Narrative Theory: Story, Discourse, Events, and Existents

Vocabulary flashcards covering core narrative theory terminology, character functions, structural concepts, and theoretical definitions from English 230 lecture materials.

Narrative (Basic definition)

The representation of an event or a series of events.

Story (Jonathan Culler)

A sequence of actions or events, conceived as independent of their manifestation in discourse.

Discourse (Jonathan Culler)

The discursive presentation or narration of events, representing the events as told.

Existents

Entities involved in narrative events, including setting (things that belong in the world), characters, or actors.

Event (Mieke Bal)

The transition from one state to another state.

Actors

Agents that perform actions in a story, which cause or experience events and are not necessarily human.

Function (Vladimir Propp)

The act of a character, defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action.

Villain (Propp)

The character-function that causes the disruption of the equilibrium with which the story begins; a threat.

Donor (Propp)

The character-function that gives the hero something (such as a magical agent) to help in the mission.

Helper (Propp)

The character-function that assists the hero on the mission through spatial transference, liquidation of misfortune, rescue, or solving difficult tasks.

Princess and/or her father (Propp)

The character-function that gives the task to the hero that must be accomplished.

Dispatcher (Propp)

The character-function that sends the hero on his mission.

Hero (Propp)

The character-function whose task is to depart on a search, react to donor demands, restore equilibrium, and defeat villains.

False hero (Propp)

The character-function who initially seems aligned with the hero but turns against him or tries to take credit.

Narrator

A device used by the author to tell the story to the narratee.

Narratee

The 'you' within the story to whom the narrator refers or addresses the story.

Implied Author

The idea of the author constructed by the reader during reading—the sensibility or intelligence constructed to anchor interpretation.

Character-bound Narrator

A first-person narrator who uses 'I' or 'we' to recount narrative events.

External Narrator

A third-person narrator situated outside of the world of the story.

Homodiegetic Narrator

A narrator who is both telling the story and present inside the narrative world or story world as a character.

Heterodiegetic Narrator

A narrator who is absent or invisible from the storyworld, coming from outside it.

Diegetic Level

Consists of all the events and characters that belong in the primary storyworld within a narrative.

Distance

Refers to the narrator's degree of involvement in the story told, such as temporal or emotional distance.

Reliability of the Narrator

The degree to which the reader can trust the narrator's account of events.

Voice

The narrating agent in a text, defining who speaks or who is heard doing the narrating.

Focalization

The perspective or consciousness through which characters or events in the narrative are perceived (who sees).

Histoire and Récit (Gérard Genette)

Gérard Genette's terms where Histoire is the sequence of events (story) and Récit is the presentation of events in discourse.

Fabula (Story)

The chronological order of events, all events referenced both explicitly described in a narrative and implied (including backstory as well as those projected beyond the action).

Sjužet (Plot/Discourse)

The structured events as they are presented to the audience through the narrative discourse.

Plot (Peter Brooks)

The active process of sjužet working on fabula, serving as the dynamic of its interpretive ordering.

Two Stories of Detective Fiction (Tzvetan Todorov)

The story of the crime ('what really happened') and the story of the investigation ('how the reader or narrator has come to know about it').