Narrative Distance
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Narrative distance/ˈnærətɪv ˈdɪstəns/ | The physical distance, chronological distance, relationships, or emotional investment of the narrator to the events or characters. |
| Stream of consciousness/striːm ɒv ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/ | Writing that follows thoughts as they occur, with little tidying. |
Distance is measurable in four ways
- Narrative distance 叙述距离 refers to the physical distance, chronological distance, relationships, or emotional investment of the narrator to the events or characters.
- Four dimensions, and they move independently.
- A narrator can be in the room and forty years away from the feeling.
A narrator can be miles away and emotionally next door; a map measures only one kind of distance.
Select all the dimensions of narrative distance the CED names.
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Emotional investment completes the four; vocabulary is diction.
Reading each dimension
- Physical: was the narrator present, nearby, or told about it?
- Chronological: how long after the events is the telling?
- Relationship: what are they to the people involved? Emotional: how much do they have at stake?
A narrator's position is not one fact but four, and any of them can be the analysis
The four dimensions of narrative distance always move together.
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A narrator can be in the room and forty years away from the feeling.
Stream of consciousness is distance at zero
- Stream of consciousness 意识流 is a type of narration in which a character's thoughts are related through a continuous dialogue or description.
- The word is continuous: there is no gap for the narrator to stand in.
- It is what narration looks like when every kind of distance has been removed at once.
Which dimension of distance is this?
Sort each detail by the dimension the CED names.
Stream of consciousness relates a character's thoughts through...
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Continuous is the operative word — there is no gap for a narrator to stand in.
The four dimensions of narrative distance move independently. A narrator can be physically present, chronologically forty years away, closely related and emotionally detached all at once — so "the narrator is distant" is four different claims collapsed into one.
Irony, judgement and pity all need a ____ to happen in.
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A narrator standing very close cannot be ironic about what they are inside of.
Distance is what makes tone possible
- Irony, judgement and pity all need a gap to happen in.
- A narrator standing very close cannot be ironic about what they are inside of.
- So when distance changes mid-story, the tone changes with it — and that is worth writing about.
Put the distance pass in order.
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A dimension that moved is a choice, and tone follows distance.
A distance pass
- Rate all four dimensions at the opening: near or far?
- Rate them again at the climax.
- Any dimension that moved is a choice, and the tone will have moved with it.
He is in the room (physical: zero), telling it decades later (chronological: far), speaking of his own mother (relationship: closest possible), and describing her death in the same register as the weather (emotional: far). The essay is about the last two disagreeing.
Narrative distance has four independent dimensions: physical, chronological, relationships, emotional investment. Stream of consciousness relates a character's thoughts through continuous dialogue or description — distance at zero. Distance is what makes tone possible, so a change in distance changes tone.