the process of group formation in itself becomes important too. Thus the focus is not just on the relationship of a member of a group with the collective, but the analysis of the whole process of group formation, the relationship between the individual and a group, the relationship between two groups and the relationship between the individual and a different group. Also taken into account are negative dynamics, which may explain why an individual might choose to abandon a group or be dismissed by a group. Within these different dynamics, in order to be able to perceive intermentality, there needs to be an initial shared judgement or shared perception and a shared decision that might or might not lead to a shared action-taking. It is important to note that intermental thinking is not just a sum total of the mental processes of the individuals who are part of the same group. It usually leads to achieving something together that each of the individuals probably could not have done on their own.
Intermental systems will vary depending on the extent, duration and success of their cognitive quality. Palmer distinguishes between three different types (Palmer 2005):
Intermental thought: This is at a minimal level of interaction and group thought, such as would be necessary for strangers to have a conversation and actually understand each other.
Intermental units: These are groups that are more familiar with each other and employ intermental thinking regularly. Connections and interactions between colleagues, friends and families are often of this type.
Intermental minds: This is the strongest connection between members of a group or two people. Couples who understand each other without uttering a word or have the same thought at the same time belong to this group. Obviously such a bond usually takes place over a long time span.
Since in the genre of drama, we usually deal with a second type, which is the most common type to start with, I will refer to Palmers intermental system as intermental units henceforth. Only where there are exceptions, will I point them out.
←54 | 55→
Intermentality is often taken to have the same meaning as communicative action. It is important to note here that to Palmer the term has a more extended meaning. Though intermentality does incorporate communication and joint decision-making, it also means joint states of mind and also competitive or conflicting actions between two minds (Palmer 2003: 340). If an intermental functioning brings about a group dynamic between two or more people, we can say that we have an intermental unit or group. Sharing knowledge is very common between social minds and usually a strong motivation for group formation, but then secrecy and keeping information will also contribute to the dynamics of intermental units. It is noteworthy, however, that not all groups have to be intermental. Sharing the same belief but not acting upon it and sharing the same state of mind without a shared dynamic resulting from it leaves us with a group that does not have intermentality.
Palmer talks about and applies his new approach only to the novel and frequently states his preference for “behaviourist narratives/novels”. He elaborates that these types of narratives are narratives in which the narrator provides a minimal amount of input and one perceives the characters through their words and actions. Palmer believes the analysis of these narratives will prove very rewarding:
My point is merely that behavorist narratives contain a good deal more information about fictional minds than has generally been appreciated. Specifically, I hope to show that this particular discourse is saturated with meanings that are closely related to the inner lives of characters. A character’s name is a space or vacuum into which readers feel compelled to pour meaning: characteristics, dispositions, states of mind, causations. (2004: 207)
These statements are by no means novel-specific. In fact, from the way in which Palmer goes on about behaviourist narratives, it seems as though the subject of discussion is more relevant to drama than to the novel. After all, is not drama the most obvious genre in which we experience the characters as they talk and act and have minimum interference of the narrator more than in novels? Questions like these call for more investigation as to why so little theoretical work has been done on drama and these narrative issues. As mentioned earlier, in classical narratology, drama was automatically excluded from the corpus of analytical work. The following section will briefly assess the status of a narratology of drama within general narrative studies and trace what has been done till now to place the genre of drama within a proper theory and provide models of interpretation for it.
←55 | 56→
2.3 The Status of Drama within Narrative Studies
Postclassical narrative studies have the potential to provide a starting point for a structured narrative theory of drama. One would assume that a broader definition of narrative and the advent of numerous postclassical approaches to narrative studies would have paved the way for an abundance of theories on the long-neglected genre of drama, but surprisingly this did not happen. At least the playscript still remains ignored and undiscovered in the great leap from classical narratology to the more modern approaches. Only a little practical analysis has been done on the playscript so far. What the emergence of the newer turn curbed was an active interest in drama as performance. Great, seminal work has been done on theatre and drama studies, which has added a whole new niche for narrative studies and transmediality.
Whereas Genette was interested in a special representation of events that would only allow regarding novels as narratives, the postclassical’s redefinition of narrative – what would include storytelling regardless of medium and mode – broadened their reception of a more transgeneric and transmedial approach that would readily embrace drama. Chatman believes that the similarities between the genres are more important than the differences. Adopting a more liberal attitude, Chatman states that any text devoted to storytelling is a narrative, and all narratives share narrative features such as temporal structure, characters and setting (1990). Jahn writes about the importance of stage directions and different narrative levels in drama that had been neglected thus far (2001). Richardson (1997 and 2001) begins to write on the narrativity in drama and some of its narrative features like frequency, point of view and voice. Pfister (1991a) focuses on a communicational theory of drama, Elam (1980) on the semiotics of drama. Fludernik, taking the cognitive aspect into account, underlines the importance of characterisation with regards to experientiality (1996). Nünning & Nünning, see the need for a narratology of drama and address this in their Erzähltheorie (2002). With the exception of Jahn, all of these works have a strong preference for the performative aspect of drama. The playscript in these studies is only one aspect to be considered among other aspects such as sound, light, costumes, the acting, audience response and much more. By neglecting the playscript once again, narrative studies are missing out on a wealth of narrative material that, by means of postclassical analytical tools and frames, could provide a new method of analysis. The modern paradigms could provide a different reading and a better appreciation of the playscripts.
As was mentioned before, traditionally, the main arguments against drama as narrative have been predominantly either due to its mimetic nature or the ←56 | 57→lack of an overt narrator. These differences seem to matter more than obvious similarities between the novel and drama, such as plot or storyworld, characters, temporal features and so on. These arguments became outdated once narrative studies moved further away from their formalist/structuralist heritage and critics started to argue about the degrees of narrativity. The ongoing
