Practice question · Multiple choice
Genette insists that voice and focalization are independent axes rather than synonyms for narrative perspective. What analytical error occurs when a critic treats them as identical?
Hints
- Which question belongs to voice, and which governs focalization?
- Can an external, third-person narrator be confined to what a single character sees?
Show the answer
A. They assume that third-person narration always implies unrestricted knowledge
Why
Conflating voice with focalization leads critics to mistake grammatical person for perceptual scope, ignoring how third-person texts can be strictly internally focalized. Narrative frequency and duration operate on entirely different structural axes.
Practise Narratology II. Duration, Frequency and Voice
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More questions on Narratology II. Duration, Frequency and Voice
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