Analysing the Black Cat Using Labov’s Narrative Structure

Objectives

For this assignment, the study aims to

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1. produce a frequency chart according to the elements of Labov’s Narrative Structure
2. discuss the way Edgar Allen Poe structured his short story to form the elements of tragedy, mystery, and terror as presented in the short story

In completing the task, I will use Labov’s Narrative Theory to conduct a narrative analysis of the short story, The Black Cat written by Edgar Allan Poe. The structure of this essay begins with the introduction to narrative and narrative analysis.

The second part develops in the literature review where I will explain Labov’s Narrative Structure and introduce the author of the story, Edgar Allan Poe. The section ends with a discussion of The Black Cat from non-linguistic perspectives proposed by different scholars. The peak of the task is in the third part which is the analysis of the story where the discussion mainly covers the most appealing element from Labov’s Theory used by Allan Poe to structure his story to create terror and horror sentiments. The analysis will be seen from a linguistic point of view on how linguistic features or forms are associated with certain functions.

Introduction

Defining Narrative The word ‘Narrative’ derives from the Latin name which means ‘to make known’, so narratives frequently convey information. If we are using this definition, perhaps it may cover a wide range of formats or genres which may not be considered narrative as in the timetable or lab report.

Lacey points out that what distinguishes narrative from other forms is that it presents information as a connected sequence of events and these events are structured logically and causally; each event is derived from the previous event. Wikipedia,  explains in a broader context that a narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format in a form of writing, speech, poetry, prose, pictures, song, motion pictures, video games, theatre, or dance which describe a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events.

The simplest way of describing the term narrative is someone telling someone else that something happened. Barbara’s definition of the narrative reflects the idea that narrative occurs in most of daily conversations and involves personal experience and interest. In All American: Glossary of Literary Terms, the narrative is seen as a collection of events that tells a story, which may be true or not, placed in a particular order and recounted through either telling or writing.

It is a recapitulating event that is told by someone and it is naturally and purposely arranged in an acceptable way. Literary Terms and Definition proposes narrative as a story or an account in which it is usually creative and imaginative rather than strictly factual, as evidenced in fairy tales, legends, novels, novelettes, short stories, etceteras. The involvement of personal touch in many narrative works allows readers to create an imaginative atmosphere that brings the readers into the authors’ world and even in some narratives, they persuade the readers to view the world through their eyes.

The motives behind literary work are perhaps hidden behind the characters’ disposition and also the description of scenes and situations. Other scholars like Seymour Chatman and Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, point out that narrative is a structure that is made up of narrative statements and narrative consists of characteristics as follows; events, governed by temporality, or – more precisely – a double temporality (the chronology of the events and their presentation in the text); telling or narration, as an act of mediation or transmission which, in literature, is verbal.

Labov defines narrative as consisting minimally of two temporally ordered clauses, and reversing the order of the clauses would change the story. In his hypothesis with his friend, Waletzky, fundamental narrative structures are to be found in oral versions of personal experience which are the ordinary narratives of ordinary speakers. By looking at many narratives, they wish to identify and relate formal linguistic properties of narratives to their functions. Labov and Waletzky have come out with a framework that functions as a tool in analyzing narrative literary text linguistically.

The understanding behind this framework is narrative can be seen as socially situated through a sociolinguistic approach. Cortazzi stresses that narrative is more than a linear order of narrative structure. In fact, if a narrative plainly follows the order or sequence of this circular structure, perhaps it may be abnormal. The narrative is an author’s personal touch and it serves as an additional function of personal interest, determined by a stimulus in the social context in which the narrative occurs.

The definition given by Toolan is comprehensively acceptable in that narrative is defined as a perceived sequence of non-randomly events, typically involving, as the experiencing agonist, humans or quasi-humans, or other sentient beings, from whose experience we humans can ‘learn’. He also extends the definition by stating that our preference is often for the sequence of connected events to take shape around a state or period of turbulence or crisis, subsequently resolved that is while a sequence of events entails some sort of change of state, a sequence containing a resolved crisis or problems entails a pronounced change of state.

The Importance of Narrative Analysis of Literary Text Stories is an important aspect of culture and many literary works convey stories and motives. Narrative analysis has contributed to development in many disciplines and has been a tool for a better understanding of the literary text and anything underlies behind it. The importance of NA is that it allows analysts to draw connections between linguistic form and function.

The clauses as functional linguistic units that appeared in narratives are structured and formed to meet the need of the author to logically create a narrative sequence. The linguistic features that exist in narrative text, have somehow portrayed certain patterns of structures in which help to develop particular genres and this pattern too has helped readers to create better images in mind. In other words, through such analysis, we can relate the formal properties of narratives to their functions.

The analysis is formal where it is conducted based upon recurrent patterns and characteristics of narrative from the clause level to the complete simple narrative the analysis is functional and will be considered as one verbal technique for recapitulating experience- in particular a technique of constructing narrative units that match the temporal sequence of that experience.

The idea behind Labov and Waletzky’s notion is to isolate the elements of narratives that serve certain linguistic functions where fundamental structures which are to be found in oral versions of personal experiences are usually interconnected with the functions they serve. NA is also engaged in other educational disciplines. The narrative has been the subject of intensive research in a variety of disciplines, with work in contemporary literary theory leading the way (as represented in such "movements" as post-structuralism, reader-response criticism, deconstructionism, feminist theory, and neo-Marxist approaches to texts and society). Researchers use narrative analysis to deal with the problems of effective communication and class and ethnic differences. Researchers in education find NA allows access to study teachers’ culture and thinking, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Cortazzi stresses that the use of NA encourages us to develop descriptions of teachers’ culture which preserve their voices.

These thoughts are put into writings and each period (such as the Classical period, Medieval period, Renaissance and Reformation period, Neoclassical period, Romantic period, Victorian period and Modern period, and Postmodern period) represents the background of its society and even political changes. Chafe sees narratives as ‘overt manifestations of the mind in action: as windows to both the content of the mind and its going operations. Narratives can therefore be seen as opening a window to the mind, or, if we are analyzing narratives of a specific group of tellers, as opening a window to their culture. In the Malaysian context, the knowledge of analyzing narratives would encourage better participation and engagement from both teachers and students. The ability to isolate the elements of narratives and to identify the functions of the forms, motivate learning for a better understanding of the literary work. However, it depends on how creative the teachers are to implement and make use of this tool (NA) to incorporate literature in language classrooms.

Besides that, by studying oral or written accounts of personal experience, the students would be able to see the author’s representations and explanations of experience. Primary and secondary school students should be taught and exposed to technical terms and structure of literature to promote interest and attitude towards literature. Besides that, attitude towards literature should be inculcated from an early in order to promote appreciation towards the work of literature.

Since the late 90s, many Malaysian writers have been into the trend of producing romantic novels (in Malay, such a genre is called novel pics). Compared to other genres, producing novel pics has been the side income for many Malaysian writers. Malaysian should be encouraged to produce diverse genres and government plays a vital role in promoting reading culture among Malaysians. The idea behind this is to increase the development of the Malaysian publishing industry.

But it is undeniable that this industry faces obstacles and challenges which it may require a major revamp of the present National Book Council to give it more strength in overseeing the implementation of the policy and the existing book-related laws. Malaysia has some of the important ingredients of a successful publishing industry: a considerably high level of literacy, strong government support for education, relatively modest technical resources that are required, commitment towards the development of information technology, and dedicated entrepreneurs willing to take risks in a difficult economic climate.

However, our book publishing sector is far from successful and there are several obstacles hampering the development of books in terms of their availability, accessibility, and affordability. Analysing Narratives Linguistically Since narratives demand at least two connected events, then, using linguistics, we could say that ‘grammatically... the minimum requirements for a story are two clauses, whether these occur in a single complex sentence or two simple sentences’.

Lacey illustrates that the statement “The King is dead” is not sufficient enough to be considered as narrative but by adding another clause, “and the queen has died of grief”, then narrative exists. When the clauses are connected with certain linguistic functions, a series of events occur. Although narrative can exist without any words at all, the fact that its structure is comparable to the structure of the sentence is evidence of its universality. He also emphasizes that the concept of the sequence is crucial and without the development of sequence there is no narrative.

Narrative analysis is an analysis of a chronologically told story, in which concerned with how narrative elements are sequenced and why certain elements are evaluated differently from others and how past experience shapes perceptions of the present and how present experience shapes perceptions of the past, and how both shape perceptions of the future.

Literature review

Labov’s Narrative Structure Sociological and sociolinguistic views of narrative have been developing since the 1960s and have influenced many scholars to challenge traditional narrative models to come out with better frameworks for narrative text analysis. Labov’s Narrative Structure is a sociolinguistic approach that examines the formal structural properties of narratives in relation to their social functions. The objective of this theory is to show that there is a correlation between form and its function. Labov’s model of narrative analysis comprises six elements (certain elements are optional): Abstract, Orientation, Complicating Action, Evaluation, Result or Resolution, and Coda.

It is important for certain narratives to insert this element since it conveys general propositions which often go beyond the immediate events in narratives. Orientation The Orientation specifies the participants and circumstances, place, and time of the narratives and it is equivalent to the setting. This element is often embedded within sentences as in Abstract and Complicating Action. Orientation sometimes initiates the narratives and this structure play a major role in creating the narrative atmosphere desired by the author. It sets the scene psychologically as well as literally to serve the function of being descriptive.

Toolan states that in Orientation, we can expect verb forms other than extensive verbs (such as transitive or intransitive verbs involving action) in the simple past tense. Besides, Orientation is indicated by past perfectives and past progressive verb phrases and intensive verbs such as be, become, seem, etc. Orientation information in most of the time is encoded in free clauses usually placed at the beginning, sometimes coupled with the first event of the Complicating Action. Complicating Action Complicating Actions can be referred to as the core of the narratives. It consists of a series of narrative clauses in the simple past tense, or sometimes in the present tense.

This part of the narrative, the bones of it, gives the event sequence which is often terminated by the Result or Resolution. In addition, the verbs often indicate complicated actions, to show what happens in the story. Evaluation Cortazzi, M., explains that the Evaluation commonly precedes the Resolution and it avoids the withering rejoinder from listeners of ‘so, what? ’ since every good narrator is continually warding off this question. The evaluation is realized by a number of evaluative devices listed below which can be distributed at various points throughout a narrative, although they are commonly positioned before the Resolution.

The evaluation category consists of external and internal evaluative devices. In brief explanation, the external evaluative device has a strong interpersonal function that applies to written texts and in literary fiction, external evaluation devices are most likely in first-person narratives. Black also mentions that internal evaluative devices are generally more subtle than external evaluation. Such self-questioning, and moving between past, present, and future are all characteristics of evaluative devices.

Result or resolution and Coda

The Result often signals the end of the story proper and Coda is a final rounding off, tidying up of the lives of characters.

Figure 1 shows the relation between all the elements under Labov’s model of narrative analysis. It begins with the present time, indicating the Abstract of the narrative, followed by the introduction of the participants, time, circumstances, and places that fall under the Orientation. The next sequence of a narrative is complicating action, to indicate ‘then, what happens?’. The evaluation category is not placed in a fixed position. It often appears between sequences in a story. The author draws the readers to the ending by indicating the Result or Resolution and finally the Coda. For instance, a story told by someone coming late to an appointment might look like this: I had a terrible time getting here.

I started out an hour ago, and I only live a couple of miles away. I was standing at the bus stop for ages, and then when the first bus came it was full, and I had to wait another 20 minutes for the next one (complicating action). I was getting so worried; I really thought you'd be gone by the time I arrived (evaluation). Still, I got here in the end (resolution). I'll know to start earlier if we meet here again, though Discovering Edgar Allan Poe This section mainly discusses on the American writer, Edgar Allan Poe who was also known for his genres; horror fiction, gothic romance, crime fiction, and detective fiction.

He is one the greatest and unhappiest of American poets, a master of the horror tale, and the patron saint of the detective story. The information presented below is cited from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopaedia, The Poe Studies Association. An exploration of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on Jan 19, 1809. He was the second child of actor and actress, David Poe, Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. His elder brother, William Henry Leonard was a sailor, clerk, and also an amateur poet. David and Elizabeth’s daughter Rosalie was born in December 1810.

Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare’s King Lear, a play that the couple was performing in 1809. When he was three years old, David Poe left his family and left his wife, and his children in 1810. A year later, his wife died from consumption. Edgar was taken care of by John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia who involve in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstone, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family gave him the name Edgar Allan Poe and baptized him in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son. In 1815, the Allans sailed to England and while they lived in England, Poe and his stepfather began to argue fiercely and frequently.

Poe was sent to grammar school in Irvine, Scotland, where John Allan was born. He attended the school just for a short period of time and in 1816, he returned and joined the family in London. Mrs. Allan died, John remarried, and he and Poe became even further estranged. In 1826, Poe attended the University of Virginia, but he was expelled later that year. He attended West Point for a short time; while there, he accumulated some gambling debts. John Allan, who was frustrated with Poe’s behavior and attitude, would not help him to pay his debts and Poe had to leave the Academy. He went to Boston in 1827 and, finding that he could not support himself, he enlisted in the United States Army under the name Edgar A. Perry.

After two years, he was released and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where his maternal relatives lived. During this period, newspapers and literary magazines began to be published Poe's work. Tamerlaine and Other Poems appeared in 1827 and Al Aaraaf in 1829. His Manuscript Found in a Bottle won a literary contest in 1833. Three years later, however, his life would change drastically. In May of 1836, he married his 14-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who convinced Poe to settle in Philadelphia, where he obtained regular employment as an editor. In 1844, Poe moved to New York City, taking a job as an editor for another literary magazine, The Evening Mirror.

His most famous and popular poem, The Raven, was published in this magazine; through this one poem, Poe finally achieved his well-deserved reputation as a great writer. In January of 1847, however, after a long illness, Virginia died of tuberculosis. Poe's grief, combined with the stress caused by years of caring for his invalid wife, caused him to collapse emotionally after her death; it is believed that this loss accelerated his drinking problem. Yet two years later, in 1849, he moved back to Richmond and planned to wed Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, a woman Poe had been engaged to marry earlier in life. Poe and Shelton, both now having lost a spouse, renewed their relationship.

They would, however, not marry due to Poe's untimely death, the circumstances of which remain a mystery, even today. He had left Richmond for Baltimore on September 27, 1849, and was found unconscious in a gutter there on October 3rd. Poe had collected approximately $1,500 for subscriptions to his literary magazine, The Stylus, but no money was found with him, leading to the speculation that he might have been robbed. He was taken to a hospital where he regained consciousness a few times, but Poe was never coherent enough to explain what had happened to him. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849.

The Black Cat The Black Cat" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable stories. The tale centers around a black cat and the subsequent deterioration of a man. The story is about a man, who declared that he will die tomorrow, describes himself as a caring and loving man, who from the earliest days of his youth was mocked by others for his timidity and concern for all living things. Based on the literary analysis conducted by Cromwell, J., the narrator (who is also the chief character and author) remains unnamed, but for a purpose. Without a name, he represents every man, or rather, every man’s potential.

In the opening of his story, the character describes himself as docile and tender-natured with a fondness for animals, describing the affection of his pets as “unselfish and self-sacrificing love.  ”Cromwell states that the main character faces the relationships of humans, however, with a cynical clipped tone, “the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.”

Analysing The Black Cat

In analyzing “The Black Cat”, I have used Labov’s Narrative Structure as my theoretical framework for analyzis. To be brief, for this section, I will explain how I have analyzed the short story based on labor’s theory of narrative and followed by a discussion of the findings of the analysis. My focus of discussion is on the elements that show the highest percentage which has constructed and contributed to the great horror effect of Edgar’s short story. As briefly discussed earlier, Labov’s Narrative Structure comprises six categories that serve to structure the narratives.

Each sentence in the short story was given a number to ease the process of categorizing the sentences into abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution, and coda. A close reading was conducted and it took quite some time the completion the analysis. The finding of the analysis of The Black Cat is presented in the bar chart below.

The structure of each sentence represents certain functions as highlighted in Labov’s Narrative Structure. As discussed earlier, Labov’s Narrative Structure consists of six elements which are abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution, and coda. Throughout the analysis, the major finding is the elements of orientation and evaluation present in the short story, as indicated above, show the highest number of sentences. These two elements play major roles in constructing the horror sentiment in the short story. Edgar used these two elements comprehensively and most of the time, they were embedded together to show a certain degree of the emotional state of the character.

Obviously, the setting, symbolism, plot, word choice, and character development contributed greatly to the effect of shocking insanity in Edgar Allan Poe’s masterpiece, “The Black Cat.” Poe’s skillful use of all of these elements, the least of these being set and the greatest of these being character development, creates a shocking tale, which leaves the mind to ponder in all its horror. In the short story, ‘Orientation’ is widely used where Edgar has been descriptive concerning the emotional state and degree of value of the narrator, the situation or places that took place, and also a detailed elaboration on the crime scene, description of the characters’ attitude and world view.

In fact, almost every sentence in the short story consists of an orientation element that functions to create the atmosphere of horror. He begins the story with a clear picture of him being tortured and this destroyed his life. The orientation can refer to a past event with an adverb of time which will mark off the narrative from the previous talk, as an initiating mechanism. He also makes an innocent confession of his crime due to his unstable mental and emotional state through abusing his wife and pets, ‘I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife.’, ‘... I even offered her personal violence’ and “... even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper”.

These sentences have given direct impact on the reader as he has initially stated how his life has been ruined and destroyed. In elaborating on the character of the black cat, which the narrator claimed to be causal to his failure in life, Edgar has selected certain adjectives and connotations that are most suitable and deeply impact words to retain the feeling of horror throughout the story. The words like, ‘frightful appearance’, ‘a brute beast’, ‘my hatred of the beast.’, ‘the terror and horror with which the animal has inspired me.’, and in fact, the word ‘black’ associated with the cat, is sufficient enough to promote the evil spirit derived from the cat.

The repetition of evil and dark connotations leaves the reader with the feeling of terrified and suspense and it shows the terror and horrified as the core atmosphere of the scenes. Towards the end, Edgar was being descriptive and he used the orientation element majorly to describe the inhumane conduct of the narrator and provoke the readers with horror and unpredictable crime scene and each complicated action. The role of orientation is vital in this short story to design fear atmosphere and dreadfulness.

According to his evaluative statement, the blame for all sins and the prime murderer is the black cat and the evil spirit that had caused him to conduct such inhumane crimes. As he puts his words; I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body, and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat pocket a pen knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!

I blush, I burn, and I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest anymore! Evil thoughts became my sole intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! as the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

The Black Cat is not structured in isolation according to Labov’s Narrative Structure. These categories are actually embedded within sentences in order to derive horror and the existence of evil elements in the short story. Edgar was being descriptive and at the same time evaluative from one sequence to another sequence in the story in which they support the design of each complicating action.

Conclusion

Analyzing The Black Cat using Labov’s Narrative Structure is my first attempt to show the relations of formal narrative forms and the functions that they portray in the narrative to highlight intended criteria or to bring the certain feeling to real as the readers further read the narratives.

Poe had critically made a perfect selection of adjectives, adverbials, and free clauses to bring the motive of terror and horror into the narrative. Furthermore, Poe’s plot development added much of the effect of shocking insanity to “The Black Cat.” To dream up such an intricate plot of perverseness, alcoholism, murders, fire, revival, and punishment is quite amazing. The use of Orientation and Evaluation elements in his gothic story has successfully promoted the feeling of fear and terrified. Poe had been descriptive in elaborating the physical and emotional state of the characters presented especially through the bias and unreliable narrator in the narrative. The evaluation is made by the narrator from the eyes of an evil-spirited murderer.

Labov’s model of narrative analysis seems to be very useful in my analysis to show the interconnectedness of the formal structure of the narrative and the sociological functions in the short story, The Black Cat. Through this method, I manage to point out the linguistic features that exist in The Black Cat which are beneficial for building up the narrative and sustaining the interest and mood of the readers. This technique would be very useful to be implemented in language classrooms to promote the attitude of appreciating literature. Besides that, the learning process will be more interactive and alive when both teachers and students are critically engaged. The motivation to learn and to participate in the class may be developed among students when they see the relevance of the learning material since it reflects their daily lives.

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