narrative progression

This study explores the use of footnotes in fictional narratives. Footnotes and endnotes fall under the category of what Gérard Genette has labeled paratexts, or the elements that sit above or external to the text of the story. In some narratives, however, notes and other paratexts are incorporated into the story as part of the internal narrative frame. I call this particular type of paratext an artificial paratext. Much like traditional paratexts, artificial paratexts are often seen as ancillary to the text. However, artificial paratexts can play a significant role in the narrative dynamic by extending the boundaries of the narrative frame, introducing new heuristic models for interpretation, and offering alternative narrative threads for the reader to unravel. In addition, artificial paratexts provide a useful lens through which to explore current theories of narrative progression, character development, voice, and reliability. In the first chapter, I develop a typology of paratexts, showing that paratexts have been used to deliver factual information, interpretive or analytical glosses, and discursive narratives in their own right. Paratexts can originate from a number of possible sources, including allographic sources (editors, translators, publishers) and autographic sources—the author, writing as author, fictitious editor, or one or more of the narrators. The second chapter shows that artificial paratexts can have significant effects on narrative progression. Building on the work of James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz, I show that artificial paratexts introduce tensions and instabilities that complicate narrative development and force readers to rethink their expectations about narrative conventions. In the next two chapters, I look closely at two complex uses of artificial paratexts, one in the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges and the other in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire . In the concluding chapter of the dissertation, I posit a number of extensions to my analysis through an examination of Manual Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman and Stuart Moulthrop’s hypertext novel, Victory Garden.

Source: abstract in OhioLink

George Landow, Espen J. Aarseth, Stuart Moulthrop and manyothers have heralded the development of hypertext because theybelieve it represents a revolution in textuality that will radicallyalter how we read and write, including of course how we read andwrite narrative. Print texts, we are reminded by the champions ofthis new medium, are linear while hypertexts are nonlinear.Consequently, the argument goes, print narratives encourage readingin a fixed, straight-line sequence—one word after another, onepage after another—under the control of the author. Even postmodernattempts to subvert the fixity of the print sequence cannotovercome the stability of the printed page and the restrictions onformat imposed by the traditional book. Hypertext narratives, onthe other hand, are fluid by design; their sequence changes basedon readerly decisions. To put it another way, as those who advancethis argument sometimes do, readers approach hypertext narrativesfrom variable positions within the narrative, and so their progressionthrough the text—indeed, the progression of the text—is notfixed but variable from reader to reader and from one readingoccasion to the next. If the medium is the message, as MarshallMcLuhan so famously pronounced, then it would follow that readinghypertext narratives should be a significantly different experiencefrom reading print narratives. It is our hypothesis, however,that the differences between hypertext and print narratives are neitheras absolute nor as stark as they first appear and that understandingtheir similarities will enhance our understanding of eachindividually. We will support this hypothesis by calling attention tosome frequently neglected features of narrative progression in bothprint and hypertext narratives and by analyzing the progression ofone well-known hypertext, Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden.

Source: article's introduction