Textual Indications of the Narrator-Narratee in Mansfield’s The Doll’s House A Study in Discourse Narratology
Abstract
Narrators practice a varying degree of perceptibility when narrating events and actions in their narratives. Narrative statements, whether statis or process, can be concretized through a scale of narratorial mediation and overtness through a textual manipulation of a bunch of textual elements such as the use of descriptive and evaluative adjectives, summarizing techniques, character identification and definition, as well as delving into the characters minds and hearts to expose their inner thoughts and passions. The narrator can also intrude through providing a set of commentaries on the characters behaviour, on events or even on activities. Further, a narration may also imply a recounting narrator that a reader feels their narrating activity through references to the narratee either explicitly such as the use of you or other textual-conceptual means. All such narrating issues are to be found in abundance in Katherine Mansfields The Dolls House, where the narrative voice is traced along six dimensions proposed by narratologists.