The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith

complemented with Mark Currie’s Postmodern Narrative Theory (1998),
which gives an account of more recent developments in narrative theory,
and stresses the ascendancy of the cultural in narrative theory.

NARRATION, NARRATORS, IDEOLOGY

Narration determines the degree of involvement and ideological investment
of the narrator: the distance or nearness to the material, and the degree of
empathy and control. The following sections outline some of the consider-
ations which go into setting up the narration, and rewrite the same passage
demonstrating different aspects of narrative technique. This is so you
acquire a sense of alternative ways in which you can nuance the narrative,
create your own storyline, and mimic this process of rewriting.

Introducing the narrator

Exercise 1 suggests you rewrite the same passage using a number of differ-
ent kinds of narrator. It also asks you to consider the way in which
different kinds of narration affect the dynamics of power, both within the
narrative and between narrator and reader. A narrator can be outside
the story or within it. In narratology, a narrator who is outside the story
is heterodiegetic , a narrator who is within the story is a homodiegetic
(‘diegesis’ means narration or telling). Being within or outside the
story creates distance and partiality which are important factors in
the dynamics of narratorial power.
There are also different types of heterodiegetic and homodiegetic narra-
tors. Both can appear in the first person or third person, be intrusive or
unobtrusive, reliable and unreliable—again this has subtle effects on the
reader–narrator relationship. By rewriting the same passage several times, I
hope to show you some of the ways in which heterodiegetic or homodiegetic
narrators can be employed, so that you can try others yourself.
Let’s first look at the heterodiegetic narrator:

Example 5.1: Heterodiegetic narrator (third person)

Sophie’s position as director of the gallery was now in jeopardy.

Nobody on the board was supporting her. Her desire to move the

gallery in a more progressive direction, and to include much more

contemporary art, was looked on with disdain by many of the board

members. She was a good financial manager, the gallery had thrived

under her leadership, but her primary agenda was creative devel-

opment, not profit and loss. Her propensity to say this, and her

Narrative, narratology, power 87