Realist and Nonrealistic Techniques and Principles in Literature - Essay Example

NOVELS DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Lecturer: The following essay provides an assessment of the dual perspective narrative technique used by novel writers to create immediacy and asserts that the tone in Charles dickens “great expectations” and Jane Eyre have their themes focused on self-identity and independent. The novelists studied here use the tones of a child’s imagination and dreams and the assertions of the adult mature self to reflect the complex and struggling nature of self- realization. These re-envision modes of self-representative writing are described as Bildungsroman. Great expectations. Great expectations by Charles dickens was written in an age of realism and the novel utilized the narrative voice element to portray realist and nonrealistic techniques and principles. It tries to bring out the illusion of the reality in two voices, of the one who speaks and the one who sees. Dickens uses the first person perspective and the present spoken method of narration attempting to strike a balance in the narrations as Pip the boy and the interpretation as pip the man. A mature pip looks back more often at his childhood days and attempts to re-evaluate the people and the situations that played a part in his development. The novel was written at an important time in history where it became possible because of industrial revolution for poor men to obtain wealth and social status (Dickens, 1978). The novel focuses on pip the protagonist of the story who is also the narrator of the story, his chronological development from his childhood, the acquisition of his “great expectations”, his devastated dreams and later abandonment of his high life. Since pip is narrating the story when he is an adult many years after the story took place, the reader is able to identify with the story rather than if it were narrated by a child who is unable to put forth a mature view coupled with critical judgment of his life due to lack of experience. The dual perspective is portrayed in the opening paragraph of the first chapter. Here the writer describes how he could not make more of his name due to his tongue (Friedman, 2003). Dickens exercises caution to distinguish the two voices. The adult narrator makes fun at himself in his youthful days but still allows the reader to see and feel the occurrences through his eyes. In the beginning, pip as the adult pip characterizes him as an undisruptive, gentle boy that attracts much sympathy from the reader despite being at that point in his common life. The first few lines of the novel, with immediacy pick up the sad plot of the poor boy. In the first few pages of the novel, the reader cultivates feelings of sympathy and warmth towards Pip. These episodes introduce the fact that the parents are “dead and buried” and that the poor boy has never had a glimpse of either of them. Pip the adult narrator, thereafter presents the reader with mature reflections, effectively utilizing the retrospect literary device to show the compassion and the intense psychological effect he feels as he reminiscence the inspirations and emotions he had when growing up. This immediate sympathy obtained when the orphan is in the cemetery reinforces the credibility of the adult narrator that is the older pip looking back (Bray, 2007). The first person perspective is widely used as the narrator tries to remember his life events and systematically arranges them to suit his storytelling. The reader immediately likes the narrator. The young pip’s events are full of emotions and the first scene reflects his vulnerability and his fear at the time (Navy, 2005). The adult narrator portrays mastery in capturing the tone as he gives a vivid description of the events. The young pip is too close and attached to his own experiences that he cannot comprehend the issues suitably while the adult pip is also too detached from those experiences to depict the joie de vivre that shapes adolescence, but between both points of view, they are able to suspend the restrictions of first person narration. Generally, the voice of the boy narrates the events in the novel and then the man’s voice conceptualizes and interprets these events. In some instances, Pip the young narrator does provide us with explanations of what the character feel and what they think when he does this the reader should be aware of the fickleness of his interpretations. The novel allows the reader to share the strength misguided emotions as depicted by the boy as his perspective evokes the reality of an experience and then later the adult narrator ensures that we are able to comprehend the significance of the event happening. In some occurrences, due to expressing the actuality of the thoughts and feelings emerging, we are deluded by the misconceptions of the boy but later the adult’s interpretations portrays the falsification of his adolescent interpretations (Collins & Crawford, 2010). The narration provides a clear distinction between seeing and telling as Pip depicts a realist perspective and then later the adult Pip comments. For instance on page 6, the young Pip describes a tree as [“tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river”] while the adult narrator later gives a more vivid understanding saying “The tree was stripped by the cold weather and it seemed weary from age, weak and dry, “Here a distinction can be clearly seen between the two voices. The description of pictures in the novel at some instances serves as a tool that reveals the shifting narrative perspective of the novel as it depicts the angle of the narrative at that moment.pip the adult narrator in a way castigates himself for his past bad actions and rarely gives credit for his good deeds (Alexander, 2000). This may be due to the arguable fact that, it is because he has already learnt his lessons and now he is narrating the novel in his maturity. This magnifies the importance of the reader to be a bit skeptical in accepting the validity of the boy’s opinions and the judgment of Pip the adult. Generally, the boy’s perspective is able to convey an unreliable understanding on the immediacy of the experiences, the thoughts, the emotions and the actions of him and other characters. In order to control the challenges of first person narration, the story is told in two separate versions of the same person. The reader gets the story from the understanding of the story of a thirty two year old man who interprets the experiences for the reader’s understanding and a seventeen year old who portrays the immediacy of the occurrences. The adult who narrates the novel has emotional maturity than the youthful protagonist. Jane Eyre. Just like the above novel, Jane Eyre is a novel in which the protagonist and the narrator are the same. Primary to the technique of bildungsroman, Jane Eyre follows closely on the emotions and experiences of the character from her growth to adulthood. Jane tells us her story as she pays great attention to providing us the reader with detail. She explains what goes around her and the decisions she made but often she is unable to portray her innermost feelings maybe to calm herself and look composed in a bid to be modest. We begin to feel sympathy for Jane Eyre in the opening chapter as the author makes the narrative perspective option. The first person narrative tool helps the reader to share the experience regarded as important in the life of Jane (Mathieu, 2010). The novel encompasses feminist elements where Jane gets to meet good men and men of morally debatable behaviors she gets married but still her feminist element strives through. The novel focuses on the challenges faced by the empire and by unmarried middle class women in the 19th century. Jane has a firm belief in the independence of women, and does her best to occupy worthy positions in her life regardless of any debts owed to others. She is not demoralized by the fact that she was deficient in money neither was she deterred by her low social status. She recognizes that without the necessities to be an independent woman, she has to either fight back in life and try eking a living or otherwise get married and be dependent on a man. The first person narrative technique captures this conviction and intensity of the novel. The narrator ensures that the reader is entirely conscious of her feelings and thoughts in the struggles she seeks to overcome. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator stipulates how she must overcome oppression and patriarchal dominance against those who treat women as inferior. She mentions the red room which is depicted as a symbol and sparks a memory in her current situation and when she was first being ridiculed. The narrator clearly defines how the position of imprisonment in the reed room becomes clear. In the scene of the red room, the hero’s perspective comes out even though a decisively realistic writer tells the narrative; these are the eyes of the adult narrator. In this state, the realistic adult narrator is surpassed by sensational experiences, which differ with her worldly perspective. In essence, the novel’s plot may be arguably sensational but Jane still is fixed on the realm of realism. (Weinstein, 2003). In the opening scene, the episodes draw to a closer range in the readers mind by the use of the powerful images, dramatic presentations with dialogue that is more directly spoken than reported. These moments are presented by soliloquies and present tense accounts of the narrator’s feelings. These instances make the reader see the life of Jane Eyre in the eyes of Jane the girl, and not Jane Eyre the adult narrator. There is a contrast between the narrative experiences and the narrator herself where the narrator is unable to close the gap between realism point of view of the narrator and the gothic events. Jane cannot avoid narrating the gothic recollection of her experiences to the reader despite her realist perspective. The contrast between the composed interpretation of the narrator and the unrest of young Jane is depicted (Calderwood O’Brien, 1996). Jane Eyre maintains a consistent narrative detachment but at the same instance maintains the binding element of the first person narrator. Throughout the story there is a productive tension portrayed between the assertions of the adult narrator and the opinions of the young protagonist. Rochester, Jane’s employer asserts that Jane is unyielding and repressed; an impression of Jane upon her arrival in thorn field, but he says he can tell this is mainly because of being at Logwood as a teacher and student for a long period of time, and that with the right acquaintances, the protagonist Jane will loosen up . We might think he is right, nevertheless, the reader would have never realized this out from Jane’s own self-presentation in the rest of the narrative. Nevertheless, even though we can trust Jane on many occasions she is not perfect psychoanalyzing herself. Jane is the dominant narrator of the novel; most of the events in the narrative are told from Jane’s point of view. Sometimes she narrates the events as she experiences them at the time, while at other occasions she focuses on her retrospective interpretation of the described episodes. However, she allows other characters share in the narrating task. The focus of the reader is shifted from one characters perspective to anothers. By consenting to the narration of the story in different voices, she shows the regard she has for these particular characters and she emphasizes the respect she has for eloquence in narration as well. The shifting narrative point of view with different perspectives makes the reader question the reliability of the narrative and its authenticity of Jane’s life and experience. In any case much of the story is told in retrospect, and thus unfolds naturally and the writer seems to e more aware and insightful (omniscient) The first person perspective technique leaves the reader "too uncritically accepting of her worldview" and consequently leads reading and understanding the novel more aligned to supporting Jane, regardless of how irregular her ideas or perspectives. This dual perspective is important as it assures the reader of authenticity and the directness coupled with immediacy lets the reader share in the experience of the author. In this novel, Jane is a bit self-conscious looking at her life in a ten-year distance and when narrating she vehemently asserts her emotions and trusts the reader to look deep into her emotions (Bray, 2007). It is a realist novel as readers can be able to identify themselves with the characters. The novel closes the gap between the reader and the narrator as she tells the truth about her feelings. Jane does not hold anything back, but instead she integrates her life with the way she tells the story. Jane Eyre, the narrator comes not between the reader and the narrative but rather she becomes part of it, the narration and narrator become one. Bibliography Alayarian, A. (2011). Trauma, Torture and Dissociation A Psychoanalytic View. London, Karnac Books. Alexander, M. (2000). A History of English Literature. Basingstoke, Macmillan. Bray, J. (2007). Thad &Lsquo; Dual Voice&Rsquo; Of Free Indirect Discourse: A Reading Experiment. Language and Literature. 16, 37-52. Calderwood, D., & Obrien, S. (1996). The Interpreters A Historical Perspective. Shrewsbury, N.J., Euro-Pacific Film & Video. Collins, P., & Crawford, L. (2010). Victorian Theme and Convention in the Novels of Charles Dickens. Dickens, C., & Cruikshank, G. (1978). Works of Charles Dickens. New York, Avenel Books. Friedman, S. (2003). Dickenss Fiction: Tapestries of Conscience. New York, Ams Press. J. 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Charlotte and Emily Brontë: A Narrative Analysis of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Berne, Peter Lang. Weinstein, A. (2003). Understanding Literature and Life Drama, Poetry and Narrative. Chantilly, Va, Teaching Co. Read More