Narratology and Proust's In Search of Lost Time

Introduction to Narratology

Narratology refers to the narrative form in literature and all that it entails. It is concerned with the order and method by which a narrative is crafted. By design, a narrative must contain at minimum characters and a narrator — a voice apart from the characters that plays the role of storyteller, observer, and commentator. Narratology is important because narration touches our lives through mass media, television, newsprint, and almost every form of information we receive in our daily lives. For our purposes, however, we will examine its use in fiction — or more precisely, the novel.

In order to best understand the use of narratology within the context of the novel, we will examine the various elements of narratology according to conventional theory. We will then explore the example of Marcel Proust's style of narratology in his famous work In Search of Lost Time. In one of the most celebrated and widely analyzed forms of narratology, the dancer becomes the dance — or in this case, the writer becomes the story.

According to published notes on narratology, "The study of narrative is particularly important since our ordering of time and space in narrative forms constitutes one of the primary ways we construct meaning in general" (Felluga, 2002). As Hayden White puts it, "far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted" (White, 1987).

Peter Brooks and the Temporal Dynamics of Plot

The term "narratology" is derived from the French term narratologie, which was first established by Tzvetan Todorov in Grammaire du Décaméron (1969). Notably, Brooks, Barthes, and Greimas have each developed theories regarding the structure and purpose of the narrative form.

Peter Brooks' theory asserts that the primary function of the narrative is to drive the plot of the story. The narrative provides the segue from one sequence, chapter, or scene to the next. He refers to this element as "the temporal dynamics that shape narratives in our reading of them, the play of desire in time that makes us turn pages and strive toward narrative ends." It carries the story from one moment to the next, thus moving it forward (Brooks, 1984). Brooks distinguishes his theory as distinctly opposed to those of Barthes or Greimas, or any academic who identifies as a "structuralist narratologist."

In this sense, Barthes sees narrative as providing the links in a fence — the structure that shapes the boundaries of the work; it "demarcates, encloses, establishes limits, orders" (Brooks, 1984). Interestingly, Barthes' own translation of these boundaries supports Brooks' seeming rejection of them, by perceiving "plot" as analogous to a grave plot — a bounded space relating to concepts of death or closure, or as Brooks puts it: "the internal logic of the discourse of mortality" (Brooks, 1984).

Brooks further examines the narrative context by expounding on metaphor and metonymy as polar principles of language construction. He associates the interplay between metonymy and metaphor with the Freudian notions of the pleasure principle and the death drive. He states: "the metaphoric work of eventual totalization determines the meaning and status of the metonymic work of sequence — though it must also be claimed that the metonymies of the middle produced, gave birth to, the final metaphor" (Brooks, 1984). In essence, metonymy carries a sequence of the story in strings of rhetoric by using abstract ideas to paint a picture, while metaphor is used at the end of a boundary to bring resolution to the sequence. The subtle distinction between metonymy and metaphor lends an artful quality to the construction of a scene.

Brooks explains this interplay further by relating it to Freud's "Pleasure Principle": the reader's motivation to continue with the story is to find the essence of the character's motivation, the pleasure in his or her victory, or the closure of the death of a relationship, a moment, an event, or a character. Brooks claims that readers are vicariously motivated by Freud's pleasure principle and death drive, and that even in reading novels they seek to satisfy these urges through what he calls "textual erotics" (Brooks, 1984).

Consequently, if the closure of a narrative arrives too soon, the reader can feel cheated of the totality of the experience; conversely, if closure is left entirely to the imagination, the reader may be left without resolution. This concept parallels the human experience, in which individuals tend to repeat traumatic episodes, each iteration bringing one closer to closure or true understanding. Freud associates repetition with the death drive, viewing it as elemental to proper closure. Brooks considers the use of repetition key to the narrative in creating boundaries: "The desire of the text (the desire of reading) is hence desire for the end, but desire for the end reached only through the at least minimally complicated detour, the intentional deviance, in tension, which is the plot of narrative" (Brooks, 1984).

Roland Barthes' Five Narrative Codes

Roland Barthes identifies five organizational structures that he claims are engaged by any narrative. He sees the structure of a work as being "backed into" — that is, the plot is not derived through the traditional structural piecing together of a story according to the conventions of setting–conflict–climax–resolution, but rather as a "'nebulae' of signifieds" in which each sentence and each thought is an individual component of a larger whole (Barthes, 1974). In this way, the plot line is not necessarily linear but exponential, with the main entrance point being subjective.

Barthes refers to his organizational structures as "codes," which are interspersed throughout the text in no particular order:

1. The hermeneutic code refers to an element in the story that raises unanswered questions.
2. The proairetic code refers to an element in the story that builds suspense or entices interest.
3. The semantic code infers additional meaning through the use of connotation.
4. The symbolic code is roughly defined as distinct from semantics: "Every joining of two antithetical terms, every mixture, every conciliation — in short, every passage through the wall of the Antithesis — thus constitutes a transgression" (Barthes, 1974).
5. The cultural code delineates the communication of a body of knowledge.

These codes can be expounded upon in terms of their usefulness to the narrative art. The hermeneutic code, for instance, can be used to preface the culmination of a later scene. By introducing some but not all of the relevant details early on, the impact is heightened when the pieces come together, whetting the reader's appetite for the sought-after conclusion — the inevitable answer to "why?" or "what happens next?" A classic example of this strategy, as Barthes notes, is the suspense mystery or detective story. It is important, however, that the successful execution of this strategy ultimately reveals the answers to the questions posed. Leaving answers open-ended will leave the reader, as Brooks asserts, unsatisfied due to a lack of resolution.

The proairetic code is similar to Brooks' notion of the primary aim of narrative — the "temporal dynamics" that serve to drive the plot forward. Barthes relates the first two codes to "the same tonal determination that melody and harmony have in classical music" (Barthes, 1974). He implies that the first two codes work best in chronological order, whereas the remaining codes are independent of place and timing for their effectiveness in the story.

The semantic code utilizes nuance, suggestion, or implication as a communicative or illustrative tool — a more creative and aesthetically pleasing way of conveying ideas to the reader during the telling of the story. Its timing is not necessarily strategically tied to the plot line. The symbolic code is defined as "a 'deeper' structural principle that organizes semantic meanings, usually by way of antithesis or mediations" (Felluga, 2002), making it characteristically useful as a tool for representing contradictions. The cultural code is useful for educating the reader about a specific subject — whether topical, linguistic, geographical, or conceptual. Barthes calls the five codes a "weaving of voices" (Barthes, 1974). Their combined use in the development of the narrative form is akin to a weaver making a blanket: creating patterns, linking fabrics, forming a whole product from distinctly different threads and colors, combining them into a coherent and pleasing whole.

Conclusion: Narratology as Science and Art

Proust's novel is a case study in itself of the process of narratology. He uses almost every available technique in developing a story made more complex by his personal association with it and by the subsequent translations it has endured. And yet, given all of these circumstances, Proust manages to utilize metaphor and metonymy, hermeneutic code, proairetic code, semantic code, semiotic square, and narrative discourse to relate his memories and, more importantly, his point of view on life to the audience. In doing so, he brings to life a past that lives within us — for we all carry our memories as an integral and very much alive part of ourselves.