Gothic Narratives
An Introduction to Narrative
Tracings
The concepts of the frame family have
become
so deeply ingrained in our thinking about narrative that we tend to forget
their metaphorical nature. Together with this nature, we also tend to
forget their relativity, and we feel no need to look any further for
descriptive models.
-Marie-Laure Ryan, "Stacks, Frames, and Boundaries."
Graphically tracking narrative movement is not an original
feature that
this project claims; on the contrary, many methods have been proposed to
delineate narrative levels. Marie-Laure Ryan's essay "Stacks, Frames and
Boundaries" examines several ways to express the crossing of
narrative boundaries and proposes 'stacking', another means to the same
end. Ryan uses figures resembling enclosures that portray internal
stories as internal spaces, lines of parentheses which represent embedded
narration and even computer programs which, when theoretically executed,
would "do" the story.
This project takes advantage of the hypertextual possibilities of the
Internet to allow viewers an examination of narrative elements that is extratemporal. One of the main problems with trying to explain
narrative structure in typical modes of discourse is that the temporal
restrictions you try to study are inherently going to appear in your
essay. Critics must venture into the muddy waters of visual
representation, as Ryan (and many others) have in order to put everything
exactly where it needs to be. In this way the Internet overcomes a
fundamental problem of writers, "How does one remove linearity?"
This project will deal with this problem using links that allow the viewer
to examine narration in a different order than right to left, top to
bottom. It hopes to portray the novel as a cohesive unit through which
many
different explorations become not only plausible but fruitful.
Clithero's box and Weymouth's recollections in Edgar Huntly, for
example, are closely linked thematically but not temporally in the novel.
This interface will allow for, and encourage, their consecutive perusal in
an attempt at cohesiveness. Much like the box, Gothic novels are
traditionally "solid and smooth," however in many cases "one of its sides
served the purpose of a lid, and was possible to be raised" (CBB, 742).
It is the purpose of this project to provide access to all possible
"projectures" in the hope that "[one] might be firmly held by the hand."
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