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flashback
technique is another device of presentational sequencing. A
flashback is a scene of the past inserted into the narrative. For example, the narrative
in
The Lady's Maid
contains flashbacks to Ellen's childhood and youth.
Foreshadowing
is a look towards the future, a remark or hint that prepares the
reader for what is to follow. This device of presentational sequencing heightens
suspense. The title in
Mistaken Identity
is a case of foreshadowing. It hints at the
outcome of the event without revealing its cause and in this way intensifies suspense.
Presentational sequencing may be traced on different levels. It may involve
sequencing of information, as shown above. Besides, it may involve sequencing of
literary representational forms, such as narration, description, reasoning, direct speech
(monologue, dialogue), interior speech, represented speech, quotations, the author's
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digressions. It may also involve the sequencing of viewpoints in the story, which
form the so-called underlying compositional structure of a literary work.
SYSTEM OF IMAGES. MEANS OF CHARACTERIZATION THEORETICAL
PRELIMINARIES
An image in art is a subjective reflection of reality. It is affected by the writer's
power of imagination. Though every image is inspired by life, the writer reflects
reality as he sees it. Moreover, he may create images of scenes which he could have
never observed (as in historical novels).
Аn image is, on the one hand, a generalization and is never a complete identity
of a person, thing or phenomenon. There is always something left out by the writer,
and something that is emphasized or even exaggerated. On the other hand, an image in
art is concrete with its individual peculiarities.
Since images in art reflect the writer's subjective attitude to them, they are
always emotive. Literary art appeals to the reader through all the senses: sight, hearing,
touch, smell, taste. In the reader's mind images call up not only visual pictures and
other sense impressions, they also arouse feelings, such as warmth, compassion,
affection, delight, or dislike, disgust, resentment.
Our emotional responses are directed by the words with which the author creates
his images. This explains why writers are so particular about the choice of words.
However, when we read fiction, it is not the words that we actually respond to, it is the
images which these words create that arouse the reader's response. This does not mean
that wording in literary art is irrelevant. Any change of a word affects the reader's
response, as words may evoke sense impressions. Compare:
He was a stout man. “His features were sunk into fatness... His neck was buried
in rolls of fat. He sat in his chair... his great belly thrust forward...”
(S. Maugham. Red)
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The images created by figures of speech in S. Maugham's description call up a
visual picture of a concrete fat man and evoke in the reader definite feelings, including
those of antipathy and even aversion. Whereas “He was a stout man” does not arouse
negative feelings.
In the story
The Pawnbroker's Shop
by M. Spark the scene of Mrs. Cloote’s
examination of the articles brought to her pawnshop affords a vivid illustration of the
hierarchy of images. “The examination would be conducted with utter intensity,
seeming to have its sensitive point, its assessing faculty, in her long nose ... She would
not smell the thing actually, but it would appear to be her nose which calculated and
finally judged ... A list of the object's defects would proceed like a ticker tape from the
mouth of Mrs. Jan Cloote”. The micro-images of the separate peculiarities of Mrs.
Cloote constitute an extended image of a feature of her personality. Whereas the
synthetic image of Mrs. Jan Cloote is comprised of a whole series of micro images and
extended images which the whole story contains.
In literature attention is by far centered on man, human character and human
behavior. That explains why the character-image (synthetic image) is generally
considered to be the main element of a literary work; the images of things and
landscape are subordinated to the character-image. Thus, landscape-images are
generally introduced to describe the setting, to create a definite mood or atmosphere.
Yet even a landscape-image, as well as an animal-image, may become the central
character of the story. For instance, Nature is the main antagonist of the major
character in
The Old Man and the Sea
by E. Hemingway; or again animal-images are
the central characters in
The Jungle Book
by R. Kipling.
Character-images are both real and unreal. They are real in the sense that they
can be visualized, you easily see them act, you hear I hem talk, you understand and
believe them. They are unreal in the sense that they are imaginary. Even if they are
drawn from life and embody the most typical features of human nature, even if they
are images of historic J people, they are not identical with them, and are products of
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the writer's imagination. In the summing up
S.Maugham writes, “I have been blamed
because I have drawn my characters from living persons ... But people are all elusive,
too shadowy, to be copied, and they are also too ... contradictory. The writer doesn’t
copy his originals; he takes what he wants from them, a few traits that have caught his
attention”. Nevertheless characters in literature often reveal so much of human nature
and seem so real, that the readers tend to forget that they are fictions.
In most stories one character is clearly central and dominates the story from the
beginning up to the end. Such a character is generally called the
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