The Enforcement of the Fictional Pact. The question remains whether the author´s offer a fictional pact for No Advantages? How can the author´s notion of story-likeness be understood? Seeing that, according to Munro fictionality constitutes literariness, story-likeness might be connected to fictionality. To answer these questions, I will now focus on the narratives that seem to resemble stories.
The narrator inserts three stories about or related to her ancestors, namely William Laidlaw (Munro 7 – 13), the priest Thomas Boston (Munro 14-17), James Hogg and James Laidlaw (Munro 19-26). I will elaborate more on the first narrative. As the other metadiegetic narratives, the report about his life begin with quotation of the epitaph on his tombstone. …show more content…
Unlike a typical history book, she does not attempt to reveal her role as historiographer. The readers bear witness how she reconstructs the past and empathizes with him: “Will was said to be ´one of the old Laidlaws of Craik´ – about whom I have not been able to discover anything at all, expect that Craik is an almost disappeared village . . . “ (Munro 8). Does the reader encounter memoir-like narratives at this place that could be subsume under the fictional pact for the stories of Homes? I deny this. Rather, it seems to me rather that the story-likeness is not constituted by the subjectivity involved in the report about her ancestors, since it corresponds with the author´s view on histography as a dialogue between past and present. She remains a historiographer in the way Munro understands historiography: “Their words and my words, a curious re-creation of lives, in a given setting that was truthful as our notion of past can ever be (II).” Accordingly, a veracious historiography requires that the readers hear not only the author´s living but also the past. Seeing thus, the insertion of fairy-tales also does not necessarily contradict the author´s …show more content…
The heterodiegetic narrator describes the situation in which William saw the fairies the first time as follow: “And what does he see down below but a whole company of creatures all about as high as a two-year-old child, but none of them are children (Munro 11)”. At this place, William serves as an internal focalizer. This shift of focalization as well as a not external focalization would be unusual for historiography but resemble the way how stories are told. In addition to this, several features are typical for stories can be find in the fairy-tale: “And it comes clearer and clearer- the little chirp-chirp song they make. Finally it come comes clear as bell. Will O´Phaup, Will O´Phaup, Will´ O Phaup (Munro 11).” The readers encounter rhetorical devices, e.g. alliterations as “comes clearer and clearer” and repetitions that evoke the impression of a poetical language. Equally, narrative techniques are used. For instance, the discourse time and story time are merely the same so that the readers experience a dramatical narration. Furthermore, the speech of the elves who call the protagonist exemplifies free direct discourse. The readers would not expect to find such techniques in historiography. Thus, the author´s notion of
The narrator inserts three stories about or related to her ancestors, namely William Laidlaw (Munro 7 – 13), the priest Thomas Boston (Munro 14-17), James Hogg and James Laidlaw (Munro 19-26). I will elaborate more on the first narrative. As the other metadiegetic narratives, the report about his life begin with quotation of the epitaph on his tombstone. …show more content…
Unlike a typical history book, she does not attempt to reveal her role as historiographer. The readers bear witness how she reconstructs the past and empathizes with him: “Will was said to be ´one of the old Laidlaws of Craik´ – about whom I have not been able to discover anything at all, expect that Craik is an almost disappeared village . . . “ (Munro 8). Does the reader encounter memoir-like narratives at this place that could be subsume under the fictional pact for the stories of Homes? I deny this. Rather, it seems to me rather that the story-likeness is not constituted by the subjectivity involved in the report about her ancestors, since it corresponds with the author´s view on histography as a dialogue between past and present. She remains a historiographer in the way Munro understands historiography: “Their words and my words, a curious re-creation of lives, in a given setting that was truthful as our notion of past can ever be (II).” Accordingly, a veracious historiography requires that the readers hear not only the author´s living but also the past. Seeing thus, the insertion of fairy-tales also does not necessarily contradict the author´s …show more content…
The heterodiegetic narrator describes the situation in which William saw the fairies the first time as follow: “And what does he see down below but a whole company of creatures all about as high as a two-year-old child, but none of them are children (Munro 11)”. At this place, William serves as an internal focalizer. This shift of focalization as well as a not external focalization would be unusual for historiography but resemble the way how stories are told. In addition to this, several features are typical for stories can be find in the fairy-tale: “And it comes clearer and clearer- the little chirp-chirp song they make. Finally it come comes clear as bell. Will O´Phaup, Will O´Phaup, Will´ O Phaup (Munro 11).” The readers encounter rhetorical devices, e.g. alliterations as “comes clearer and clearer” and repetitions that evoke the impression of a poetical language. Equally, narrative techniques are used. For instance, the discourse time and story time are merely the same so that the readers experience a dramatical narration. Furthermore, the speech of the elves who call the protagonist exemplifies free direct discourse. The readers would not expect to find such techniques in historiography. Thus, the author´s notion of