Patterns of Romance and Irony in Narrative
When reading a story it usually is habit for the reader to take the narrator at their word. However, in narrative irony we cannot do this. The person, situation, statement, or circumstance is not as it would seem. Many times it is the exact opposite of what it appears to be. The author sets us up to be tricked and we have to allow this to follow the story line. This is unfamiliar for most of us as readers, but then again, so is life.In a narrative romance, the story line is one that most people are very familiar with. They should be, as the romance is one of the first types of stories heard as very young children. Everyone knows that Cinderella gets to marry the prince, for this to not happen would be wrong. In narrative romance, the hero goes through conflict in order to win their heart's desire. However, real life is not this. The good guy doesn't always get what they want, or if they do, it does not happen the way it does in the stories. Northrop Frye stated that the "central principle of ironic myth is best approached as a parody of romance: the application of the romantic mythical forms to a more realistic content which fits them in unexpected ways. In this way narrative irony can be said to be a parody of roman
Most characters in the narrative romance or either good or evil, they do not follow some middle ground filled with shades of gray that most of us mere mortal follow. The hero is transcendental in that their actions are important in ways "our ordinary conceptions of existence cannot explain. However, the boy with his lungs burning for air sees "above his head, a crack running through the rock. In his eyes, Gawain has committed treachery and betrayal of his host and more importantly, God. One thing that is important to remember in these stories is that the statement being made is actually true, but in an unexpected way. Romantic narrative patterns in appropriate stories are essential for us as humans to have a role mode, a goal, to strive for. For Big Boy this first is a huge snake and later a hunting hound. His rite of passage is a dark, womb-like tunnel. With the green man's words, Gawain is at his lowest, feeling true grief and shame in his heart. Although the young boy's emergence feels right given his rite of passage, the romantic narrative pattern dealing with rites of passage can also be displaced by irony. In the romantic mode the model for society is theocratic in the sense of one governed by a divinely authorized agent. The romantic model for nature implies a similarly transcendent power that gives the world a mysterious coherence and meaning (15).
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Acceptance Essays
