in a text. Moving closer towards the referential end of the scale, but still close to the textual end, they are no longer treated as mere grammatical entities, but as complex literary constructs in the text. They are thus, more or less aesthetic objects in the narrative work. On the next level, characters become more of what Margolin refers to as “theme anthropomorphized” (1990b: 106): this means that they represent an idea, ideology or theme in the text. Here they become more context-bound than text-bound. Finally, at the other end of the scale characters are regarded as if they were real persons, as if they conformed to real-world paradigms. Their actions and thoughts are seen and analysed as if they were real human beings. As I will explain later (Chapter Three), it will be most fruitful to have both poles in mind while analysing a playscript. In the context of this study, and specifically for the construction of the characters’ minds, it will be profitable to treat the characters’ minds like a real person’s mind. On the other hand, one should never lose sight of the fact that the character is ultimately a narrative agent, a construct, and that only by nature of that constructedness are we able to reconstruct, to a certain degree its mind and its interaction with other minds.
Typically in drama the characters, occupying the storyworld make an appearance on its textual level. Rare exceptions to this rule include instances when a play uses disembodied voices of characters, that is when we just “hear” but do not “see” them, or on occasions where there are pivotal characters whom we get to know exclusively through the descriptions and discourses of the other characters. Manfred Pfister provides a very detailed and comprehensive analysis for this. Most of my initial characterisation techniques described in this study (see Chapter Three) are based on the model he proposes in his The Theory and Analysis of Drama (1991b).9 The reader is provided with information to construct the characters through two different information channels, either the author/authorial agency or the characters themselves in the play. The authorial information in a play is usually restricted to minimal information provided in the prologues (if existing), in the introductory parts to the play or each scene, or more dominantly, in the stage directions (whose extensiveness varies from playwright to playwright). Most of the information the reader gains about the characters in drama is provided through figural characterisation techniques: from the characters themselves. Characters are constantly providing ←24 | 25→us with information about themselves (what Palmer calls embedded narratives) or other characters (what Palmer calls doubly embedded narratives).
In the case of authorial presentation, it is clear that any information about the character that is directly provided, for example, details about his/her physical appearance or character traits, is considered an explicit characterisation statement. Implicit statements are more subtle and might be found in inherent comparisons and contrasts between the characters indicated by the author; moreover, they can be manifested in the employment of techniques such as character foils, where the reader is able to compare and contrast the behaviour and actions of two characters in different dramatic situations. Other implicit statements serving as part of authorial characterisation involve ideological positioning of the characters, as in certain catchphrases that connect them to specific ideological beliefs or groups. In drama studies, there is an unease about treating a playscript as a whole, autonomous narrative consolidating all the parts – stage directions, introductions and the dialogue. I would like to introduce a model where all these parts contribute to telling a story about fictional characters interacting in a storyworld; an inclusive model where one can make use of the clues available in all the parts of the narrative.
1.4 Methodology and Approach
My theoretical approach is mainly based on Palmer’s theory, but since Palmer himself is working with an eclectic compilation of concepts, I too will draw on the major theories in cognitive narratological studies. After having explained in detail Palmer’s approach, the status of drama in narrative studies, and the concept of character and characterisation within a narrative framework in Chapters Two and Three of this book, in Chapters Four and Five, I will introduce my own concepts.
In applying Palmer’s theoretical framework I am following in the steps Emmott’s contextual frame theory in her “Construction of Social Space” (2003). Emmott’s approach is a linguistic one. She argues that on the level of each sentence readers are presented with a set of characters, which she calls the “overt participants”. She calls characters that are assumed to be present (in the storyworld, for example), but are not mentioned in that particular sentence she calls the “covert participants”. Thus, proximity plays a central role in Emmott’s theory since “in comprehending narratives, readers have to construct these co-presence relations and make inferences about the social consequences of proximity” (2003: 303). She later states that “[f];rom a social point of view, we are constantly making assumptions about how the actions of characters affect ←25 | 26→the other characters who are co-present” (2003: 304). The foundation of this theory, along with some minor adaptations to the genre of drama, will be a perfect match for Palmer’s theory of social minds in action and my application of it to character groupings in playscripts. One of these adaptations is to expand the object of analysis from a sentence in a novel to a scene in a play. In every scene, there is a set of characters present that form agential constellations. These will be referred to as the overt participants of that particular scene. The other characters who are part of the dramatis personae and thus part of the storyworld but are not present in that particular scene are the covert participants.
Contextual frame theory allows us to make inferences based on every action and utterance of the characters, and based on these inferences to construct the overt and covert characters’ consciousness. By taking Palmer’s continuing consciousness frame into account, the focus on consciousness helps to convert Emmott’s model into a dynamic and ongoing process active throughout the play, whereby each and every utterance confirms, rejects or revises previous versions of the characters’ consciousness that have been constructed by the reader. Furthermore, the concept of social proximity and co-presence is one of the major processes at work in group formation in different scenes of a play. The dynamic nature of the theory, adapted to drama, takes into account any character that enters or leaves the context during any scene (Emmott 2003: 305), and it highlights the assumption that characters have a social awareness of the co-presence of other characters in their storyworld (2003: 305).
Though the bulk of drama consists of dialogue, there are other textual features that complement the playscript. In this study, I am analysing the dialogue as well as metadramatic textual features, such as stage directions or additional information at the beginnings of the scenes. I will divide the playscripts into the introductory/explanatory passages, stage directions and embedded/doubly embedded narratives. The introductory and explanatory passages are the least behaviourist part of the playscript and are those passages that occur at the beginning of the plays, acts or scenes. They are detached from the characters and contain the playwright’s information about the characters. The stage directions are the parts that are set apart typographically from the rest of the text through italics or brackets (or both); they are more behaviourist than the introductory/explanatory passages and they belong to the specific characters they are tagged to. The embedded and doubly embedded narratives are the dialogue where we observe the characters talk and act and can extract information directly from a character about herself (embedded) or about another character (doubly
