NARRATIVE SPECIFICITY OF THE SHORT STORY "HEY YOU, LITTLE BARRELL..." BY V. VYNNYCHENKO

The paper discusses the methodological potential of narratology that extends beyond the boundaries of traditional poetics taking the text of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s short story "Hey you, little barrell..." as a case study. G. Genette’s definitions of the basic categories of narratology, such as story, discourse, anachronies, narrator’s types and functions, narrative distance and focalization are discussed. First and foremost, categories and paradigms introduced by G. Genette increase the possibilities of literary analysis. For example, there is no concept of a subject of vision (a focalizer) in traditional poetics. The paradigm of narrative perspective (focalization) developed by G. Genette is very important for studies of the narratives, besides, the narrative technique of modernism without this category is incomprehensible at all. Traditional poetics does not pay enough attention to anachrony, considering it together with other "off-plot elements", although analepsis and prolepsis are neither discursive nor descriptive. G. Genette presents detailed classification of analepsises and prolepsises, that determines the functionality of the analysis in context. Secondly, the paper clarifies, that the method of G. Genette’s narratology is not limited to tracing narrative categories as elements – it is also about their constant interrelation, i.e. the narrative model of the stories. Vynnychenko’s short story is analyzed in terms of correlations between telling, showing and talking, as well as displays of character’s discourse and attributive discourse. The artistic viability of anachronies (analepses and prolepses) is examined in the compositional and semantic aspects. The paper focuses on some specific features of Vynnychenko’s narrative style, such as dominance of mimesis over diegesis, as well as narrative distance and the author’s self-elimination by means of focalization (both the internal and external one) that are typical for modernist writing.

Tense Alternation in Japanese Literature: Translating Free Indirect Discourse and Focalization in Kashimada Maki’s Meido meguri

This paper examines the phenomenon of tense alternation in Japanese literary narrative, making specific reference to Kashimada Maki’s (鹿島田 真希) novella Meido meguri (冥途めぐり Touring the Land of the Dead, 2012) as a case study. It argues that tense alternation in sentence‑final predicative verbs should be regarded a stylistic technique that serves as an indicator of free indirect discourse and of focalization through a central character, and that it moreover establishes an opposition between external narration and internal focalization. It then illustrates how this dynamic is employed in Meido Meguri to create a contrast between a mode suggesting narrative distance and another suggesting mental interiority. This paper thus highlights a significant linguistic difference in the construction of free indirect discourse in Japanese and English narratives.

Learning from Problem-Based Projects in Cross-Disciplinary Student Teams

This paper explores how engineering students and Work and Welfare students reflect upon their own engagement in a one-week cross-disciplinary project. To develop a better understanding of what unfolds during these activities we collected data through anonymous surveys two consecutive years. Data from these 141 respondents were analysed using a learning history approach and are presented as narratives. Results show major disruptions and conflicts driving the student projects, exposing inviting confrontations, social identity threats, managing diversity, and friction of ideas. Whereas this in many cases led to new and better project solutions, these real-world experiences raise awareness of the need for tools and methods for training students. The aim of the paper is to learn from students’ experiences through narrative distance, and fill a gap in the literature between problem-based learning (PBL) and the learning history method. Discussing different experiences of cross-disciplinary teamwork through the explanations of these theories, we also lay out potential questions for future research on the topic.

H. Kant’s Autobiographical Novel «The Stay» («Der Aufenthalt», 1976): Fiction and Reality

The theme of Kant’s autobiographical novel «The Stay» (Der Aufenthalt, 1976) is the spiritual rebirth of German prisoner of war, a soldier of the Hitlerite ar-my. The article reveals the interaction of two components found in the novel: the fic-tional and the real ones in depicting this complex psychological process. The analysis of the chapters (X, XV, VI) shows various forms of artistic –aesthetic processing of authentic autobiographical material. In Chapter X the author «collects» his own emotional impressions, experienced by him in different periods of his life (such as cold, loneliness, hunger) and «ties» them to the situation of the main character sitting in a lonely cell in a prison. In Chapter XV he «adds» to real autobiographical facts an important artistic detail –a school pencil case of a Jewish girl killed by Nazis. In Chapter VI Kant makes a masterful use of temporal and narrative distance: the hero estimates the decisive episode of his youth –a conversation with a Russian woman-doctor from the viewpoint of a mature person recalling his life.

Narrative Distance in Screenplay: “The Heir to Genghis Khan” by Vsevolod Pudovkin

The article is devoted to the narratological analysis of a screenplay. A distance between a narrator and a story world that constitutes a narrative is studied in regard to a conception of screenplay not as an autonomous literary work but as a series of texts corresponding to various stages of preparation for a film shooting (in our case a libretto, a literary script and a shooting script). The comparison of the literary script and the shooting script of the film “The Heir to Genghis Khan” written respectively by Osip Brik and Vsevolod Pudovkin reveals the shift of the narrative distance, that determined the way the events were shown. During the transition from the literary script to the shooting script the narrative distance is decreased due to the director’s idea on the film and also due the industrial context of filmmaking.

Autoethnography for Extraterrestrials

The article explores a creative-artistic approach rooted in autoethnography, using satire and literary tropes from science fiction and fantasy. Edited excerpts from a completed PhD autoethno-satiric novel called The Doom of Clowns are used to illustrate the theoretical and ethical development of this narrative style. The advantages of employing science fiction and satire are demonstrated through the otherworldly narrative distance and ambiguity these genres allow.

Using narrative distance to invite transformative learning experiences

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce narrative distance as a phenomenon that can help create transformative learning experiences (TLEs). Narrative distance is defined as the cognitive or emotional space afforded by indirect communication that invites listeners to make sense of content. In ways similar to a book, movie or play, narrative distance invites participants to draw conclusions for themselves (Craddock, 2002). Design/methodology/approach After examining how other fields have discussed concepts related to narrative distance and its affordances, this paper illustrates how this phenomenon can satisfy many of Wilson and Parrish’s (2011) key indicators for TLEs. Findings Six principles are offered for incorporating narrative distance into instructional design. Originality/value Instructional design has not explored indirect communication that is similar to narrative in any significant way.

Beware of Pity: Stefan Zweig and the Fate of Narrative Empathy under Surveillance

In the epigraph to his 1939 novel Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig distinguishes between a form of “unsentimental but creative” empathy and a mode of “weak-minded, sentimental pity” that serves only as a “way of defending yourself against someone else's pain.” Focusing on Beware of Pity as well as The Post Office Girl and Chess, this article interprets Zweig's epigraph as a commentary on narrative as well as interpersonal forms of engagement, centered upon his conception of the relationship between author/narrator and suffering protagonist. Drawing on the work of David Rosen and Aaron Santesso, it further posits “empathetic surveillance” as a figure through which to assess this relationship, because Zweig can frequently be found to experiment with narrative distance and observation where the scene of suffering is concerned. His late writing demonstrates an attempt to work through his own conflicting wartime experiences of fellow feeling, but it also offers a sustained reflection on the implications of a broader crisis in empathy on a narrative level around the Second World War. The article characterizes Zweig's particular approach to narrative empathy in terms of an “empathic realism,” which can be defined both against what Meghan Marie Hammond has recently called “empathic modernism” and in contradistinction to nineteenth-century “sympathetic realism.” Poised between pre- and postwar outlooks, his work provides valuable insights on the changing contours of empathetic authorship across the twentieth century.