narrative perspective, including the present inquiry, can represent but one of many possible standpoints in language and history. With this in mind I offer the reader my experience with the question of narrative perspective. It is my hope that it will contribute to the never-ending process of appropriation through narrative as well as to the tradition we esteem and continue to celebrate.

Part One

THE M E A N I N G OF N A R R A T I V E PERSPECTIVE

1 Language of Experience: Hans-Georg Gadamer and Consciousness Exposed to the Effects of History The starting point for a consideration of narrative perspective in terms of the reader's encounter with a text lies in the structure and character of consciousness itself. Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of 'consciousness exposed to the effects of history/ is well suited for an examination of the relationship between narrative perspective and reader because it is constituted by a hierarchy of four levels common to both: language, perception, experience figured by history, and concept.1 Gadamer's philosophy starts 'from the basic ontological view, according to which being is language, ie [sic] self-presentation, as revealed to us by the hermeneutical experience of being' (1975, 443)- His hermeneutic ontology is concerned with understanding as a 'mode of being' and being 'that can be understood is language' (xviii, xxii).2 From this 'fundamental linguistic quality' of humanity, Gadamer establishes an indivisible relationship between language and world (401). The 'linguistics' that interests Gadamer is not so much that of Ferdinand de Saussure but rather that of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Gadamer concentrates on the inner tendency to be communicative rather than on language as a system. He is concerned with language as a moment that continually presents itself, a moment in which our doubts begin to come forth as a vague stimulus that tends towards communication. He shares Humboldt's recognition that language 'is no product (Ergon), but an activity (Energeia). Its true definition can therefore only be a genetic one' (Humboldt 49). If language is the energy of the human power to have and to disclose a world, then every particular language represents a point of view of the world (Humboldt 49 and Gadamer 1975, 39711).3 The 'essence of language,' which is 'the living act of speech, linguistic energeia,' and the world-view handed down

8 Narrative Perspective in Fiction in language as tradition, is of primary concern to Gadamer because its elements, rather than exclusive formal differences, come to bear upon experience (401). The nature of language 'is one of the most mysterious questions that exist for man to ponder on' because we 'cannot see a linguistic world from above ... there is no point of view outside the experience of the world in language from which it could itself become an object' (340, 410). Language, like history, does not provide an exterior standpoint from which to examine the problem of its identity: The standpoint that is beyond any standpoint, a standpoint from which we could conceive its true identity, is a pure illusion' (339). Gadamer seeks to approach this 'universal mystery of language that is prior to everything else' from the 'conversation that we ourselves are/ from the putting into play of language, and from the living act of speech that is its essence (340, 91, 446). A conversation that is built upon questions and answers presupposes a common language between the listeners and speakers in the occasionality of human speech, as well as an agreement concerning what the object under discussion is to be.4 In a conversation 'something is placed in the centre, as the Greeks said, which the partners ... both share, and concerning which they can exchange ideas' (341). Conversation is concerned with an understanding of the object placed between the listeners and speakers without claiming to express its meaning absolutely, and it creates a bond and sense of belonging between them from which an understanding of the world takes place (341). Within a dialogue individual words do not occur in isolation. Every word 'causes the whole of the language to which it belongs to resonate and the whole of the view of the world which lies behind it to appear' (415-16).5 The role that perception plays in Gadamer's theory of language and hermeneutic ontology is made apparent by his frequent use of the terms 'standpoint,' View/ and 'point of view.' Language and perception intermingle in the fourfold process of consciousness. The relationship of being, language, and world in its variety and continuity is explored in terms of the part-to-whole character of perception: The variety of these views of the world does not involve any relativisation of the 'world'. Rather, what the world is, is not different from the views in which it presents itself. The relationship is the same in the perception of things. Seen phenomenologically, the 'thing-in-itself is, as Husserl has shown, nothing other than the continuity with which the shades of the various perspectives of the perceptione [sic] of objects pass into on another ... In the same way as

9 Language of Experience with perception we can speak of the 'linguistic nuances' that the world undergoes in different linguistic worlds. (1975, 406)

Perception differs from language, according to Gadamer, in that each nuance of the object of perception is exclusively different from the others and the thing in itself constitutes a continuum (406). Each linguistic nuance, however, contains potentially within it every other one. This quality of language makes a view of the world belonging to another language accessible without leaving or negating one's own linguistic world. Gadamer holds that 'the connection with language which belongs to our experience of the world does not involve an exclusiveness of perspectives. If, by entering into foreign linguistic worlds, we overcome the prejudices and limitations of our previous experience of the world, this does not mean that we leave and negate our own world' (406).6 The experience of different world-views creates a fundamental 'contingency of all human thought concerning the world, and thus of our own contingency' as well (406). He emphasizes that this consciousness of contingency is not presented in search of 'an absolute position' but in search of living yet often contradictory relationships (406). In the fourfold process that is consciousness, perception occupies an intermediary position between language as energy and Gadamer's crucial notion of experience as event. He explains that the one unity of the hermeneutical experience 'proceeds from various individual perceptions through the retention of many individuals' (314). It is true that language 'precedes experience' but it does not do so immediately, for the hermeneutical experience 'occupies a remarkably indeterminate intermediate position between the many individual perceptions and the true universality of the concept' (313, 314). An order and a direction is, therefore, implicit in the process of consciousness. Perception is not alone in this intermediary position between language and experience. It appears to share this level with the 'question/ On the one hand, 'the linguistic nature of conversation,' or language, forms 'the basis of the question' and on the other, 'we cannot have experiences without asking questions' (341, 325). The question, like perception, is of 'constitutive significance ... for the hermeneutical phenomenon' (341). It will be of importance that perception and question lie between language and experience in the consideration of Merleau-Ponty's theory. The fundamental similarity that emerges between the structure of perception and the structure of question can help reveal the structure of narrative perspective.

io Narrative Perspective in Fiction Experience is undoubtedly the axis from which Gadamer considers consciousness. His notion of experience provides a counterbalance to positivistic knowledge. Both perception and questioning give way to an experience exposed to the effects of history. This experience has the character of the hermeneutical experience and the structure of a question. Experience in general is born of an event in which one plays a part yet over which one has no absolute control. It is an openness to further experience and leads to an awareness of both human finitude and reality. It forms an antithesis to positivistic knowledge. Because experience runs counter to our expectations it contains 'an essential element, a fundamental negativity that emerges in the relation between experience and insight [that is, self-knowledge]' (1975, 319)- Experience is an essentially productive process that negates both previous and dogmatic opinion while giving way to a more comprehensive knowledge. The hermeneutical experience in particular is concerned with tradition and its transmission (350). Tradition is the persistence in consciousness of a Variety of voices in which the echo of the past is heard' (252). This persistence is the result of freely chosen acts of reason that affirm, cultivate, and share the 'multifariousness of such voices' (2523). Tradition, then, is linguistic in character and 'is a genuine partner in communication, with which we have fellowship as does the "I" with the "Thou" ' (321). The character of the hermeneutical experience is outlined first negatively and then positively in terms of an attitude between the T and the Thou' in dialogue. It is not characterized by a search for human nature in order to achieve control over another as a means to a subjective end. Such an 'I