Narrative and Normative Pattern: On Interpreting Fiction

Abstract

Interpretive disputes about the text's implied normative framework (its aesthetics, reality­model, ideology) often involve the reliability of the fictive narrator who mediates between interpreter and author. Narrative and normative reconstruction must go together. But how to determine the relations between the text's overt (narratorial) and implicit (authorial) frameworks, considering that the one can never be taken on trust and the other can never speak except through its questionable proxy? We have here two modes of discourse, one given (in or as the fiction) and the other hypothetical (behind the fiction). As regards the norms of literary communication, the first mode depends on its reliability of the second; as regards the forms of literary communication, the second depends on its discovery on the first.
Though omnipresent, our difficulties in relating narrative to normative structure yet vary widely, and this essay considers three major variables that affect every interpretive activity: (1) the conventionality of the implied system of norms; (2) its degree of explicitness; and (3) the control of interpretive difficulties through compensation systems. Some texts simplify the reader's task by reducing fictional mediation to a minimum. Their norms are (a) conventional in cultural context; (b) explicitly formulated by (c) a speaker who has proved reliable. This transparent communication is favoured by didactic or strongly ideological texts. The other extreme combines divergence, implicitness, and unreliability into the opaque (or ambiguous) discourse typical of modernism. The intermediate cases have at least one variable that facilitates interpretation, making up for the more problematic sides of the discourse. E.g., explicitness often compensates for deviance, whereas - as in "The Kreutzer Sonata" - the work advocates idiosyncratic norms.

Opsomming
lnterpretatiewe geskilpunte oor die teks se germpliseerde normatiewe verwysingsraam­werk (sy estetisisme, werklikheidsmodel, ideologie) betrek dikwels die betroubaarheid van die fiktiewe verteller wat as 'n bemiddelaar tussen die interpreet en die outeur moet optree. Narratiewe en normatiewe rekonstruksie moet hand aan hand gaan. Maar hoe om die verhouding tussen die teks se duidelike (narratologiese) en gei"mpliseerde (ouktoriele) raamwerke te bepaal, as rekening gehou moet word met die feit dat die een nooit op sigwaarde geneem kan word nie terwyl die ander weer slegs deur sy twyfelagtige gevol­magtigde kan spreek? Ons het hier twee tipes diskoers, die een gegee (in of as die fiksie) en die ander hipoteties (agter die fiksie). Sover dit die norme van literere kommunikasie aangaan, is die eerste tipe vir sy betroubaarheid van die tweede afhanklik; sover dit die vorme van literere kommunikasie betref, steun die tweede vir sy herkenbaarheid op die eerste.
Alhoewel alomteenwoordig, is daar tog groot verskille te bespeur in die probleme wat ondervind word om die narratiewe aan die normatiewe struktuur te verbind. In hierdie opstel word drie hoofveranderlikes, wat enige interpretatiewe aktiwiteit noodwendig moet bei"nvloed, beskou: (1) Die konvensionaliteitvan die gei"mpliseerde normesisteem; (2) sy graad van eksp/isietheid; en (3) die kontrole van interpretatiewe probleme deur kompense­rende sisteme.
Sommige tekste vergemaklik die leser se taak deur fiksionele bemiddeling tot 'n mini­mum te beperk. Hulle norme is (a) konvensioneel binne 'n kulturele konteks; (b) eksplisiet geformuleer deur (c) 'n spreker wat as betroubaar bewys is.