Opener
Post what you know--off headtop--about narrative forms: what are the main parts of narrative form and what definitions might you give to these terms? Here's an example:

Plot: the arrangement of events in a narrative into meaningful or resonant sequences of causality; more than just sequence (1, 2, 3), "plot" describes the way a narrative represents events as sequences of consequences or results: "One met Two; they smiled and, suddenly, their mutual desire flared. Unfortunately, Two was already married to Seven, and so he felt deep remorse the next morning when he awoke to find himself thoroughly entangled with the lovely, but naked, One."

Now, you: pick a term from the listing in the Current Assignment and post a working definition w/brief example here, brooding as you do a bit on Shockwave and Female Man and drawing an example from one or the other. As you're ruminating on these questions, consider too the ways that one element of form interacts with others in a given novel.

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Len Hatfield:
Plot example from Shockwave: Nick's breakdown at Kate's apt. sets the stage for his admitting limits, expressing vulnerability, and opening himself to love; it's because he can do these things, in part, that Kate "rescues" him by taking him away from KC to the paid avoidance areas.

Jason Booth:
Point of view: huuumm . . . let me rumage around in the basement and see what I can find. If I remember correctly, POV is traditionally broken down into first person (I), second person (you), third person limited, and third person omniscient. An example of first person from _Female Man_, "I shouted at her and beat her on the back and on the head; oh I was an enraged and evil spirit there in the theatre lobby . . ." (125). Now I see FM acting a little out of the conventions of what I was taught about POV. I was raised to think that POV was fairly consistent across the text. In FM, however, POV is freely mixed and it is also not always clear who is the "I" or "she" or "us". As in the example above, first person intrudes upon what was a third person narration.

Jenn Lindberg:
Generic Protocols : This is the definition of a genre. What are the characteristics of a detective novel, versus the horror versus the SF. With SWR, the most obvious is the difference in technological advances between 'our modern' versus their modern. For example, they have the veephones that allow the users to see three dimensional images of whomever they are speaking with. The technology is one element that begins to resonate with the theme in that it is through the technology that there is a dehumanization, and consequently the beginnings of rehumanizxation. The computer, and technology in general becomes an image for that theme, and through these images and generic protocols, Nick develops. Hurm...lets see if that rattles around a bit.


Joyce Smaragdis:
Verisimilitude:
Definition: having the appearance or seeming to be real
In Female Man, when Jeannine, Janet and Joanna seem to be transplanted to Whileaway, I kind of believed that there really were transplanted to this other time dimension. However, in the section that follows this scene, it seems as though Jeannine was just dreaming about this other universe. Before reading this, I was under the impression that Jeannine was really in Whileaway. Whileaway seemed to be real for Jeannine, and perhaps it was in her dream. However, it was not real in the traditional (sensory) sence of the word.

David Baird:
point of view: communication at any moment is a sensory flux into consciousness from external forces. An other, its sources, its environment, its needs, and infinite contextualization within the big picture all refract through any part of a text to give the shifting point of view of the supposed consciousness communicating, and the reader being communicated to.


Drew Zwicke:
symbol: a form of icon which a wide, diverse cross-section of a society can identify with in a similar fashion. The triangles appearing in the game of fencing which is poular in SR can be viewed as a symbol of a power struggle to control steadily increasing areas, much like the pseudo-fascist government against the utopian society of Precipice.

Len Hatfield:
But David, where's your example??

Stacey Dittmar:
Point-of-view: the thoughts or ideas taken from an individual character at a particular time. This corresponds to "voice" in that it takes the words, either spoken or unspoken, and puts the reader in the character's place. The reader begins to view the actions and events taking place through the characters eyes and with their "perception". An example: on page 16 (in The Female Man) second paragraph, the words are taken from Jeannine's thoughts. She uses the word "I" to associate the meaning of her words to refer to herself. She says, "If "I" had money, if "I" could get my hair done."
Unfortunately, within The Female Man, the point-of-view becomes problematic, since sometimes it is unclear whose point-of-view certain scenes are coming from.

David Baird:
In The Female Man, the author's point of entrance into our consciousness is a quote from an other text, a real person's point of view on the nature of suggestivity and consciousness (RD Laing's Jack and Jill), setting the stage for other paranoid points of view to follow.

Len Hatfield:
Drew: good! now analyze a little further; in what other ways is Fencing suggestive of the social system in SR?

Len Hatfield:
Jason: yep, but then what? why are the points of view so fluid in FM? how else are they fluid?

Ash Downs:
voice: essentially refers to a specific narrative perspective. One comes to understand what's going on in a narrative by assessing who's telling what. Is the perspective that of an unseen observer, or that of one entangled in the action of the narrative.

Example of voice distinction in Female Man: Jeannine's thought's are often distinguished from her audibly spoken words by being set in italics, suggesting a stream of consciousness coexisting with what is outwardly perceived by others.
Voice and characterization are interlinked in terms of how a character is described, portrayed, and commented on. Depending on who's perspective is being represented by the text (often assuming there can only be one perspective at a time) helps shape how the reader perceives the characters. It's almost like a filtering of perspectives process. If a reader assumes certain characteristics of a given voice's persona, in turn, the voice's description and characterization of other characters becomes filtered by what we think we know about the narrative source.

Joyce Smaragdis:
Jenn
Would you say that the narrative structure of this novel (really short chapters, sentence structure, narrative voice) are also generic protocols of most speculative fiction novel?

Jason Booth:
Jenn: How would you deal with a text such as "The Heat Death of the Universe"? It doesn't possess any fantastical technology and yet it is treated as a speculative (science fiction) text. I would broaden that definition by claiming that science fiction seeks to operate through a distancing of the text (not necessarily achieved by technology).

Len Hatfield:
Good start, Joyce....what if it is a "dream"? How do Whileawayans treat dreams? How does the "I" in the novel? Is "it" less "real" if a "dream"?

Amanda Kathleen Pedersen:
VOICE(s) - The voices in a narrative are significant because they tell the story from the point of view of the voice. Often this means that, for each voice, the same event is altered by each description. For example, in The Female Man, the Janet-at-the-party scene is told from Jeanine's point of view. Her voice is the one that describes Janet's actions. The concept of voice in this novel is significant because one voice may not necessarily encompass one point of view. The reader must focus on character development in order to identify the voice that is currently claiming to be "I." Simply speaking, if there were no elements of voice and point of view, this book would not suceed in the form in which it is written. In order for us to identify the voice, we muct learn about the character to determine her point of view.

Jenn Lindberg:
Jason : And here I was going to comment on POV next. POV is always something that begs to be played with. Here, we see Russ having extraordinary fun. This begins to resonate with many of the other points -- such as Character Development. Frequently we ascertain character development through thoughts, words and actions. However, isn't it often difficult to figure out who's doing, saying and thinking? Can we look at her POV shifts as also a function of language? and if so, how does that tie in with other forms?

Len Hatfield:
Stacey: why "unfortunately"?

David: why "paranoid"??

Len Hatfield:
Amanda and all, re: VOICE. Mostly, and quite rightly, you're connecting this w/"point of view" but why do we have two different ways of naming this? How does point of view differ from voice?

Jenn Lindberg:
Joyce : I don't know. As generic protocols go, as I understand them, no. Yes, this can be seen in many science - fiction, but not all. I would argue that Generic Protocols are more geared towards the thematic content or images frequently seen, ect. versus type setting, and chapter length.


Jael:
ALL: does FM have a "plot"? If so, what is it?

Marc C. Hutcheson:
Voice(s): The mood of the speaker, be it active, as in taking an active role in the story, or taking a more passive approach, as to say: "this is what happened as I was looking out of 20th story office down at the street below". Obviously, _The Female Man_ has active and passive voices throughout the novel, as well as some voices that I'm not so sure the English language has a word for yet. Some scenes we now that a certain character is speaking to us, for example in III,i. Jeannine is speaking. This occurs at the party. She is there taking an active role by telling what has happened and the actions she performed in response to Janet's actions. ("Janet, don't" etc.")
Other passive scenes are those when an idea is presented and we have no idea who is speaking or what it is in reference to. Ex: IV,ii- "The black poodle, Samuel, whined and scurried across the porch, then barked hysterically, defending the house against God-knows-what. 'At least she's white,' they all said." Here an outside observer is providing us with the necessary info.
How does this all connect with the story as a whole? Certain times, a character can provide us with what we need because she is playing a minor role at the moment. Other times, we need to see what all the characters are doing from everyone else' point of view, so therefore, a passive voice is needed.

Ash Downs:
Jason: along the same lines, I remember attempting to read The Sound and the Fury in tenth grade, and I could never have a solid idea of what was going on because the narrative was essentially the stream of consciousness from a retarded boy (in part 1 of 4) which made it dificult to form an image of what was happening. POV switches raise interesting questions about the multiple dimensions of any given persona. Are we as whollistic as we'd like to believe.

Joyce Smaragdis:
It seems to me that the feelings that Jeannine's dream of Whileaway inspired are in fact just as real as any other "conscious" experiences that one might have. I guess I am starting to wonder if in fact Jeannine really travels to Whileaway (in a corporal sense that is). However, perhaps this distinction is not important; I think that Whileawayans would agree.

Ginger Moustache:
Does FM seem "reflexive" in the sense that it offers assessments or observations of what it's doing as it does it?

Stacey Dittmar:
Maybe I shouldn't have said unfortunately. Perhaps some people like to be confused while reading, but for me, the shifts in point-of-view, as also existed in SWR, are definately unsettling. Is this common in most SF?

Jenn Lindberg:
Jason : I agree. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a tendency to see Speculative Fiction as a greater umbrella under which many sub - genres are placed. I sought to promote an example for one of the sub genres. What exactly do you mean?


Len Hatfield:
Stacey: I just meant, what would be the purpose in making those shifts, aside simply from confusing the reader? what would the point be in such a 'confusion'?

Jenn Lindberg:
Jael : Four women meet. They learn from each other. Interesting things happen..... haven't finished the book, so don't know how it will end.


David Baird:
People are transpersonally invalidating each other all the time, but to assume Jack wants to forget about something and he wants Jill to stop reminding him of it and that Jack doesn't just ignore Jill but instead attempts to "trance" her out of her modality as well is a political view of experience that may fit parent-child, student-teacher, or other relations where uncomfortable feelings are generally repressed, but to talk about the very capacity to remember being altered by statements like "How can you think such a thing" is beyond my theory of the malleability of personality.

Amanda Kathleen Pedersen:
When I say that the voice claiming to be "I" is establishing her own point of view, I am assuming that she is honest. What if, while Jeanine is describing the scene, she is lying. Then the scene being described is false (how would the reader know?) - and I couldn't actually say anymore that "I" was simply describing the scene from her point of view. In that example, voice and point of view would be distinguished separately.

Len Hatfield:
Marc: good insight about the additional narrator in the poodle scene; but why shift to that pov to say "at least she's white"? who says that, and what happens when it's reported by this 'outsider'??

Drew Zwicke:
Jael: I think more than anything else FM has an objective, and this could be achieved using any variety of "plots". It's no so much an unfolding of events occuring through the progression of a definable structure as it is a broadening of concepts, or a challenge to traditional attitudes occuring through the use of fiction.

Len Hatfield:
Amanda: ah, so one lacks a point of view when one tells lies? what would "true" and "false" mean in a fanciful tale like this?

Jenn Lindberg:
As I continue to read this book, I begin wondering if the women ever do meet in the physical. Can we not see this as being narrated by a 'greater being?' One of the thoughts I had was that of Feminism speaking. I know...it's flailing in a big way, but wouldn't that help explain many of the thrown in 6 line chapters that *are* interesting and important, but have little or nothing to do with our main characters?

Amanda Kathleen Pedersen:
Ginger Moustache:
I think so. The different voices accomplish that. For example, at the party, while Janet demolishes the marine, Jeanine says, "Don't Janet. Don't Janet." By thinking this while Janet is in the act of demolition, Jeanine introduces am element of uncertainty - refelxivity?


David Baird:
We only ever have one point of view, our own, so "confusing" or metaphorically distant, ironic and ambiguous points-of-view are the author's attempt to lead our own symbolic dream apparatus through connections with memories and feeling that we're capable of acheiving, but not as easily without the help of text.

Len Hatfield:
David: maybe so, but scope back in to the novel a bit; it's partly about abstract and general personal relations, but much more specifically about about male<>female power relations. Jack and Jill have been specifically chosen here; how would you refine your observations in that light?

Joyce Smaragdis:
Amanda.
I too sort of trust the "I" in this narrative for some reason. I guess that this is the way that I have been acculturated to read. However, I am wondering if I should in fact question my somewhat uncritical desire to accept this narrative voice. This narrative voice must have some bias and purpose, right?

Stacey Dittmar:
Perhaps the purpose would be to understand each individual character on a different level. Maybe it's more a shifting in voice. One minute we're in Janet's head and then the next we're in Jeannine's. This does give me a sense of the internal character of the speakers, but the only real confusion lies in who is saying what. Maybe that is so we can make the characters and their thoughts, ideas, etc. more universal (maybe ... perhaps). The voices become every and anyone's voices.

Jason Booth:
Jenn: My off the cuff response to POV shifting is this: if we can read a text, such as Shockwave Rider and FM, and still project ourselves in it (and have the text project into us), then we begin to butt heads with the conventional wisdom of the transcendent "I". Maybe we shouldn't be overly concerned that FM is narrated from several view points because maybe we are always seeing the world through several different lenses. Jeannine, Janet, Jael and Joanna are all different in the way they perceive, would it matter that much if their voices derived from the same (physical) source or many sources?

Jael:
Jenn: that's an evasion, no? what about what you've read so far?? what you gave is mostly just sequence, not plot.

Ash Downs:
What to make of time in the female man. A future coexisting with the present, set in a specifically contextualized past.
Jenn: although it's endlessly debatable, it almost seems that Jeannine is the reality of being a woman in a traditionally male dominated society

Amanda Kathleen Pedersen:
I think of point of view as the lens of a camera. What is true passes through the lens and is altered by the point of view. What if the lens cap was off? Then, what is true is not allowed to pass through the lens at all - what emerges is false.

H Choi:
character development:
the building up by , or a growth of a character, by accumulated ideas about him or her.
The character development is hard to follow in The Female Man since the "I" character in the novel seems to be the main character that changes into other characters in the novel. "I" only changes "brand name." "I's" personality constantly varies according to the "brand name" he or she is .