Changing the type of narrator (by the material of T. Tolstoy's story “Sonia”)

Modern literature is characterized by the development and modification of traditional narrative forms, which causes scientific interest in the study of these phenomena, including from a linguistic point of view. Narrative forms, as is known, have been fruitfully studied by linguists for a long time, but recently it has become especially relevant. So, in 1995 E.V. Paducheva proposed a special name for a branch of linguistics that studies “the formal rules for extracting from a narrative text all the semantic information that a person receives from it as a native speaker” [1, p. 39-48] – linguistics of narrative. The object of research in narrative linguistics is a literary text that conveys information about real or fictional events occurring in a time sequence [2, p. 88], and the meaning of the text can be revealed as a result of linguistic analysis, without which neither literary theory nor literary criticism should do, which is noted by many researchers.

The choice of the form of narration, as you know, is not accidental: in particular, “first-person narration is the result of a conscious aesthetic choice, and not a sign of frankness or confession; the choice of one of the forms (first or third person) is absolutely not indifferent, (...) in one or another case, not the same thing will be told, since the perspective of the narration and its entire organization will depend on the distribution of roles” [3, p. 75].

The change in the type of narrator -exegetical / diegetic, narrator / characternarrator - is clearly manifested in the story T. Tolstoy "Sonya", related to polyphonic free indirect discourse. For the convenience of analysis, we divide the story into 4 parts, in each of which there is a change in the type of narrator.

Part I – the "start" of the narrator, ends with the words "But I would like to know more about Sonya."

Part II – the story of Sonya (currently underway (80s), but about the events of the 30s).

Part III – an insert story about Sonya's "happiness", "a leap into the past" (1933 year).

Part IV – separated by a break from the rest of the text, Sonya's death (1941) and the narrator's visit to Ada Adolfovna (50 years later).

Throughout the text, the spatial and temporal positions of the narrator change, and, consequently, his speech changes, which is reflected in the different lexical and syntactic organization of the text.

Part I is a monologue of a neutral exegetical narrator (let's designate it as P1), not included in the inner world of the text, as far as possible distant from the situation considered in the story and from its characters. E.V. Paducheva calls such a narrator exegetical, “implicit, since this is a narrator who does not name himself. Its main property is that it does not have a full-fledged existence in any world - neither in the fictional one, to which the characters belong, nor in the real one, to which the author belongs" [4, p. 203].

Жил человек – и нет его. Только имя осталось – Соня. «Помните, Соня говорила…» «Платье, похожее как у Сони…» «Сморкаешься, сморкаешься без конца, как Соня…» Потом умерли и те, кто так говорил, в голове остался только след голоса, бестелесного, как бы исходящего из черной пасти телефонной трубки. Или вдруг раскроется, словно в воздухе, светлой дивной фотографией солнечная комната – смех вокруг накрытого стола, и будто гиацинты в стеклянной вазочке на скатерти, тоже изогнувшейся в кудрявых розовых улыбках. Смотри скорей, пока не погасло! Кто это тут? Есть ли среди них тот, кто тебе нужен? Но светлая комната дрожит и меркнет, и уже просвечивают марлей спины сидящих, и со страшной скоростью, распадаясь, уносится вдаль их смех – догони-ка [5, p. 9].

Typical for the narrator of Part I are:

• -    incentive and interrogative sentences with elements of colloquial speech;

• -    verbs in the imperative mood (imperative), which, in fact, are appeals to the reader.

From the second part, a narrator appears, as close as possible to the sphere of heroes - a diegetic narrator, belonging to the world of the text. The transition from Part I to Part II can be viewed as a change in narrative instances, a kind of dialogue between two narrators, with the remarks separated by a paragraph indent:

From the second part, a narrator appears, as close as possible to the sphere of heroes – a diegetic narrator, belonging to the world of the text. The transition from Part I to Part II can be viewed as a change in narrative instances, a kind of dialogue between two narrators, with the remarks separated by a paragraph indent:

(…) Но хотелось бы поподробнее узнать про Соню.

Ясно одно – Соня была дура [5, p. 10].

The narrator of the second part can be considered as a person who is familiar with Sonya and the "company of jokers", in fact, one of the heroes, a witness to the events. This is evidenced by proper temporal indicators (« в первый раз» , « в далеком (…) тридцатом году» ) and non-proper-temporal indicators (« да теперь уж и некому », « как было принято »).

Part III – a kind of "leap into the past" – belongs to the third narrator, in many respects similar to the narrator of Part II. Nevertheless, part III belongs to another narrator, since the narrator of part II, in a conversation about Ada Adolfovna, says: «Какой-то там случай был с ней во время блокады. Кстати, связанный с Соней. Нет, я плохо помню », and the narrator of the third part tells just about this. Both narrators (II and III) are similar in their attitude towards Sonya and what is happening; their speech characteristics are also similar:

• 1)    lexemes that are key to the image of Sonya: дура , лошадь , etc.

• 2)    elements of colloquial speech:

• a)    colloquial lexemes and phrases: считается как одежда, особенно соображать, накручивала, Соня, дура, клюнула сразу; Валериану пришлось попотеть .

• b)    indefinite pronouns: каким-то там научным хранителем;

• 3)    contact-setting elements:

• -    metatextual - знаете, сами понимаете

• -    appeals: друзья мои, милая моя ;

• -    interjection: что вы!

It is quite difficult to determine the belonging of the “transitional” part - between parts III and IV, which describes events that, in fact, no one could know about (except for Ada Adolfovna), that is, the narrator becomes “omniscient”: “The omniscient narrator does not give us an account about the sources of their knowledge; he describes the internal states of the characters, neglecting the fact that they are inaccessible to an external observer. It has unlimited possibilities of changing spatial orientation, returning to the past and running into the future - freely moving forward and backward along the time axis" [4, p. 205].

In the IV part, which is highlighted graphically - by a dash - the narrator becomes explicit, "a real character", the pronoun "I" appears for the first time, referring to the narrator. Genette calls this technique metalepsis, i.e. “a transition from one narrative level to another or a violation of the boundary between two worlds – the world where they tell and the world about which they tell” [quoted from 4, p. 126]. “Being on different levels with the characters of the novel, the heterodiegetic narrator, who is outside the plot space, having no characteristics that could oppose his author, invades the plot space, thereby standing on the same level with the characters. Thanks to this technique, the characters, as it were, acquire an independent existence, become autonomous, move to the same level as the narrator" [ibid., p. 128]. “Appearing from time to time inside the plot space and addressing the reader from there, the narrator thereby attracts the reader to the narrative, transferring him to the same level on which he himself and the characters are. The reader, like the narrator, becomes an observer. He knows as much as the narrator knows, so together with the narrator he “understands” the vicissitudes of history, together with the narrator he tries to understand the thoughts and feelings of the characters” [ibid, p. 128]:

Вряд ли, я полагаю , Соня получила Николаеву могильную весть [5, p. 17].

И в самом конце:

Вот только белого голубка, я думаю , она должна была оттуда вынуть. Ведь голубков огонь не берет [17, p. 18].

The narrator appears in "real" life, comes into direct contact with the character, expressed in the form of direct speech:

– Ада Адольфовна, отдайте мне Сонины письма! [5, p. 17]

evaluates events and actions. There is a return to the style of the first paragraphs, interrogative and exclamatory sentences, so characteristic of Tolstoy's narrator:

Где она хранит пачку Сониных писем, ветхий пакетик, перехваченный бечевкой, потрескивающий от сухих цветов, желтоватых и прозрачных, как стрекозиные крылья? Не помнит или не хочет говорить? Да и что толку – приставать к трясущейся парализованной старухе! Мало ли у нее самой было в жизни трудных дней? [5, p. 17].

The narrator of part IV is characterized by sentences complicated by rows of homogeneous members, participial and participial phrases, as well as interrogative sentences:

Из других комнат тоже виднеются буфеты, буфеты, гардеробы, шкафы – с бельем, с книгами, со всякими вещами. Где она хранит пачку Сониных писем, ветхий пакетик, перехваченный бечевкой, потрескивающий от сухих цветов, желтоватых и прозрачных, как стрекозиные крылья? Не помнит или не хочет говорить? Да и что толку – приставать к трясущейся парализованной старухе! Мало ли у нее самой было в жизни трудных дней? [5, p. 17] .

So, throughout this story, the narrator exists in 4 hypostases, each of which manifests itself in a different lexical and syntactic organization of the text:

• 1.    In the first part – a neutral, distant from the characters and events of the story, an exegetical narrator, not included in the inner world of the text, as far as possible distant from the situation considered in the story, and from its characters (similar in its speech characteristics to the narrator).

• 2.    In the second part – a diegetic narrator, as close as possible to the sphere of heroes, belonging to the world of the text, the narrator-character proper.

• 3.    Part III (“jump into the past”) belongs to the third narrator. The manner of narration changes, more “voices” are included.

• 4.    In part IV, the narrator becomes explicit, omniscient, and at the same time “a real character” (also close in his speech characteristics to the narrator).

Thus, it is possible to speak of a change in the type of narrator, a transition from one narrative level to another. The narrator is either on the same level with the characters, or rises above them - it resembles a camera that either approaches the object, or moves away from it, and thus gives the reader an image of what is happening from different angles. The movement of the narrator in time and space, as well as different points of view on what is happening, help the reader to better imagine the image of the main character of the story. Such a change in the type of narrator, "violating one of the important norms of the narrative (namely, the opposition of the narrator and the exegetical narrator)" [16, p. 203-204] can be regarded as an artistic device.