Franklin's Tale Essay

NARRATIVES OF ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE

The Franklin’s Tale is part of a collection called ‘The Canterbury Tales’ written by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is narrated by a wealthy land owner called Franklin, whom is recounting ‘The Tale’ to the reader. In narrative it is evident that whether the tale is fiction or non-fiction is not the relevant issue, it is how the story can be re-told and as O’Neill (1996) states, ‘ We can never penetrate as readers into this world’, (p36), what happens in the story has many layers and an infinite amount of possibility as to what can happen. However in The Franklin’s Tale, the use of the literately device of time works as a way of encompassing the reader into the story telling and creating a story world which the audience becomes involved with. This essay will argue that the categories of time as employed in The Franklin’s Story enables the reader to immerse themselves into the story telling as well as forming a bond with the characters and their emotions. Through literary narrative devices of time, such as pause, scene, summary, analepsis and stretch it is evident that the category of time will be an integral part to link the audience and the characters, thus encompassing them mutually in the story telling. In The Franklin’s Tale the characters connect to the reader by the use of categories of time and duration, to create scenes which the reader can relate to and feel.

The Franklin’s Tale has by the use of duration a way of relating the story to the reader and thus encompassing the reader into the story. O’Neill (1996) contends that, “The same series of events, real or imagined, can clearly be presented in a multitude of different ways and in many different linguistic and communicative media” (p34), how The Franklin’s Tale represents the ideas in the narrative are appealing, and create a link between the story and the audience. In the first opening lines of ‘The Tale’ (21 – 45), the story-time has stopped whilst Franklin speaks, as in an analepsis. An Analepsis is a flashback into what happened before the story, here used simply to introduce the characters and explain their yarn so far. O’Neill (1996) asserts that, ‘Analepsis, overtly employing narrative manipulation, is a favourite device of omniscient narrators’, (p45), which is clearly the kind of narrator that Franklin is, clearly the observer looking over the story-telling, the eye above.

This use of the analepsis is combined with other literary devices of time such as ‘pause’ which has been defined as ‘the minimum discursive speed’ (O’Neill, 1996, p43), or as Genette (as cited in O’Neill, 1996) put it, ‘story-time is infinitely less than the discourse-time in that the story time is zero’ (p43). So the reader is just absorbing the background to the tale of how the characters got together in their romantic way through the narrator,
‘ But at last she for his worthinesse,
And namely for his meeke obeisaunce,
… To taketh him for hir housbonde and hir lord.’(30-34), creating a scenario in which the characters are beginning to be known to the reader before they even appear in story-time. Through the use of time as pause in the story, Chaucer (as Franklin) creates a feeling of intrigue and a build up for the audience, interweaving the characters and tale into the readers mind. As Genette (1976) contends, ‘… description, because it lingers over objects and beings, …, and because it envisages the actions themselves as scenes, seems to suspend the flow of time and contribute to spreading out the narrative in space,’ (p7).

In addition this is laying down the building blocks of audience association to the tale, by the time they read of Dorigen’s first conversation with Arveragus, the readers have already formed a connection to who she is, and how she is perceived by Franklin and others, and this is important to building the feeling for the character and the character building in itself. Furthermore, when Franklin recounts his thoughts on marriage not long after the introduction of the couple, it is another use of the literary time device, ‘pause’ in the story telling, another enforcement of the link to the audience through his affection toward the humbleness and admiration of Arveragus and Dorigen,
‘And therefore hath this wise worthy knight
To live in ese sufferance hire bihight
And she to him ful wisly gan to swere
That never sholde ther be defaute in here’, (lines 79-82).
At the same time the reader is at the initial part of story time, so there has been the narrative device of ‘stretch’, employed here. Stretch is when story-time is less than discourse time, used when no events in real-time story-telling have occurred. This is not just creating an analepsis, but setting forth a motion of events which are going to happen and connecting the reader into the story yet to be told.

In the case of using ‘scene’ to depict time in narrative, that is, when the discourse time are equal to story-time, in the case of events or dramatic actions such as, conversations between characters or the immediate action of a character (Genette,1998). Puts the reader right there in the action occurring, as if eavesdropping, and this creates an intimacy for the reader. In the example of the conversation between Dorigen and Aurelius when he professes his love for her,
“Madam," quod he, "by God that this world made,
So that I wiste it might your herte glade,
…;For well I woot my service is in vain:
My guerdon* is but bursting of mine heart.
…Here at youre feet God wolde that I were grave!
…Have mercy, sweet, or ye wol do me deye." (259 – 270)

The audience are drawn in and connected to their emotions and in Dorigen’s case,
“ By thilke God that yaf me soule and lif,
Ne shall I nevere been untrewe wif,
In word ne werk, as fer as I have wit; I wol be his to whom that I am knit;
Take this for final answer as of me."(275-279) outrage at the disbelieving confessions of Aureluis. As the narrator already knows the story, it is merely being re-told for the benefit of the reader and this particular device is especially to bond with the reader in the real-time and create a pace to keep the story-telling flow.

Summary is another important literary narrative device that is observed in The Franklin’s Tale, O’Neill contends that, ‘story time is (finitely) greater than discourse time, as in, ‘a yeer and more lasted this blissful lif’ (line 98), thus encompassing a longer time than the real time of a sentence and updating the reader in a short concise way exactly of the period of time lapsed in story telling. This gives the reader a clearer view of the overall story, it brings home the point that this particular thing happened in this period of time, a popular technique for writing narratives which are set over a long time period. Most of the published works of Chaucer’s time are narratives which are re-counted over a period of time, not just a day or any real-time scenario (Chatman, 1980).
In the tale, uses of summary (as a literary device) are employed all throughout, sometimes to create a sense of longing between the characters,
‘Shoop him to goon and dwell a yeer or twaine…
And dwelled ther two yeer, the book saith thus.’ (101-105), and at other times to show that time is passing and what the character has done in that time,
‘But daunceth, justeth, maketh hire good cheere, (390),
However, it also cleverly combines the discourse of time as pause and summary devices are used in the tale to create a setting with which the reader can relate and appreciate the situation that Dorigen faces, alone and without her husband, whom she had only had a short time with and who now has been away for quite some time as well as what Aurelius feels, he is pinning away for a woman to whom he cannot make his feelings known, in both cases creating a tragic situation and further involving the reader into the story-telling. The summary as a literary narrative device can also be used to speed up time, and also to create a montage of all the activity which has occurred, here Dorigen’s actions are summarised effectively in one line,
‘ She mooreth, waketh, waileth, fasteth, plaineth,
Desir of his presense hire so distraineth’, (111-112) it is clear that these events have occurred over a period of time but this can also be depicted in the level of the frequency conveyed. They move quickly, but still it’s not possible to be as quick as the sentence reads. As Aristotle (as cited in Genette, 1976) has observed, narrative has an advantage over visual representation as it can, ‘treat several actions simultaneously’. (p7) Through the above use of literary narrative devices, it can be seen that the use of categories of time enhances the story-telling and bond the reader to the characters within the story. By use of time as fluid an entity to bring the story telling together Chaucer has managed to, at the same time, hold a captive audience whom can follow the story with ease and interest. In The Franklin’s Tale the characters connect to the reader by the use of categories of time and duration, to create scenes which the reader can relate to and feel.

References

Chatman, S., (1980) Stories and Disclosure: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, (New York, Cornell University Press), online retrieved on May 7, 2009 at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=6J9-6nOCeQYC

Chaucer, G., (n.d), (ed. Donaldson, E,T.), The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol 1A, The Middle Ages (2nd ed., Baswell, C., Schotter, A, H.), ‘The Franklin’s Tale’, (New York: Longman, 2003)

Genette, G, Ben-Ari, N, & McHale, B., (1990), Fictional Narrative, Factual Narrative, Poetics Today, vol 11(4) pp 755-774, (Durham, NC, Duke University Press). Online accessed May 7th, 2009 on Jstor at http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/action/showPublication?journalCode=poeticstoday Genette,G, Levonas, A., ( 1976), Boundaries of Narrative - New Literary History, (Baltimore, Marylands. The Johns Hopkins University Press), vol 8(1).

Genette,G., Lewin, J. (1988), Narrative discourse revisited, (Trans; Lewin, J)
(New York, Cornell University Press), online retrieved 7th May 2009 at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=RBK2NOMAbasC Halevi-Wise, Y., (2003) Interactive fictions: scenes of storytelling in the novel
(Connecticut, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003)

O’Neill, P., (1996), Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory,
(London, University of Toronto Press) pp 33-46.
Schildgen, B., (1998), Crisis and continuity: Time in the Gospel of Mark
(London, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998

Smith, B, .(1980), Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories, Critical Inquiry, (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press), vol 7(1), Retrieved from Jstor on 20th April 2009, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343185

References: Chatman, S., (1980) Stories and Disclosure: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, (New York, Cornell University Press), online retrieved on May 7, 2009 at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=6J9-6nOCeQYC Chaucer, G., (n.d), (ed Genette,G, Levonas, A., ( 1976), Boundaries of Narrative - New Literary History, (Baltimore, Marylands. The Johns Hopkins University Press), vol 8(1). Genette,G., Lewin, J. (1988), Narrative discourse revisited, (Trans; Lewin, J) (New York, Cornell University Press), online retrieved 7th May 2009 at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=RBK2NOMAbasC Halevi-Wise, Y., (2003) Interactive fictions: scenes of storytelling in the novel (Connecticut, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003) O’Neill, P., (1996), Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Schildgen, B., (1998), Crisis and continuity: Time in the Gospel of Mark (London, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998 Smith, B, .(1980), Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories, Critical Inquiry, (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press), vol 7(1), Retrieved from Jstor on 20th April 2009, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343185