Chatmans Three Levels of Narrative
- similar: Jannidis Three Levels
chatgpt.4o
Seymour Chatman, a prominent narrative theorist, proposed a model of narrative communication that distinguishes between different levels of communication within a narrative. His model is influenced by structuralist theories and provides a framework for analyzing how stories are communicated from the author to the reader (or viewer) through various intermediaries.
Chatman’s Levels of Narrative Communication:
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Real Author and Real Reader (External Communication):
- Real Author: The actual person who creates the narrative text.
- Real Reader: The actual person who reads or interprets the narrative text.
- Description: This level of communication happens outside the text itself. It involves the interaction between the person who writes the narrative and the person who reads it. The real author has intentions and purposes for writing the text, and the real reader interprets and responds to the text based on their own context and background.
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Implied Author and Implied Reader (Narrative Communication):
- Implied Author: A construct of the narrative text, representing an idealized version of the author as inferred by the reader. This is not the same as the real author but rather the authorial presence that the text suggests.
- Implied Reader: Similarly, this is the ideal reader that the text seems to be addressing. The implied reader is a construct of the text, representing the audience that the implied author envisions.
- Description: This level is concerned with the narrative as a constructed artifact. The implied author is the narrative persona that the text seems to present, and the implied reader is the hypothetical reader who is best suited to understand and appreciate the narrative as intended by the implied author.
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Narrator and Narratee (Internal Communication):
- Narrator: The voice or persona within the narrative that tells the story. The narrator may be a character in the story (first-person narrator) or an outside observer (third-person narrator), and they may have varying levels of reliability and knowledge.
- Narratee: The entity within the narrative to whom the narrator is speaking. The narratee is a fictional audience created by the narrator's discourse, and it may be a character within the story or a more abstract figure.
- Description: This is the level of communication within the story itself, where the narrator conveys the events and information to the narratee. The relationship between the narrator and the narratee helps shape how the story is presented and understood within the narrative world.
Summary:
- Real Author and Real Reader: The interaction between the actual writer and reader outside the text.
- Implied Author and Implied Reader: The idealized author and reader as constructed by the text, representing the intended communication within the narrative.
- Narrator and Narratee: The communication that occurs within the narrative, involving the storyteller and the fictional audience.
Chatman’s levels of narrative communication help to clarify the different layers through which a narrative operates, from the real-world context of writing and reading to the fictional communication within the story itself. This model is useful for analyzing how meaning is constructed and conveyed in narratives.
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