Lecture 10. Types of Narration

Soliloquy/Interior speech

• To be, or not to be: that is the question:
• Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
• The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
• Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
• And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
• No more; and by a sleep to say we end
• The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
• That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
• Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
• To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
• For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
• When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
• Must give us pause: there's the respect
• That makes calamity of so long life (W. Shakespeare)

b) short insets of interior speech

• SHORT INSETS OF INTERIOR SPEECH present immediate mental & emotional reactions of the personage to the remark or action of other characters.
• E.g.: “Exercise”, he thought, “and no drinking at least a month. That’s what does it. The drinking. Beer, martinis, have another. And the way your head felt in the morning” (Short insets of interior speech)

• To portray the disjointed, purely associative manner of thinking, the authors resort to the stream-of- consciousness technique, popular in modern literature esp. in modernism.

Example

• “A star was shaking. A light was waking. Wind was quaking. The star was far. The night, the light. The light was bright. A chant, a song, the slow dance of the little things within him… Star night, earth, light… light… O lost!… a stone… a leaf… a door… O ghost!… (stream of consciousness).

5. Represented (reported) speech

• REPRESENTED (REPORTED) SPEECH is a peculiar blend of the viewpoints & lg. spheres of both the author & the character. It serves:
• to show either the mental reproduction of a once uttered remark (represented uttered speech) or the character’s thinking (represented inner speech). The latter is close to the interior speech in essence, but differs from it in form:
• it is rendered in the 3rd person sg.,
• It may have the author’s qualitative words, reflecting his viewpoint alongside the lg. peculiarities of the character.

• E.g.: Could she do anything for Mr. Freeland? No, thanks, she could not, only, did she know where Mr. Freeland’s room was? (represented inner speech)
• Rosita sniffed and…in her well-bottom voice declared that yes, it was better that they stay out of the sun , as it seemed to be affecting Ottilie’s head. (represented uttered speech)