Non-anthropological narrators in English prose

Статтю присвячено аналізу різних типів нараторів. Встановлено, що, крім традиційних оповідачів, автори іноді обирають нетрадиційних оповідачів, щоб показати світ з іншого погляду. Цей феномен дістав назву «дефаміліаризація», або «очуднення». Його сутність полягає в тому, що погляд вигаданого оповідача незнайомий читачеві. Оповідач має бути виключений із суспільного оточення читача (монстр, вампір, привид, предмет та ін.). Наратив від коня, собаки, вази дозволяє показати речі з незвичного погляду.

Специфіка світосприйняття неантропологічних оповідачів у англомовної прозі полягає в тому, що розповідачі, прагнучи осягнути навколишній світ і взаємостосунки людей у ньому через власні відчуття, міркування намагаються пізнати навколишній світ і, зокрема, людей.

Неантропологічні оповідачі представлені антропоморфними нараторами (анімалістичними; фантастичними створіннями; предметами-нараторами). Тварини осягають світ своєю логікою, тлумачать реальність по-своєму, не так як люди. Специфіка світосприйняття неантропологічних нараторів відтворюється особливою лінгвістичною організацією наратива. Для окремих типів наратора (фантастичні створіння, міфічна істота) світ надприродного є реальним.

Прикладом неантропологічних оповідачів слугують суб'єкти метафізичних явищ: душа померлої людини, ангели, привиди тощо. У такий спосіб досягається оновлений погляд на все давно знайоме й повсякденне, відбувається розмитість змістових меж «опису світу», руйнуються шаблони сприйняття. Автор, залучаючи неантропологічного наратора, прагне показати іншу картину світу, іншу логіку, іншу систему стосунків.

Неантропологічні наратори у 20% випадків є периферійними персонажами (предмети, артефакти). Їх основний рольовий статус - спостерігачі подій. Тварина-наратор і фантастичні створіння найчастіше є центральними персонажами.

Неантропологічний наратор здатен показати різноманітність світу, збагатити уявлення читача про довкілля, а саме - розширити часові рамки, відтворити події, що охоплюють період більший за життя антропологічних нараторів.

Незвичність «очуднення» як типу оповіді передбачає спотворення художнього простору через суб'єктивність сприйняття неантропологічним наратором об'єктивного світу.

Передаючи оповідь неживим предметам, автор має за мету уникнути стереотипності у світосприйнятті читача, висвітлити зображувану дійсність у непередбачуваному ракурсі.

Ключові слова: наратор, антропологічний наратор, неантропологічний наратор, передоручена оповідь, англомовна проза.

Entrusted narration was investigated by many scientists, among which are: KA Dolinin, М.V. ^shuba, VA. Kukharenko, GI. Sorokopud and others. It represents the refusal of the author from manifest presence in the composition and giving the presentation to fictitious narrator Кухаренко В.А. (2004). Інтерпретація тексту. Навчальний посібник для студентів старших курсів факультетів англійської мови, Вінниця: НОВА КНИГА, 272 с..

The relevance of the study is based on the fact that nowadays there is no full classification of the types of the narrators in prose. The scientific novelty is the suggested classification of the narrators in English prose. We suggest the dividing all the narrators into two big groups: anthropological narrators (human beings) and non-anthropological narrators. In our classification for indication antropomorphous (humaniform / humanlike) narrators we shall use the term non-anthropological.

The aim of the article is to describe the peculiarities of non-anthropological narrators in English prose. anthropological narrator english prose

Narrators may be represented not only by human beings, but also by animals (a horse, a dog, a cat), insects (woodworm), mythological creatures (monsters, vampires), fantastic creatures (gnomes, artificial intelligence, ghosts), substance, inanimate objects / artifacts (a vase, a bottle) and other inhuman creatures.

The possible list of narrators in our classification is presumably wider (it can include plants and unknown objects).

Such non-traditional points of view as narrative by a horse, a dog, a vase allow showing things from unexpected angle. All the described narrators are remoted from the described events.

Narrator in Anna Sewell's story «Black Beauty» is a horse Black Beauty. This antropomorphous narrator is capable not only to speak and to think, but also has human emotions. The story represents autobiography of animalistic narrator, who is old and distant from the events described.

The horse's speech is simple as it is addressed to children (children's book):

It often went to my heart to see how the little ponies were used, straining along with heavy loads, or staggering under heavy blows from some low cruel boy. Once I saw a little gray pony... He was doing his best to pull a heavy cart, while a strong rough boy was cutting him under the belly with his whip, and chucking cruelly at his little mouth Sewell A. (1994), Black Beauty : [novel], London : Penguin Books, 213 p..

Antropomorphous narrator has his own peculiarities of world perception. He perceives the world in a different way, not as people do. Some parameters of animal perception are developed more than human (e.g. hearing, odor sense modality):

... the clean fresh smell there was about him made me to take to him; no smell of old beer and tobacco, which I hated, but a fresh smell as if he had come out of a hay-loft (ibid).

Hearing the human voice, the horse can even characterize the person: He seemed very low- spirited; I knew that by his voice. I believe we horses can tell more by the voice than many men can (ibid).

The topic of the horse's speech is food, other horses, nature and people. The horse sees seven colours: black, white, grey, blue, red, brown and green, among which three colours are the most common (white, black, grey). Other colours are represented by hues - dark, dark green, ghastly white.

The horse possesses many human emotions: joy, sadness, fear, pride, hatred and so on: With a joyful whinny I trotted up to her; we were both glad to meet, but I soon found that it was not for our pleasure that she was brought to be with me (ibid).

It was very terrible! and made both Ginger and me feel very bad (ibid).

I was dreadfully afraid he would have me, but he walked off (ibid).

... I felt rather proud to carry my master (ibid).

.. that was the crupper: I hated the crupper - to have my long tail doubled up and poked through that strap was almost as bad as the bit (ibid).

He likes liberty and feels loneliness:

. though I enjoyed the liberty and the sweet grass, yet I had been so long used in society that Ifelt very lonely (ibid).

Narrator in Ann Rice's story «Vittorio, the Vampire» is a mythological creature - vampire:

Night was coming on.

I hurried into alleyway and stood there, against the wall, catching my breath as though someone was chasing me. I let the little cup fall and it shattered loudly, the noise echoing up the towering buildings.

I was half out of my wits.

But instantly and fully aware of my situation, and convinced of the horrors I had discovered, I made an inflexible decision.

I wasn't safe in the Inn, so what did this matter? I was going to do it my way and see for myself.

This is what I did.

In spite of the fact that vampire's speech represents written communication: My name is Vittorio, and I write this now in the tallest tower of the ruined mountaintop castle in which I was born, in the northernmost part of Tuscany, that most beautiful of lands in the very center of Italy (ibid), sometimes it has interjections (typical sign of oral speech): Ah. This is too much for me! (ibid)

The above mentioned narrators - animalistic and vampire are central characters. These personages are the main heroes and take active part in the events they narrate.

Narrator in Julian Barnes's novel «A History of the World in 10 'A Chapters» is a woodworm, who cannot see anything, but he, being the descendant of many generations of woodworms, inhabited in St. Michael church, describes the events, heard from birds. Such unusual narrator even not only has a capability to argue and philosophize, but also considers himself to be even equal to a man:

I know your species tends to look down on our world... But among us there had always been, from the beginning, a sense of equality.

The introduction of inanimate narrator, according to E.V. Igina, is an extreme case of explicit escape of the author .

The story can be told by an inanimate object (artifact) - a vase, a bottle. An example of such narrator can be an old vase in Tibor Fischer's story «The Collector Collector» or a wine bottle in Joanne Harris's story «Blackberry Wine».

In the above mentioned stories all the events are shown through object's perception.

The main personage (the storyteller) in Tibor Fischer's story «The Collector Collector» is an old ceramic vase dated 843 B.C. She is more than 2000 years old. According to the story the vase is alive, knows more than 5000 languages, changed many owners, can change form and size. She thinks that it is she, who collects, not people. She classifies its masters and the people

caught in her sight, and gives them number: The Chin (Forty Thousand One Hundred and Nine)

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Of bosom, there are two hundred and twenty styles, of buttocks, two hundred and eighty- four. I order. I know. I do my job (ibid).

Her navel is type sixty seven of two thousand, two hundred and thirty-four, the buried bald man.

To date I have catalogued twenty-five assorted dirt-pushers, nineteen unknowns, fifteen herdsmen, fourteen warriors, ten maids, nine seamstresses, seven bakers, six strumpets, five cooks, five members of the nobility or lugalling classes, three discoboli, three singers, three users of ink, two ferrymen, two flute players, two lace makers, two monarchs, two slaves... (ibid) .

The vase not only collects people but also gives them nicknames, underlying their distinguishing features of appearance: (Nose, Tatman, The Beard, The Chin, Perforation), character (Vote Now, The Champion), or peculiarities of behavior, (Wordless, Bloodsuckerissimus).

Such judgment from the side of inanimate object makes us, people, look critically at ourselves.

The vase differentiates a lot of coloures and hues: For irises, there are ten thousand, nine hundred and forty-nine principal hues. Rosa has mostly the grey I term mullet grey (ibid).

The vase declares that: The inanimate, with the help of night can move... (ibid).

The vase not only describes the events, but also philosophizes and predicts:

The check has surely cleared by now and Nikki is off to unpay more bills, to take perhaps a turn from betraying to being betrayed in her turn.

Prognostication: she will return to Market Harborough and close the circle ending up in the last place she expected. The back of Market Harborough is furthest away from its front (ibid).

Prognostication: this is the man Rosa will spend the rest of her life arguing with. In time they will speak of Nikki with fondness, the matchless matchmaker who gave them both a flat worth living in. They will be collaborators on the most chryselephantine pleasure.

Over the years he will annoy her by being late and then pretending when they arrive that it was Rosa s fault. When Lettuce marries he will vex Rosa by the stinginess of the wedding present he buys. Rosa s choice of candlesticks will infuriate him, as well as her harshness to spiders (ibid).

In contrast to the moving observers, who can choose and change their own position (perspective), object-narrators are stationary objects. They capture only what they see, giving the impression of a lack of integrity of perception of the world. Instead of a coherent picture of the life its fragments are portrayed. The author, hiding behind the mask of the vase-narrator, shows the impossibility of the object-narrator to tell everything in order, so it tells the story of the most memorable and noticeable events. The facts, events, phenomena, at first glance, devoid of logic, inconsistent, but united internally and inevitable are selected. In General, the narrative constitutes scattered impressions, meetings, conversations, monologues, dialogues. Fragmentary perception is reflected in the speech of the narrator due to the ellipsis: Everything. Been it. Seen it. Mean it (ibid).

At the same time, instead of the fullness of being vase's world is marked by «fragmentary existence» and «narrow observations». Despite the irony in the story, the vase - narrator understands perfectly well that readers may not perceive it as a person.

The same pattern is observed in bottle's narration (in Joanne Harris's novel «BlackBerry Wine»), who perceives the world through its darkened glass: Wrong again. Nothing. Silence. (ibid). As it itself says: through a glass, darkly (ibid). The absence of indentation at the beginning of the chapters and at the beginning of the story contributes to the fragmentation of the description. It seems that the action starts in the middle. The story of the wine bottle begins with the statement that in its opinion, people know that the wine talks:

Wine talks. Everyone knows that. Look around you. Ask the oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holly fool. It talks. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great things, splendid plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It opens up summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places; every one, from the commonest Liebfraumilch to the imperious 1945 Veuve Clicquot, a humble miracle. Everyday magic, Joe called it. The transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams. Layman s alchemy.

Take me, for instance. Fleurie, 1962. Last survivor of a crate of twelve, bottled and laid down the year Jay was born (ibid).

Color perception of the wine bottle-narrator is diverse: raspberry red, elderflower green, blackberry blue, rosehip yellow, dampsom black (ibid).

The lower biological entity and the object-narrators are peripheral characters. They cannot be active participants in the events due to their physical abilities (the woodworm beetle practically does not move, because it is a larva and sits in a wooden beam, and object-narrators are stationary objects) and act in the role of a witness to the events.

Thus, among the non-anthropological narrators the following anthropomorphic narrators (animals, lower forms of biological development, fantastic essence and objects-narrators) were singled out. The research showed that objects-narrators are peripheral characters. Their role status is the observers of the events.

The entrusted narration has the aim to entrust the story to such a narrator, who would be able to show the diversity of the world, to expand the reader's understanding of the surrounding reality. An important role in the creation of «ostraneniye» narrative belongs to such nonanthropological anthropomorphic narrators as: animals, lower biological forms, a fantastic entity, objects.

Giving the opportunity to tell the story to inanimate objects, the author pursues the purpose to avoid stereotypical perception of the world by the reader, to show the described reality in an unusual foreshortening.

The modern writer, understanding how complex the world is, seeks to portray it so as to overcome the stereotype of reader's perception. The implementation of the theory of «ostraneniye» allows going beyond the usual perception of the world.

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