Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

23.2 The structuralist view
Unit 23 Narrative realism
Section 5 Narrative

Structuralist critics such as Roland Barthes (1986) and David Lodge (1977) have helped to shift attention from the relationship between the text and reality to the textual qualities of realism, and have shown that the notion of literary convention is very important in the construction of realist novels. In this view, whether or not a text is realist (that is, has the formal characteristics of realism) is not related to whether it is realistic (that is, whether it seems to the reader to approximate to some notion of reality), but to whether it uses conventional techniques to produce a reality effect.²

23.2.1 Conventions

Literary texts are generally constructed according to a system of textual conventions or rules; our notion of which genre a text belongs to is largely founded on the recognition of the particular set of conventions that the text is drawing on (see Unit 4, Recognizing genre). When a writer decides to produce a realist narrative, there is already a set of conventions in place governing the choices to be made. For example, he or she will be constrained by a number of conventions that govern the production of such a narrative: (1) events in the text are arranged in a roughly chronological order; (2) there are complex, ’rounded’ developed characters who develop throughout the narrative; (3) there is generally a narrator who will constitute a consistent position within the text; (4) there will be an ending that will draw the various strands and sub-plots in the narrative together; and (5) events will be included on the basis of clear relevance to plot development. Point (3) is particularly important, as we shall see. The presence of a reliable or omniscient narrator creates a hierarchy of discourse that seems to guarantee that at least one view of the events in the novel offers us a view of the ’truth’ or the ’real’. Although these conventions of realism can be experimented with and altered, as they invariably are in novels, they nevertheless exist as the basis for the construction of realist texts.

23.2.2 Characteristics of realism

David Lodge (1977) suggests that realist texts achieve their effect not so much because they are like reality as such, but because they resemble in their conventions texts that we classify as non-fictional. He takes two separate descriptions of capital punishment, one by George Orwell entitled ’A Hanging’ and one that appeared in The Guardian newspaper. Lodge analyses the similarities between the realist fiction and the non-fictional report: (1) in neither case are features of language foregrounded so that they become the focus of attention; (2) the narrator does not draw attention to his or her role in interpreting events - the events, rather, seem to speak themselves or to present themselves to the reader without mediation; and (3) there is an emphasis on detailed description of the context of the event (the exact time, place and setting) and of the preparation for the execution. It is almost impossible, Lodge argues, to distinguish one text from the other purely on the basis of strategies that they adopt to depict the event. From this he concludes that realist texts draw on the same conventions used to construct non-fictional texts in order to convince the reader that they are describing reality. This strategy accrues some authority to realist texts. Lodge thereby suggests a working definition of realism in literature as: ’the representation of experience in a manner which approximates closely to descriptions of similar experience in non-literary texts of the same culture’ (1977, p. 25).

In a similar way, as discussed in Unit 22, Speech and narration, it is clear that dialogue is represented in literature, particularly in realist narrative, according to a set of conventions, rather than with reference to the way that people speak in real life. Many elements of actual speech are omitted when speech is represented in prose narrative (for example, hesitation, interruption, repetition), while other elements are included to signal to the reader that they are reading ’real speech’ (for example, inverted commas, the use of colloquialism).

Other conventions that govern the production of realist narrative concern the inclusion of descriptive passages. Roland Barthes has noted that in most classic realist texts there is a proliferation of descriptive detail. Although narratives in general tend to include a descriptive section that sets the scene in which the actions take place, Barthes points to the presence in realist narratives of details that seem to be included for the sole purpose of signalling to the reader that it is ’the real’ that is being described. For example, in the following extract from The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928), some of the description serves the purpose of setting the principal character within a certain social class (the estate is ’well-timbered, well-cottaged’; there are two large lakes in the grounds; the house has ’dignity and pride’; and so on), but other elements seem to be included in the text simply because of the conventions of realist texts:

Not very far from Upton-on-Severn - between it, in fact, and the Malvern Hills - stands the country seat of the Gordons of Bramley; well-timbered, well-cottaged, well-fenced, and well-watered, having in this latter respect, a stream that forks in exactly the right position to feed two large lakes in the grounds. The house itself is of Georgian red brick, with charming circular windows near the roof. It has dignity and pride without ostentation, self-assurance without arrogance, repose without inertia; and a gentle aloofness that, to those who know its spirit, but adds to its value as a home.

The aside in the first sentence - ’between it, in fact, and the Malvern Hills’ - serves no discernible informational purpose as such, and functions simply to give a sense of the real. Similarly, the description of the house as being built of Georgian red brick and as having circular windows seems excessive. These elements of the passage may thus be seen to function as what Barthes terms ’realist operators’, producing a ’reality effect’ (that is, they signal to the reader that this is a realist text), and helping to reinforce for the reader a sense that the text is well anchored to some recognizable reality.

Barthes also suggests that many realist texts implicitly draw upon a cultural code, which is a set of statements that must be decoded by the reader according to a set of conventions that the reader already knows, and shares with the writer. These are statements that appeal to background knowledge, stereotypes and so-called common-sense knowledge, and that either appear self-evident or, it is assumed, the reader will recognize and assent to them. For example, The Well of Loneliness continues:

To Morton Hall came the Lady Anna Gordon as a bride of just over twenty. She was lovely as only an Irish woman can be, having that in her bearing that betokened quiet pride, having that in her eyes that betokened great longing, having that in her body that betokened happy promise - the archetype of the very perfect woman, whom creating God has found good.

This description of Anna is presented as if the reader will instantly recognize that it fits the stereotype of the perfect woman. The reader is supposed to draw upon background assumptions about the loveliness of Irish women, and to recognize the elements about Anna’s eyes and body that the text presents as self-evidently constituting perfection in women (that is, having quiet pride, embodying happy promise and so on). It is presented as information that ’we all know’. In this way, in drawing on this kind of background knowledge we are, Barthes would claim, drawing upon the cultural code, using the term to indicate an organized repository of common-sense knowledge and stereotypes. It is through the cultural code that realist texts confirm certain conventional views of reality (which may have only slight correspondence with the way things actually are); in this way, realist texts are creating rather than reflecting realities, and one way of reading realist texts is to see them as shaping (rather than reflecting) our views of the real. Not only this, but they tend to reaffirm the status quo and the self-evident quality of stereotypical knowledge.

A further convention in realist texts is that they have narrative ’closure’ - that is, at the end of the narrative the problems that the text presents are resolved. In nineteenth-century realist novels plots are frequently resolved by death or marriage, and coincidence is a strong motivating factor in the way that most, if not all, of the loose ends of the plot are finally knitted together, so that the reader is left with no unresolved questions about the characters. In twentieth- and twenty-first-century realist texts, the resolutions tend to be less complete and closure is one of the conventions that writers may feel that they can experiment with or reject altogether. Writers no longer feel it necessary to employ coincidence to such an extent to bring their narratives to a close. However, for many readers, narrative closure is pleasurable, and they may feel unsatisfied or cheated if a text leaves them with too many unresolved plot elements. (See Unit 20, Narrative.)