克里斯托弗·诺兰电影《盗梦空间》中叙述转叙的认知诗学研究文献综述

 2021-12-28 20:42:07

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文献综述

1. IntroductionChristopher Edward Nolan is a British-American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Nolans films are typically rooted in epistemological and metaphysical themes, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. His work is permeated by mathematically inspired images and concepts, unconventional narrative structures, practical special effects, experimental soundscapes, large-format film photography, and materialistic perspectives.In 2010, Christopher Nolans film Inception was released and became a big hit. The film depicts a possible future, where scientific methods allow people to and influence others dreams. In this world, a team of dream experts are assigned to invade a powerful tycoons subconscious mind during his vulnerable dream state and plant an idea against the magnates will, commissioned by Fischers business rival, Mr. Saito. In the movie, Nolan, through his fiction, diegetises the narrative idea of permeable embedded narrative levels, shaping them like nested layers of a Russian doll. The fiction, building up an embedded dream-reality, follows the spatial metaphor common to our language: the deeper you dream, the deeper you descend into an embedded structure of dreams within dreams within dreams, and so on (Kiss 2012: 37-38). This thesis aims to study on the narrative skill used in the movie-narrative metalepsis based on the discourse worlds theory and mental spaces theory.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction part, which provides the research background, research questions and the overall structure. Chapter Two focuses on the review of literature, containing the brief introduction to narrative metalepsis, and related cognitive poetics theories. Chapter Three introduces the theoretical framework. Chapter Four analyzes narrative metalepsis in the film. The last chapter is the concluding section, which summarizes the major findings, points out the limitations and proposes some suggestions for further study.2. Literature Review2.1 Previous studies on narrative metalepsis2.1.1 Defining narrative metalepsisAfter discussing examples of the way to transit narrative levels, Genette concludes that such a way as any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.) or the inverse (1980: 234-235). And he terms the above-mentioned way as narrative metalepsis and extends this concept to all transgressions, the shifting but sacred frontier between two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells (236). In this concept, there are two key points: narrative levels and world (Zhang 2019). Genette distinguishes narrative levels by saying that any event a narrative recounts is at diegetic level immediately higher than the level at which the narrating act producing this narrative is placed (1980: 228).According to this definition, there are three narrative levels, namely, the extradiegetic level (where the narration is carried out), the diegetic/intradiegetic level (where events happen inside the narration), and the metadiegetic level (where events are told inside the diegetic level).Two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells (Genette 1980: 236) refer to spaces created on each narrative level. Doleel (1988) holds that fictional worlds in literature are possible ones based on the narration and they occupy their own ontological status. Under the theoretical framework, each fictional world ontologically exists, which largely expands the study field of narrative metalepsis. With narrative metalepsis widely applied to films, television, drama and other modern media, to study its application, many scholars adopt the definition of world in possible worlds theory (Zhang 2019).2.1.2 Classification of Narrative MetalepsisIn Narrative Discourse, Genette mentions only one type of narrative metalepsis: authors metalepsis, which consists of pretending the poet himself brings about the effects he celebrates (1980: 234). Since then, narrative metalepsis has mainly been classified into four types: epistemological metalepsis, ontological metalepsis, rhetorical metalepsis and recursive metalepsis (Zhang 2019).Epistemological metalepsis occurs when the fictional character is aware of their fictional existence (Wolf, Bantleon, Thoss 2009: 53) or has the knowledge of the world of narration (Hanebeck 2017: 85). In German comic series Der Vielfra aus dem All, in order to get rid of the annoying alien monster, Donald Duck tears off lower left quarter of the book and throw a sandwich there, along with which the gluttonous alien monster also jumps out of the picture, implying that it gets out of the story and the world where Donald Duck exists.Ontological metalepsis refers to the paradoxical, yet seemingly actual, physical transgression of a logical or ontological border between two levels or worlds by a character or object (Wolf et al. 2009: 53). According to the direction of the transgression, ontological metalepsis can be divided into ascending metalepsis, descending metalepsis and horizontal metalepsis (Zhang 2019). In an ascending metalepsis, a fictional character or narrator moves into a hierarchically higher storyworld, while in a descending metalepsis, the character or narrator goes into an embedded storyworld or the author jumps from the actual world into the storyworld. In addition, a horizontal metalepsis happens when the character or the narrator move between two parallel storyworlds (Bell Alber 2012: 168). In ontological metalepses, it is important to distinguish between storyworlds. Therefore, the concepts of trans-world identity and counterpart are utilized to elucidate what happens in the ontological metalepses (Bell Alber 2012: 170).Rhetorical metalepsis interrupts the representation of the current level through a voice that originates in or addresses a lower level, but without popping the top level from stack (Ryan 2006: 206). This definition emphasizes that rhetorical metalepsis does not include physical transgression, which is the distinction between ontological metalepsis. Hanebeck defines rhetorical metalepsis as temporary breach as the crossing the boundary is implicit. The narrator steps into the diegesis, interrupting or commenting on the action without any physical or verbal interaction with the storyworld, which means that characters in the storyworld do not have any idea about the narrators or narratees existence (2017: 89).Recursive metalepsis occurs when transgressions repeat the higher-order or lower-order domains violating the logic, or make the distinction between higher-order or lower-order impossible (Hanebeck 2017: 100-101). It is very similar to Hofstadters strange loops and tangled hierarchies which occur when what you assume are clear hierarchical levels take you by surprise and fold back in a hierarchy violating-way (Hofstadter 1979: 391). Also, as a particular strange loop, moebius strip belongs to recursive metalepsis, where the storyworld is created by an act of narrative representation situated within the storyworld it generates (Hanebeck 2017: 101).2.1.3 Functions of Narrative MetalepsisFirstly, it produces an effect of strangeness that is either comical [] or fantastic (Genette 1980: 235). Also, it may arouse questioning towards the reality of existence (Zhang 2019), just as what Genette says, if the roles of characters and readers or spectators can be exchanged, then readers or spectators can also be regarded as fictious characters and the narrative levels are just relative (1980: 236).Secondly, narrative metalepsis can also have deep effects. Klimek (2009: 169-187) finds that in different cases, narrative metalepsis has effects of illusion/immersion or anti-illusion/immersion.Genette also finds three relationships between narrative levels in narrative metalepsis. The first type is casual relationship, thus conferring on the second narrative an explanatory function. The second relationship is purely thematic, which means implying the theme of the narration. The third type is no explicit relationship, function as distraction or obstruction (1980: 232-233).2.2 Previous studies on InceptionAs a huge success, Inception arouses a lot of interests and attention.Sinha (2017) pays attention to the ideology of the film. He finds that the main reason why Cobb and his partners can implant ideas into others mind is that in dreams people are the most vulnerable. It is very easy to violate and change their ideas. Then Sinha focuses on the political and ideological implications of the film. Based on the Marxist analysis of how ideas in a capitalist society are produced as commodities for consumption, he makes a materialistic critique of the film.Doll (2018) analyses the music in the film and he finds that in reality the music is normal while in dreams the music becomes distorted, which is compatible with the time changes in dreams, implying that the music in the film can be seen as time signal.In the film, reality and dreams are tangled, which confuses audience and makes it hard to distinguish dreams from reality. Volkov analyses the film and concludes three laws of reality: firstly, things existing in reality still hold their characteristics in a dream (a gyro will eventually stop spinning because of fraction in reality); secondly, contradictory things can only appear in dreams because they never happen in reality(the city cannot be bent 180 degrees as it is shown in one of the scenes of the film); lastly, there are causal relationships between reality and dreams, referring to influences the reality has on dreams (guilt that Cobb experiences after Mals suicide manifests in her constant appearance in his dreams) (2018).2.3 Research gapThe film is famous for its complex narrative devices. Kiss (2010) focuses on the study of narrative metalepsis as diegetic concept and shows the complexity of the narration of the film. Lugea (2013) adopts text world theory and Ryans model of the fictional worlds to analyze its narratives skills and its plot relation. This study is going to adopt the discourse worlds theory and mental spaces theory to re-study the narrative metalepsis in the film, which has not been used before.

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