《伊坦·弗洛美》的叙事时间解读

张侠侠

【摘要】美国现代女作家伊迪丝·华顿的中篇小说《伊坦·弗洛美》一反她小说创作中一贯采取的上流社会背景，被认为是华顿写的最好的悲剧故事。本文旨在从叙事时间的角度对《伊坦·弗洛美》的叙事艺术进行研究，深入分析作者巧妙的构思与风格，以深入探讨这部具有独特魅力的小说的真谛。

【关键词】《伊坦·弗洛美》；叙事时间；时序；时距

1. Introduction

Narrative time is a very important element in western literature. Early in 18th century， Lessing realized the difference between temporal presented poetry and the spatial arts of carving and painting and made a comparison between the two in his Laocoon. And there are many other writers who try their best to make their work more interesting through playing with time and adopting some new narrative techniques so that they could win more readers. A story happened， developed and then was told， this simple process could be created into various telling methods by different writers especially on changing time orders or making variations of time extent of events. In Genettes Narrative Discourse， he analyzed narrative temporal order and duration which are concerned with narrative time and each of them was talked in very detail. And in Ethan Frome， the author attempts to use narrative techniques concerning time to make her novel immersed with her own features.

Ethan Frome is a novella written by the Pulitzer Prize winner Edith Wharton， telling a story about twenty four years ago about Ethan Frome. In Ethan Frome， she presents us a countryside life and we can see clearly there are enormous environmental and detailed psychological descriptions which tell a four-day story in a retrospective way. This paper attempts to give a simple analysis about the special narrative temporal order and duration of this novel while giving an explanation of narrative time in Genettes Narrative Discouse.

2. On Temporal Succession

According to Genette in his Narrative Discourse， “to study the temporal order of a narrative is to compare the order in which events or temporal sections are arranged in the narrative discourse with the order of succession these same events or temporal segments have in the story.” Here， Genette makes a distinction between story order which refers to the natural process of events and narrative order which indicates a narrated process of events in a narrative discourse. And it is really important to make it clear that what is narrative order and what is story order before we talk about anachrony， the focus of narrative temporal order. And according to Genette， anachrony happens when the natural story order is sabotaged in a narrative and he called them “the various types of discordance between the two orderings of story and narrative”. On the other hand， an anachrony can reach into the past which is called analepsis or the future which is called prolepsis by Genette and he also quotes two terms of reach and extent to illustrate the distance between an anachrony and the temporal story as well as the duration of an anachrony itself.

From Genette， we know that when an event is told “never at any moment risk interfering with the first narrative”， this situation is named as external analepsis， and on the contrast， internal analepsis “deal with the same line of action as the first narrative， here the risk of interference is obvious and even apparently unavoidable.” In an easy way， if we make letter A the start point of an analepsis and B the end of it while make C the start point of the first narrative and D the end of it， the diagram below can clearly illustrate the relationship：

The first diagram is an external analepsis and the second is an internal analepsis. We thus describe as external this analepsis whose entire extent remains external to the extent of the first narrative and internal analepsis entirely remains internal.

And in Ethan Frome， it is obvious that the story is told in analepses and the first narrative should refers to the male narrator who may be an architect anchored in Starkfield for job which we could see in the introduction. When we read on from the chapter one to the last chapter we still find ourselves in the second narrative which carried by an omnipotent narrator on telling things happened twenty-four years ago. That is to say， the second narrative embedded in the first narrative as an external analepsis which entirely without risk interfere with it because the whole nine chapters just present us a four-day story which also embeds a lot of flashbacks in it. And apparently the last day of the second narrative cannot be the start or any time of the first narrative.

At the very beginning of the book， that is the introduction part， a homodiegetic narrator tells us about his knowledge of Ethan Frome from his own eyes and little acquainted of his past from various people in Starkfield. Reading this， we must strongly desire to know what happened to Ethan Frome in the past and in the first chapter， the author completely jumps out of now and traverses to the past when Ethan goes to a church to fetch his wifes young female cousin home. This kind of narrative successfully arouses readers curiosity and strengthens their desire to read on. We can see clearly it is a kind of analepses. On the second paragraph of the first chapter， a voice tells us “young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street…” that is the time before now （the time of the first narrative） but the story doesnt go on in the time quantum of that moment（the time of second narrative） but gives out Ethans reminiscence of Matties coming to his home which happened before now（the time of second narrative）， and in chapter two， the story returns to the main narrative（second narrative） that Ethan came to take Mattie home. In a simple way， if we give an order of the narrative events on the introduction and the first two chapters， we could list as below：

A： I came to stakfield and meet with Ethan Frome and known something of his past. （Introduction）

B： Ethan Frome went to the church to fetch Mattie home.

C： Mattie came to Ethans home from Stamford.

D： Zeenas complaint and proposal on Matties leaving. （Chapter one ended）

E： Ethan and Mattie are on their way home from the ball in Starkfield. （Chapter two）

Apparently， the natural order should be： C， D， B， E， A， as discussed before， from B to E is the second narrative and A is the first narrative which corresponds with the last part. And for the second narrative， B and E belong to the main narrative， C and D server as analepses.

And in the following chapters there are many recalling plots embedded in the second narrative， for example， in chapter four， when Ethan is on his way home wanting more private time with Mattie because his wifes absence he recalls his wife Zeenas first coming to his home when his mother was ill， and he also gives us some information about Zeenas family background. This part is obvious a complete external analepsis which fills reader reading blankness. There are many analepses in the second narrative although the whole second narrative itself an analepsis. Obviously， these analepses functions as supplementary instructions which helps readers to get the answers of the questions produced at the beginning or in the reading process.

3. On temporal duration

On the other hand， in Ethan Frome， Edith Wharton reproduces the four-day story in a delicate way and makes the story in nine chapters， aiming at presenting the entangled love among the three people in detail and uncovering the suspense step by step. According to Genette， the duration of the second narrative covered four days and the length extends nine chapters. This narrative method makes readers produce questions and want to know what will happen next because of the very slow speed of the narrative， and we can also see clearly that the narrative time is far longer than the story time in the second narrative of Ethan Frome.

As far as Genette is concerned， there are four kinds of relationship between narrative time （NT） and story time （ST） in Narrative Discourse and they could be illustrated as following：

（1）Pause： NT=n， ST=0. Thus： NT∞>ST

（2）Scene： NT=ST

（3）Summary： NT

（4）Ellipsis： NT=0， ST=n. Thus： NT<∞ST

As the given illustration presents， a pause could be an environmental or psychological description in which no event appeares but narrative goes on. In Ethan Frome there are many environmental descriptions almost at the beginning of every chapter.

And summary is “the narration in a few paragraphs or a few pages of several days， months， or years of existence， without details of action or speech”， employed to convey rapidly a stretch of past time. Take also Ethans recalling of Zeenas coming as an example， Ethan reminisces from the time Zeena first coming to his house helping nurse his mother to the time of present （the second narrative time）， there is no overt time signs in the narrative， but obviously several years passed in five paragraphs， so in this part， a summary is used to give readers a simple supplementary information about Zeenas illness and her unhealthy marriage with Ethan.

From the temporal point of view， ellipsis， in Narrative Discourse is a situation where the story time is elided. And it is said that if the duration elided is indicated， it is called definite ellipses. If not， it is called indefinite ellipses. Chapter eight mentions Ethans small room that “He still took refuge there in summer， but when Mattie came to live at the farm he had had to give her his stove， and consequently the room was uninhabitable for several month of the year.” “Several months” here means Mattie had lived in his house for several mouths but it doesnt tell anything during the several months but from three days before now.

Scene gives readers a feeling of participating in the action intensely. The crisis， the climax， of a sequence of actions is always narrated in scene. We may say that traditional novelistic narrative consists of the alteration between summary and scene， which reflects a contrast between the nondramatic and the dramatic. In Ethan Frome dialogues take a big proportion in the narrative， this kind of dramatic dialogue is the very presenting of scene， and also in the last part of the story， when it comes to the climax of the “smash-up”， we could see the close relationship between narrative and the action.

4. Conclusion

Compared with other arts， literature is an art produced and developed by time， and classical narratology take a great effort in decoding the time in literary work trying to present the inner functions of the work， it has no meaning to find the meaning of this decoding， its just an interesting job which could make works more understandable and readers more clear about what they had learned. On the other hand， the recent developed post-classical narratology which emphasizes on cultural decoding of literary work of course has its advantage for nows international communication， but the study of text itself is also indispensible for the connotation which hided in the superficial level of langue. Undoubtedly， most writers adapted various kinds of writing skills to make their works more accepted， highly spoken of by different receiving groups. For Edith Wharton， her Ethan Frome is the very representative of her writing style for using long environmental and psychological description which featured her “custom writer”. And when you read her work， you would have a feeling that you traverse to the 19th century and see everything she is telling， unaware of the passage of time.

【Bibliography】

[1] Gennette， Gerard. Narrative Discourse， An Essay in Method， Jane E. Lewin（trans）. New York： Cornell University Press， 1980.

[2] Wharton， Edith. 1987. Ethan Frome， New York： Penguin Group （USA） Inc.

[3] 戴卫·赫尔曼. 新叙事学[M]. 马海良， 译. 北京： 北京大学出版社， 2002.

[4] J.希利斯·米勒. 解读叙事[M]. 申 丹， 译. 北京： 北京大学出版社， 2002.

[5] 李 晖， 王晓兰. 从叙述者看《伊坦·弗洛美》的叙事艺术[M]. 南昌航空工业学院学报， 2004（4）：60-62.