Naratology Theory: Gerard Genette's Theory Of Narratology

2.3 Genette’s Naratology Theory

The movie narration will be analyzed using Gerard Genette’s theory of narratology, which is further clarified into six core questions:

The first question deals with the basic narrative mode as Genette (1972) classified them into two categories: ‘mimetic’ and ‘diegetic.’ The word ‘mimetic’ is derived from the word ‘mimesis,’ which means showing or dramatizing. Hence, the mimetic parts of a narrative mean that they are being shown or presented in a dramatic way. On the contrary, ‘diegetic’ from the word ‘diegesis’ means ‘telling’ or ‘showing. The diegetic parts of a story are being told rapidly in a concise manner without the dramatic effects. Genette, however, stated that writers commonly applied both diegetic

The word ‘focalization’ means the perspective or the point-of-view chosen by the writer or the author to tell the story. Genette (1972) identified the three POVs as following: internal focalization/first person POV, external focalization/third person POV, and zero focalization/omniscient narration. The first person POV, which is also commonly called the ‘focaliser’ or ‘reflector,’ provides readers and viewers with the perspective of the characters involved in the story. Thus, this viewpoint also presents the character’s feelings and thoughts to the audience. In contrast, the third POV presents the viewpoint from outside of the story or from a person/narrator who is not involved in the story. Therefore, the external focalization could only provide the actions and words spoken by the characters, but it could not present how they feel or think. Meanwhile, the zero focalization is called as ‘omniscient narration’ because it presents an “all-knowing” perspective from all of the characters. This narration is applied when there is no limit to what is being

Genette (1972) referred the ‘who’ is telling the story as the persona. By persona, he referred to the author who takes the role of his characters to tell the story. Persona is similar to the previous mentioned focalizations, but focuses more on the omniscient narration or zero focalization, which also has two distinguished characteristics. The first kind of omniscient narration or the “authorial persona” is not determined as a present character with well-developed background. Instead, the narrator is considered as no more than documentation with the goals of presenting the story as neutral and transparent as possible. On the contrary, the “intrusive” narrators are well-developed background characters, who witnessed, learned, or even participated in the story happening to the main characters. Barry (2009) strictly stated that omniscient narrations are always ‘heterodiegetic,’ or being told by