Handout 1

Handout 1

1. Discuss the excerpts below in terms of Wayne Booths distinctions between real author implied author narrator and expand on the type of narrator the text illustrates:

Fielding, Henry (1985) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, London: Penguin BooksBOOK XVIII, Chapter 1 A Farewell to the Reader (pp. 763-4)

We are now, reader, arrived at the last stage of our long journey. As we have, therefore, travelled together through so many pages let us behave to one another like fellow-travellers in a stage coach, who have passed several days in the company of each other; and who, notwithstanding any bickerings or little animosities which may have occurred on the road, generally make all up at last, and mount, for the last time, into their vehicle with chearfulness and good humour; since after this one stage, it may possibly happen to us, as it commonly happens to them, never to meet more.

As I have here taken up this simile, give me leave to carry it a little farther. I intend, then, in this last book, to imitate the good company I have mentioned in their last journey. Now, it is well known that all jokes and raillery are at this time laid aside; whatever characters any of the passengers have for the jest-sake personated on the road are now thrown off, and the conversation is usually plain and serious.

In the same manner, if I have now and then, in the course of this work, indulged any pleasantry for thy entertainment, I shall here lay it down. The variety of matter, indeed, which I shall be obliged to cram into this book, will afford no room for any of those ludicrous observations which I have elsewhere made, and which may sometimes perhaps, have prevented thee from taking a nap when it was beginning to steal upon thee. In this last book thou wilt find nothing (or at most very little) of that nature. All will be plain narrative only; and, indeed, when thou hast perused the many great events which this book will produce, thou wilt think the number of pages contained in it scarce sufficient to tell the story.

And now, my friend, I take this opportunity (as I shall have no other) of heartily wishing thee well. If I have been an entertaining companion to thee, I promise thee it is what I have desired. If in anything I have offended, it was really without any intention. Some things, perhaps, here said, may have hit thee or thy friends; but I do most solemnly declare they were not pointed at thee or them. []BOOK XVIII, Chapter 2 - Containing a very tragical Incident (pp. 765-6)

[] Upon these words Jones became in a moment a greater picture of horror than Partridge himself. He was, indeed, for some time struck dumb with amazement, and both stood staring wildly at each other. At last his words found way, and in an interrupted voice he said, How! how! whats this you tell me? Nay, sir, cries Partridge, I have not breath enough left to tell you now, but what I have said is most certainly true. That woman who now went out is your own mother. How unlucky was it for you, sir, that I did not happen to see her at that time, to have prevented it! Sure the devil himself must have contrived to bring about this wickedness.

Sure, cried Jones, Fortune will never have done with me till she hath driven me to distraction. But why do I blame Fortune? I am myself the cause of all my misery. All the dreadful mischiefs which have befallen me are the consequences only of my own folly and vice. What thou hast told me, Partridge, hath almost deprived me of my senses! And was Mrs. Waters, then but why do I ask? for thou must certainly know her If thou hast any affection for me, nay, if thou hast any pity, let me beseech thee to fetch this miserable woman back again to me. O good Heavens! incest with a mother! To what am I reserved! He then fell into the most violent and frantic agonies of grief and despair, in which Partridge declared he would not leave him; but at last, having vented the first torrent of passion, he came a little to himself; and then, having acquainted Partridge that he would find this wretched woman in the same house where the wounded gentleman was lodged, he dispatched him in quest of her.

If the reader will please to refresh his memory, by turning to the scene at Upton, in the ninth book, he will be apt to admire the many strange accidents which unfortunately prevented any interview between Partridge and Mrs. Waters, when she spent a whole day there with Mr. Jones. Instances of this kind we may frequently observe in life, where the greatest events are produced by a nice train of little circumstances; and more than one example of this may be discovered by the accurate eye, in this our history.

After a fruitless search of two or three hours, Partridge returned back to his master, without having seen Mrs. Waters. Jones, who was in a state of desperation at his delay, was almost raving mad when he brought him his account.

2. Discuss the narrator type in the excerpt below in terms of its reliability:

Swift, Jonathan (1998) Gullivers Travels, Oxford: Oxford University PressBOOK IV, CHAPTER V: The Author at his Masters Command, informs him of the State of England. The Causes of War among the Princes of Europe. The Author begins to explain the English Constitution. (pp. 235-240)

He asked me, what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another? I answered they were innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire; what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray; and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

[] It is a very justifiable cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and complete. If a prince sends forces into a nation, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance of another, to secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out the invader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish, the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood, or marriage, is a frequent cause of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater their disposition to quarrel; poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most honourable of all others; because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill, in cold blood, as many of his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can. []What you have told me, said my master, upon the subject of war, does indeed discover most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to: however, it is happy that the shame is greater than the danger; and that nature has left you utterly incapable of doing much mischief. For, your mouths lying flat with your faces, you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unless by consent. Then as to the claws upon your feet before and behind, they are so short and tender, that one of our Yahoos would drive a dozen of yours before him. And therefore, in recounting the numbers of those who have been killed in battle, I cannot but think you have said the thing which is not.

I could not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at his ignorance. And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying. And to set forth the valour of my own dear countrymen, I assured him, that I had seen them blow up a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship, and beheld the dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of the spectators.

I was going on to more particulars, when my master commanded me silence. He said, whoever understood the nature of Yahoos, might easily believe it possible for so vile an animal to be capable of every action I had named, if their strength and cunning equalled their malice. But as my discourse had increased his abhorrence of the whole species, so he found it gave him a disturbance in his mind to which he was wholly a stranger before. () when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices ().

3. Discuss the excerpt below from the perspective of literature being a form of communication and identify the instances involved in this process of communication:

Sterne, Laurence (1997) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, London: Penguin Books

--How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.--Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.--Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could tell you such a thing.--Then, Sir, I must have missd a page.--No, Madam, you have not missd a word.--Then I was asleep, Sir.--My pride, Madam, cannot allow you that refuge.--Then, I declare, I know nothing at all about the matter.-- That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge; and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she returns back:--Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into thousands besides herself,--of reading straight forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them--The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the habitude of which made Pliny the younger affirm, That he never read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it. The stories of Greece and Rome, run over without this turn and application,--do less service, I affirm it, than the history of Parismus and Parismenus, or of the Seven Champions of England, read with it.

--But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter, Madam, as I desired you?--You have: And did you not observe the passage, upon the second reading, which admits the inference?--Not a word like it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the chapter, where I take upon me to say, It was necessary I should be born before I was christend. Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that consequence did not follow. (The Romish Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases of danger, before it is born;--but upon this proviso, That some part or other of the childs body be seen by the baptizer:--But the Doctors of the Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10, 1733,--have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part of the childs body should appear,--that baptism shall, nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,--par le moyen dune petite canulle,--Anglice a squirt.--Tis very strange that St. Thomas Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of school-divinity,--should, after so much pains bestowed upon this,- -give up the point at last, as a second La chose impossible,--Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Thomas!) baptizari possunt nullo modo.--O Thomas! Thomas! If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.)

It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to the Republick of letters;--so that my own is quite swallowed up in the consideration of it,--that this self-same vile pruriency for fresh adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humour,-- and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our concupiscence that way,--that nothing but the gross and more carnal parts of a composition will go down:--The subtle hints and sly communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,--the heavy moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much lost to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn.

I wish the male-reader has not passd by many a one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I wish it may have its effects;--and that all good people, both male and female, from example, may be taught to think as well as read. (Sterne, 1997: 48)

4. Make use of the Russian Formalist model for the analysis of narrative discourse to comment on the excerpt below:

Sterne, Laurence (1997) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, London: Penguin Books

Volume III, Chapter XXVII (p. 174)

This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my fatherGod bless your honour, cried Trim, tis a bridge for masters nose.In bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed his nose, Susannah says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of whalebone out of Susannahs stays, to raise it up.

Lead me, brother Toby, cried my father, to my room this instant.

Volume III, Chapter XXVIII (p. 175)

From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my father.A tide of little evils and distresses has been setting in against him.Not one thing, as he observed himself, has gone right: and now is the storm thickend and going to break, and pour down full upon his head.

I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with.My nerves relax as I tell it.Every line I write, I feel an abatement of the quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, which every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things I should notAnd this moment that I last dippd my pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and solemnity there appeard in my manner of doing it.Lord! how different from the rash jerks and hair-braind squirts thou art wont, Tristram, to transact it with in other humoursdropping thy penspurting thy ink about thy table and thy booksas if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and furniture cost thee nothing!

Volume III, Chapter XXIX (pp. 175-6)

I wont go about to argue the point with youtis soand I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate across his bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the same time in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with sorrows, that ever the eye of pity droppd a tear for.The palm of his right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touchd the quilt;his left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peepd out beyond the valancehis right leg (his left being drawn up towards his body) hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon his shin boneHe felt it not. A fixd, inflexible sorrow took possession of every line of his face.He sighd onceheaved his breast oftenbut uttered not a word.

An old set-stitchd chair, valanced and fringed around with party coloured worsted bobs, stood at the beds head, opposite to the side where my fathers head reclined.My uncle Toby sat him down in it.

Before an affliction is digestedconsolation ever comes too soon;and after it is digestedit comes too late: so that you see, madam, there is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at:my uncle Toby was always either on this side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down in the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear at every ones servicehe pulld out a cambrick handkerchiefgave a low sighbut held his peace.

5. Reconsider the excerpt from BOOK XVIII, Chapter 2 of Henry Fieldings Tom Jones (exercise 1) and discuss it in terms of Greimass actantial model.