A Text Linguistic Analysis of the Units of Literary Narrative Texts

Dr.B.V. Rama Prasad

Reader
Dept. of P.G. Studies in English
Kuvempu University
Shimoga-Karnataka

The aim of this paper is to propose a text linguistic framework for the analysis of
literary narrative texts. The paper tries to talk about the functions of the different formal
units of literary narratives. The paper first presents the framework, then analyses the unit
Title with examples mainly from detective fiction. Finally, we will try to use the
framework to talk about a detective novel. The detailed discussion of the framework can
be found in Rama Prasad, 2006 (unpublished doctoral thesis submitted to EFLU,
Hyderabad).
The paper owes much to earlier attempts to analyze units of narrative texts,
particularly Barthes(1988), Labov (1972), Bonheim(1982),and OToole(1982). Our aim
here is to achieve

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what Sanders et al call

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descriptive adequacy (1992: 3). We keep

in mind that Two of the basic requirements for any model of prose comprehension are
that it contained rules for defining the types of informational units contained in the
material and that it defined the types of relations that exist between these units(Stein and
Glen,1977:55).

Units of Literary Narratives and Their Functions

The following is the framework suggested-

Units-

Functions

Title-

abstract, display, structural, evaluative

Setting-

orientation, narration, display

Character-

orientation, narration, display

Evaluation-

evaluation, narration.

Episodes-

narration, orientation, characterization.

Title
Among the various units of the narrative, title is the one that is most easily
recognizable. It has a fixed position at the beginning of the narrative. Generally, the title
is less than a sentence: it is a word, a group of words or a phrase. Sometimes, the title can
have a sub-title, as in Curtain: Poirots Last Case. Further, the novelist can give titles to
the individual chapters in the novel. These chapter headings need not relate to the

episodes of the novel. A single episode may be divided into two chapters and may have
two headings or a heading can summarize more than one episode.
A title can perform the function of an abstract

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it can tell us precisely what the

story is about. For example, Untouchable, the title of the famous Mulk Raj Anand
novel, is a very explicit abstract. The novel deals with the story of an untouchable, and
retrospectively, the title seems appropriate. Similarly, One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich gives us the events in a day in the life of Denisovich. We can give numerous
examples of such explicit abstracts

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Death of Ivan Illychch, War and Peace, Pride

and Prejudice, etc. But it is necessary to point out that it is difficult to encapsulate in a
title all the points that a narrative text is trying to make. For example, Anna Karenina is
of course about a woman of that name, but it is also about many other individuals. In
such cases, the writer has to choose from a host of possible points of the story.
Further, sometimes, the title can appear to be a pointer to what the story is about,
but retrospectively, it may prove to be misleading. For example, there is a Kannada story
titled Murder etc. in the East by Devanur Mahadeva. The story, however, does not
contain any murders. The title in fact performs the role of an abstract in this story, but not
explicitly. It suggests that physical murders are not the only kind of murders, but this
significance is revealed only after we read the story, and puzzled, ask ourselves

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but

where is the murder? Thus, the title can perform the function of an abstract in literary
narratives, but sometimes it can be an incomplete abstract or an implicit one.
A title may perform a display function also by drawing attention, not just to what
it says, but also to its linguistic form, or to some strangeness in what it says. For example,

look at the two titles Murder in Retrospect (Agatha Christie) and Remembrance of
Murders Past (Noreen Wild). While the first one performs merely the function of the
abstract, the second title draws attention to itself by slightly changing the famous phrase
remembrance of things past. Similarly, a title like Welcome Death (Glyn Daniel)
draws attention to itself by the unusual collocation.
Titles can also perform the function of indicating the unifying motive or idea of a
novel. For example, we have many Agatha Christie novels, which have nursery rimes as
titles. (And Then There were None, Pocketful of Rye, Hickory, Dickory, Dock, etc.). The
novel One, Two, Buckle my Shoe uses the ten lines of the rhyme as chapter headings as
well. Here the nursery rime is used in the novel as a device which connects the different
murders into some unifying theme. Such a title is performing the structural function of
adding to the connectivities among the different events within the novel. Similarly, a title
like The Heart of Darkness has its echoes through out the novel where the heart of
darkness forms a metaphoric tool of giving coherence to the novel. We will call such a
function __ that adds to the structure of the narrative __ structural function.
Evaluation can also be a one of the functions that a title can perform. Titles like
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hide, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha
Christie), etc., exhibit what can be termed as the story world evaluation. A title like How
Much Land Does a Man Need (Tolstoy) or Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Patricia
Cornwell) exhibits a non-story world evaluation.
Like Title, the other formal units of a narrative may also realise different
functions. It is important to point out here that normally every unit of a narrative

performs more than one function and it is also not easy to draw a boundary line between
the various functions. Thus, the division into different functions is always an
approximation and when we say that a particular unit performs an orientational function,
we do not mean that it does not perform any other function. We only mean that the
orientational function of that unit is more prominent than the other functions.
A literary narrative may give more importance to some categories and some
functions than others. Thus we can have evaluation-oriented narratives (where the
evaluatory comments form the source of the tellability of the novel), thesis-oriented
narratives (where the writer is trying to prove a preconceived thesis), informationoriented narratives (where the narrative is used to impart interesting information),
description-oriented narratives (where the setting is of greater importance

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Westerns, for

example), character-oriented narratives (where the focus is on the character) and the
event-oriented narratives (where the main interest is in what happens next). Narrative
texts often may have more than one orientation, but rarely do we find narratives in which
all the elements get equal importance. And we argue that the way in which a narrative
arranges its units indicates the orientation of the narrative text.
For example, let us look at a detective novel, Cover Her Face by P.D.James (for
a detailed discussion, see Rama Prasad, 2006.) This novel is a whodunit type of detective
novel. However, it differs from the typical detective novels in many ways. The episodes
in the novel deal not just with the story of crime and detection. There are many episodes
in this novel that do not add anything to the story of crime and detection. The novel also
does not end with the solution of the crime.

The title of the novel is also not an abstract of the story of crime and detection: it
rather focuses on the emotional response to the murder. This is reflected in the various
story world and non-story world comments in the novel. The story world comments are
more about the effect of murder on the other human beings than about the strangeness or
mysteriousness of murder. The non-story world comments are about man-woman
relationship and about morality with respect to man-woman relationship. This non-story
world evaluation is integrally connected with the events in the novel. That is, the events
also reflect this concern about the morality.
The novel uses setting elements for the display function more often than for the
narrative or orientational function. There are many setting clauses that deal with a place
that is not important for the narrative. Even the stock narrative setting element of the
detective novels

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the murder-scene

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is given in a subjective style. In the setting

descriptions of this novel, we can find that the feelings evoked by the setting on the
human beings are given prominence to.
The characters in the novel also perform a display function in the sense that the
character traits are not those that are strictly necessary for the role that the characters
perform in the narrative. We have more familial and social traits for the characters in this
novel than in say, Hound of the Baskervilles. The detective is also not someone who is
merely an efficient machine; the writer makes some efforts to provide depth to the
characters.
Thus, Cover Her Face is not a narrative text with a single, narrative focus. The
point of the story is not just in the events connected with the suspense, but in people,

places and with evaluation as well. This is reflected in the way in which different formal
units of the novel are used functionally. We can apply this framework to different types of
novels and try to illustrate the relations between formal and functional units of the
narrative.

Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Introduction to Structural Analysis of Narratives. The Semiotic
challenge (tr.)Richard Howard, Basil Blackwell, 1988.95-136.
Bonheim, H. The Narrative Modes. London: D.S.Brewer, 1982.
Labov, William. The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax. Language in
the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972, 354-396.
Nash, Walter. Designs in Prose: A Study of Compositional Problems and Methods.
London and New York: Longman, 1980
OToole, L. Michael. Structure, Style and Interpretation in the Russian Short Story. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982.
Rama Prasad B.V. Textual Coherence in Literary Narratives: An Analysis of the Three
Novels of the Whodunit Type of Detective Fiction Unpublished Thesis E.F.L.U.
Hyderabad 2006.

Sanders, J.M., Wilbert. Spooren and Leo G.M. Noordman. Towards a Taxonomy of
Coherence Relations. Discourse Processes. vol 15, no.1. (1992) 1-36.
Stein, Nancy and Christine Glen. An Analysis of Story Comprehension in Elementary
School Children. Freedle, 1977: 53- 120.

Bio note and certificate

Dr. B.V.Rama Prasad has a Ph.D. in English from EFLU, Hyderabad.

He also has M.Phil and PGCTE degree from EFLU. He has
presented papers in many international seminars. He is now
associate professor in the department of English Kuvempu
University.
I certify that this is an original paper and has not been published anywhere.