The French Lieutenant's Woman Summary

Narratology: Slaughterhouse Five and The French Lieutenant’s Woman

The role of the narrator is crucial in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman as they help to convey the thematic concerns of writing and reality versus fiction, present in both texts. As the narratologist, Gérard Genette, discusses in Narrative Discourse, there are several ways of identifying the means in which the role of the narrator contributes to the aforementioned thematic concerns using Genette’s approach towards narratology (Guillemette). Both narrators assume the role of the implied author and are highly concerned with the process of writing. As such, they possess a sense of self-reflexivity towards the complex process of

The narrator of Slaughterhouse Five seeks to reinvent his “recount” of the “destruction of Dresden”. As written in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, we “fictionalize” our past as “We are all in flight from reality” (Fowles 97). This is apparent in Slaughterhouse Five as the narrator makes it clear that his story has a testimonial function although he does not construct the narrative in its original chronological structure. Instead, the narrator uses a nonlinear chronological narrative structure that truly reflects the indelible and traumatic impact of war. For instance, in the embedded narrative, Billy Pilgrim is the protagonist who has the ability to haphazardly travel through travel. Here, the narrator uses time-travel as a technique to present the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that Billy suffers from after his time in World War Two. As the implied author, the narrator intentionally uses time travel as a literal manifestation of the traumatic effect of war on an individual where the time travel is triggered by Billy’s war memories. This is another main thematic concern in Slaughterhouse Five that is simultaneously conveyed through the narrator’s blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction. Rather than use analepsis and prolepsis as narrative time devices, as proposed by Genette (Barry

Instead of reconciling the gap between reality and fiction, the narrator attempts to reinforce it. The narrator similarly includes himself as a character of his text, as mentioned previously during his encounter with Charles on the train. Despite also employing the method of metalepsis, the narrator’s intentions for and effect of doing so is the opposite of the narrator of Slaughterhouse Five. Compared to Slaughterhouse Five that has a testimonial function, the “narrative function” of the narrator in The French Lieutenant’s Woman is to “[direct]” and “[communicate]” (Guillemette). This is derived from the narrator’s constant interruption on the narrative to provide his own commentary and to address the “narratee”, his readers, directly (Guillemette). These functions bring to light the assumptions and prejudices that readers may have towards the text since the narrator adopts a realist Victorian style of language. For example, the narrator intrudes, on the previously discussed train scene with Charles, by claiming that “Fiction usually pretends to conform to reality” (Fowles 409). This narrative intrusion reminds the reader that the narrative is merely an illusion, hence, reinforcing the line between reality and fiction through the text’s self-reflexive and metafictional character. The gap between reality and fiction is emphasised further through the two possible