The "theme-juxtaposition" narrative in the film was mentioned in the previous article on the narrative structure of the film, and "theme-juxtaposition" is only one part of the "juxtaposition narrative"-"plot juxtaposition". Now, combining the examples of novels and movies, this paper analyzes the "juxtaposition" narrative as a spatial narrative. It is necessary to make a relatively accurate concept definition of "juxtaposition" and then analyze it.

First, the definition of juxtaposition.

/kloc-before the 0/5th century, there was basically no connection between several continents (such as Asia and Europe). (Where people live. Since Columbus discovered the new American continent in 1492, navigators such as Da Gama and Magellan have embarked on their journey with the support of coastal countries such as Spain and Portugal. Since then, hundreds of years of geographical discoveries have gradually connected the whole world into an inseparable whole, and countries can no longer recover their self-sufficiency and closed independence hundreds of years ago. This influence is not only directly reflected between countries, but also indirectly affects individuals, even if they are just an ordinary person.

Hundreds of years ago, Jiang Suiyun lived in a small village in Zhaoling, Yuan Shang. From birth to death, his activity radius in Fiona Fang is less than 80 kilometers. Occasionally go to the city to buy some necessities that you can't produce, such as salt and cloth. Life is completely enough. Work at sunrise, rest at sunset, and be self-sufficient. If there were no natural disasters, the government would still be clean, so even if you don't step out of this village or a town 60 kilometers away, you will live a good life. Hundreds of years have passed quickly, and Jiang Suiyun's grandson, Jiang Hanyuan's grandson, has been called the "global village". He has all kinds of social relations with others all the time. People are no longer closed and independent individuals, but become social people.

So hundreds of years ago, the simple linear life was broken. The 20th century heralds the arrival of a space era, and Jianghan Garden is in an era of simultaneous juxtaposition. What he feels now is more likely to be a network where points are interrelated and groups are intertwined, and it is unlikely to be a substance that evolves over time in the traditional sense.

Matter determines consciousness. In real life, from diachronic linear development to time juxtaposition, the field of literature and art has also changed. The concept of juxtaposition was first put forward by Frank, a professor of comparative literature at Princeton University in the United States, in 1945. This concept is his summary of some narrative techniques used in modern novels. It refers to juxtaposing all kinds of images, hints, symbols and connections in the text, so that they can obtain continuous references and front and back references in the text, thus combining them into a whole. The juxtaposition emphasizes breaking the linear time flow of narrative, and placing those large or small meaning units side by side, so that the unity of the text does not exist in the time relationship, but exists in the spatial relationship.

Second, the division of juxtaposition

As mentioned above, "theme-juxtaposition" is only one part of "juxtaposition narrative". Like parallel narration, juxtaposition can be divided into several levels.

1. juxtaposition between scenes

Let me give you an example first. In Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the scene description of agricultural products exhibition is carried out at three levels at the same time, and the physical position of each level becomes a symbol of his spiritual significance.

At the bottom, there are rampaging people in the street, who are mixed with the livestock brought to the exhibition; The second level: the official who is giving a speech stands on the platform slightly above the road and boasts to the people who are listening; The third level: Rudolph and Emma are talking affectionately while overlooking all this from the window.

These three scenes happened at the same time, but they were described separately, that is to say, at this moment, the time flow paused. Flaubert describes three scenes at the same time, showing different behaviors at the same time, canceling the chronological order of narration and changing the traditional "diachronic" to "* * *", showing a spatial feature.

As can be seen from the above examples, instantaneous juxtaposition is the main artistic means of juxtaposition between scenes. In this narrative, time narrative with space as the main dimension replaces diachronic narrative with time as the main dimension.

2. The juxtaposition between plots/stories (theme-juxtaposition)

The juxtaposition of scenes is only a small part of the novel, and the juxtaposition of plots as the structure of the novel is the main part of the juxtaposition narrative, which is the "theme-juxtaposition" we mentioned earlier. Let's discuss the main characteristics and concept definition of "theme-juxtaposition" with specific examples.

Let's look at a familiar example-Griffith's Conflict with Different Groups. This film consists of four unrelated stories: 1. Modern stories, 19 14 American towns; 2. The story of Christ was taken from three stories in the Bible at the beginning of A.D.: "Turning water into wine", "Punishing prostitutes" and "Christ was crucified"; 3. French story,16th century, Paris, inter-sectarian massacre; 4. Babylonian story, in the 6th century BC, ancient Babylon was destroyed by war.

These four unrelated stories are linked by a unified theme. The characters in the four stories are all involved in a vortex of intolerance. Through the juxtaposition of stories, we can see the continuous progress of the concept of "tolerance" from the perspective of the continuous development of world history.

This juxtaposition technique is also adopted in the cloud pictures of the British writer Mitchell. This novel consists of six relatively independent stories, which span from19th century to the future "post-apocalyptic era" and spread all over the world: around 1) 1850, Adam Ewing, an American notary who urged him to return home by boat from chatham islands, witnessed shocking scenes during his voyage; (diary body)

2) 193 1 year, in Sidheim, northwest Belgium, Robert Frobisher, a penniless English composer, experienced many love-hate relationships under the guidance of a master musician; (style: epistolary)

3) 1975, Buenos Aires, California, USA. Louisa Ray, a tabloid reporter, took great risks to investigate corruption and employment murders in nuclear power plant projects; (style: mystery novel)

4) 265438+At the beginning of the 20th century, Timothy cavendish, a publisher who was hunted by gangsters in Britain, was put under house arrest, which was terrible. (Style: Autobiographical Light Comedy)

5) In The Future of the dystopian Era, Xingmei 45 1, a clone waiter in Nesosongji Restaurant, rebelled against the society that created and exploited human cloning groups; (style: case inquiry record, science fiction politics)

6) In the post-apocalyptic future, Sakry, a shepherd boy who lost his father, met the survivors of high-tech civilization. (style: oral memory myth)

As for the arrangement and combination of these six stories, the narrative order is as shown in the book catalogue:

Chapter One Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary

Chapter II Letter from Sidheim

Chapter 3 Half-Life: Louisa Ray's First Mystery

The fourth chapter is the difficult experience of Timothy cavendish.

The fifth chapter star 45 1 recorder

Chapter VI The fork in the road of thinking and after all

Chapter 7 Stellar 45 1 recorder

Chapter VIII The Difficult Experience of Timothy cavendish

Chapter 9 Half-Life: Louisa Ray's First Mystery

Chapter 10 Letters from Sidheim

Chapter 1 1 Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary

As you can see, except for the sixth story, all the other stories are separated, arranged around the sixth story, and divided into two.

Mitchell secretly connected these six stories with the unity of the theme, and further deepened the theme through the juxtaposition of these six stories.

Let's say something beside the point. From novels to movies, the narrative strategies of stories are different. To distinguish, we use letters. A is the first story, B is the second story, and so on.

Its general structure is as follows (the schematic diagram may be a little rough, and the meaning is almost enough ~):

(A)(B)(C)(D)(E)(A)(B)(C)(D)(E)ABCDE

The movie version of Cloud Map is still six stories, but the arrangement and combination are different from the novel version. It uses a technique similar to Griffith's cross-narration. "At first, each story was like four streams of water seen from the top of the mountain. At first, these four streams flowed slowly and calmly, but in the process of progress, they gradually approached each other, and the flow rate became faster and faster, and finally merged into a thrilling river. "

Griffith made an analogy, that is, at the beginning of the film, these six stories were all expressed in long fragments, but later the plot became more complicated, the paragraphs became shorter and accelerated alternately.

There can be different permutations and combinations between parallel stories, but the essence is "theme-juxtaposition".

Writing here, we can sum up the main characteristics of "juxtaposition of plots", namely "juxtaposition of themes":

3. The juxtaposition of endings

Calvino called it "time zero". For example, a hunter went hunting in the forest and a lion jumped on him. The hunter hurriedly shot an arrow, and a thrilling scene appeared: the lion jumped up and the arrow flew in the air. This moment, like a movie freeze, presents an absolute time. After this moment, there are two possibilities: the lion bit the hunter's blood vessel, or the lion fell to the ground in the middle of the arrow.

Traditional novels mostly focus on context (that is, time minus one and time minus two) and pulse elimination (time one and time two), and pay attention to linear causality, while Calvino thinks that only "time zero" is the most important. When time is zero, time freezes, spatial narrative begins to stand out, and then there are countless possibilities. It is also a kind of "ending juxtaposition".

The above three classifications can be regarded as the general types of juxtaposition, in which "scene juxtaposition" and "ending juxtaposition" draw lessons from the academic papers of Li Dan and others, and "ending juxtaposition" they call "eternal time", but I think it is actually an open ending (they also discussed the juxtaposition of "plot juxtaposition" and "plot repetition". I think the examples they defined and quoted about the former (sound and agitation) seem to be more suitable for "counterpoint polyphony", while the latter belongs to "dialogue polyphony", so it is not adopted). Referring to teacher Long Diyong's thesis, this paper puts forward the term "thematic juxtaposition" and defines its concept. I want to thank all of you.

Third, distinguish

In novel art, Kundera takes Bloch's Sleepwalker as an example, and puts forward a new polyphonic mode different from Bakhtin's "conversational polyphony", that is, several unrelated stories are only connected by a common theme. Let's take a look at Kundera's view on polyphony first.

He took Bloch's Sleepwalker as an example, which contained five deliberately mixed lines:

1. Based on the short stories of three main characters in the trilogy: Pasenaud, asker and Huguenot;

2. A novella about Anna Wendelin's inner world;

3. Report on a military hospital;

4. Narrative poem about a girl in the workhouse;

5. Philosophical exposition on value degradation (written in academic language).

It is mentioned in the article that these five stories are not completely welded together. In fact, Anna Wendling doesn't know about Esk, and the girls in the workhouse have never heard of the existence of Anna Wendling. Kundera believes that "they are only linked by one theme. But I think this theme combination is enough. "

Kundera also takes Dostoevsky's The Demons as an example. The Devil consists of three narrative clues. Strictly speaking, they can also form three independent novels:

1. Old Stafford Keane and Stepan Wilcove's love satire novels;

2. Stafford Keane's romantic novels and all his relationships;

3. Political novels of revolutionary groups.

Because all the characters in the book know each other, the novel can easily connect three lines (three stories) into an inseparable whole by using a clever technique in plot fiction.

Besides, by comparing The Devil and Sleepwalker, Kundera thinks that the latter goes further than the former in narrative. In The Demons, although the three lines have their own characteristics, they all belong to the same category (novel), while in Sleepwalker, the five elements are fundamentally different: novel, short story, report, poem and thesis. It is a revolutionary initiative of Bloch to combine non-fiction with novel polyphony.

However, Kundera also criticized Bloch. "The defect of the third volume of Sleepwalker lies in the inequality of five" voices ". The first line occupies far more space than others, and its superiority in space lies in its connection with the first two volumes through the intermediary of Esk and Huguenot. Therefore, he attracts more attention and may shorten the role of the other four lines to simple accompaniment; Secondly, Bach's fugue cannot lack any of his voices. On the other hand, we can imagine several stories in Sleepwalker as independent chapters. Even if one or two stories are missing, the novel will not lose its meaning.

So Kundera put forward the necessary condition of counterpoint in his novels: 1. Equality of all lines; 2. The indivisibility of the whole.

These are Kundera's views on novel polyphony.

It can be seen that Kundera is quite contradictory. On the one hand, he thinks that Bloch's Sleepwalker goes further than the Demons in the polyphony of the novel, because its five story types are fundamentally different. The three kinds of stories in The Demons are subordinate to novels. But on the other hand, he also made two criticisms of sleepwalkers, namely: 1. There are differences in length and emphasis between stories; 2. Without affecting the conception of the novel, one or two stories can be randomly selected, that is, the stories are independent of each other and do not affect each other.

Then he took his own "Laughing and Forgetting to Record" as an example to tell what a real polyphony should look like. There are seven lines in Laughter Forgetting Records: 1. About two college students and their suicides; 2. Autobiographical stories; 3. Criticism of a feminist book; 4. Fables about angels and demons; 5. The story of Ai Lvya flying over Prague.

He talked about the existence of these stories, which are indispensable, set off each other, explain each other and discuss the same theme.

If you have read my previous article about the narrative structure of movies, you can find that Kundera's polyphony classification is too vague. In fact, "theme-juxtaposition" and "counterpoint polyphony" are all stuffed in.

The Sleepwalker criticized by Bloch has unequal lines and independent stories. It would be more accurate to classify such stories as "theme-juxtaposition". For example, the demons he quoted and his own laughter forgot to record, and several stories were vertically independent while maintaining a horizontal subtle connection. This structure can be regarded as "counterpoint polyphony".

Four. conclusion

This paper mainly discusses the juxtaposition technique as a spatial narrative, its terminology source and concept definition, as well as the juxtaposition of scenes, plots and endings. Among them, it focuses on the main characteristics of "juxtaposition of plots", that is, "theme-juxtaposition", and takes "party opposition and difference" and "cloud map" in novels and movies as examples to discuss in detail the application and expression of "theme-juxtaposition" in the text. Finally, the so-called polyphony of Milan Kundera is analyzed to distinguish the similarities and differences between juxtaposition and polyphony. The next article will focus on analyzing the narrative structure of counterpoint polyphony in some movies.