storytelling: second lecture

Fiction as a Laboratory for Ethics

SECOND LECTURE

sjoerd-jeroen [email protected] education | storytelling | culture

WHAT EXCITES YOUR READER?

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sjoerd-jeroen [email protected] http://moenandar.blogspot.com

o Show don’t tell!o Consider the

grotesque: zoom in on the (disgusting) detail

o Describe emotions and experiences instead of naming them.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR READER ENGAGED?

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o Is not excited by information

o Is not excited by the opinion of the author

o Is excited by reading as an experience

THE READER OF FICTION…

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WHAT EXCITES YOUR READER?

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FIRST SENTENCES THAT STIR CURIOSITY

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“Autumn was drawing to a close when Jaspar brought the Disease to Kadis.”- Torgny Lindgren, The Light -

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit -

FIRST SENTENCES THAT CREATE TENSION

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“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”- Donna Tartt, The Secret History -

FIRST SENTENCES THAT ENGAGE THE READER

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“Granted: I'm an inmate in a mental institution.”- Günter Grass, The Tin Drum -

“Call me Ismael.”- Herman Melville, Moby Dick -

FIRST SENTENCES THAT SHOCK

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“When Daan Hollander, history teacher at DataCare College in Amsterdam fucked fifth grader Hajar for the first time, she kept her headscarf on – as requested by him”- Robert Anker, Hajar and Daan -

EXERCISE 1

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Write a first sentence for your story

THE VALUE FO ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN FICTION

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Fiction is always a form of ethics

o Fiction is imaginaryo What’s the

relevance if it is only lies?

o “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” (Albert Camus)

WHAT IS FICTION?

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FICTION AS A LABORATORY FOR ETHICS

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Roy Andersson, World of Glory (1989)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7pQG5Iv784







EXERCISE 2

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Write down what you find the most morally reprehensible thing. Write a concrete situation.

So DON’T write:I find animal abuse morally reprehensible.

BUT: I find it morally reprehensible when a woman beats a

cat against a wall until it dies.

POINT OF VIEW: FOCALISATION

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Arafat visits Sderot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hxXPGvuJjSY




oFocalisation: look, feel, smell etc. (experience)

oFocalisator: the character from whose point of view we focalise (experience) the story

POINT OF VIEW: FOCALISATION

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NO FOCALISATOR: EXTERNAL FOCALISATION

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The lovers sat at the deserted rivershore, the full moon above them. He held her close to him. Their lips met.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘something is bothering me.’‘Say it, darling,’ he said.‘Have you read Das Kapital by Karl Marx?’‘No, but I always wanted to.’He started to unbutton her blouse.‘Have some patience,’ she said. ‘Let’s read Das Kapital. I brought a

copy.’He withdrew his hand and said: ‘As you wish.’

They lit a lamp there along the river and started to read:

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”After many months, when they had finished the four volumes of Das Kapital, he continued his caresses. .

‘I love you,’ she said.The moon shone on them.

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Post Scriptum: The readers are kindly requested to acquire the four volumes of Das Kapital and to put its tekst where the dots are. When they have done so, this little story will become the longest social realist novel in contemporary literature.

(O.V. Vijayan, “A Progressive Classic”)

FOCALISATION THROUGH A CHARACTER: INTERNAL FOCALISATION

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oFixed focalisation: the whole story is told from the point of view of one character (please note: this doesn’t necessarily have to be an I-narrator)

oVariable focalisation: several focalisators throughout the story.

INTERNAL FOCALISATION, FIXED FOCALISATOR

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Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?'So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. .

(Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland)

INTERNAL FOCALISATION, VARIABLE FOCALISATOR

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He had to repress the urge to keep checking his phone. The taste of the foul machine coffee that he’d drunk after lunch was so all-pervasive that it was almost impossible for him to think clearly. “There is very little I can do about it now,” he said, and looked past her shoulder , through the window. A large group of swallows had come down among the blackberry bushes.

Not much wiser she drove back to the village that afternoon. Why had Alan asked her to come? In the end, he’d told her very little she didn’t know yet. Nothing that he hadn’t already talked extensively about before.

SO: THREE TYPES OF FOCALISATION

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o External focalisationo Internal focalisation• Fixed focalisator• Variable focalisator

Please note! An I-narrator always means internal focalisation, fixed focalisator, but this is not true the other way around!

o Dilemma: main character has to choose

o Best dilemmas are moral dilemmas

o It is in the dilemma that fiction truly becomes a laboratory for ethics

o What could the moral dilemma be in your own story?

ETHICS IN A STORY: DILEMMA

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EXERCISE 3

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Write a fictional account of the immoral act you described in assignment 2.

Describe this act with the perpetrator of the act as the focalisator.

Also, remember: show, don’t tell.

storytelling: second lecture

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