Children’s Literature has often been ignored by the academic world, especially when it is examined strictly on its content matter. The level of sophistication, as a story and as a study, is questioned especially when pitted against criticisms that do not take into account the structure of children’s stories. A narratological approach may be a way to elevate the reception of Children’s Literature study and also give a deeper understanding of the story at hand. Before going on, perhaps it would be wise to understand what the term “narratology” means. Narratology refers to the branch of literary criticism that examines the functions and structure of narratives, is conventions, themes and symbols. This branch of knowledge also examines how narratives structure the audience’s perception of cultural artifacts as well the general world. It enables one to construct meaning in a given narrative. Narratology is a critical tool that when properly utilized can help to properly dissect and analyze children’s literature in order to come up with an excellent understanding of the genre of children’s literature.
Children literature is one of the primary genres of children’s literature. Unfortunately, academicians have often misunderstood and even ignored children’s literature. In their analysis of children’s literature, scholars have made many mistakes with one these mistakes being the use of the “what” approach in analyzing children’s literature. Such an approach, unfortunately, does not facilitate a proper understanding of the elements of this genre of literature.
Narratology when used as to analyze and interpret children’s literature goes deeper than just exploring the most basic elements of a children’s story, something that scholars of children’s literature have often tended to concentrate on. It goes beyond factors such as the plot of the story or even the characters in the story and their actions and explores the story from both a superficial and deeper level. How is the message in a given children’s story perceived or interpreted by children (the primary audience)? How do the adults (the secondary audience) interpret the same story? These are just some of the questions narratology enables an analyst or a researcher of children’s literature to understand. As seen, narratological approach to children’s literature study deviates from conventional approaches by exhibiting interest in the deeper element of a children’s story including analyzing the major elements make up a narrative or what does a narrative constitute. This sort of approach when used in children literature study shows interest in all the features in a given piece of literature that qualifies it to be a narrative. Narratology also examines how a particular narrative is manipulated through the interaction of point of views of the narrator, the authors, the readers and the character’s point of view.
Children literature also comprises of various themes and subjects, and when it comes to analyzing such narratives, the focus should not just be on the identity of these themes or subjects. One should go deeper and for example, attempt to establish how these themes are constructed and how they contribute to the main story. Once again the narratological tool can be effectively utilized to do this since it goes beyond the psychoanalytic, biographical and socio-historical aspects of children’s literature (Nikolajeva, 5).
Another primary and distinctive element of any children story is the characters. Authors of children stories invest a lot in characterization because when a child is reading a story, there is a higher likelihood of the child remembering the characters even more that they remember the actual story. Perhaps this is why some characters are often very popular and familiar with children in spite of the fact that when further research is conducted, some of these children may not even remember the stories that the characters are form. One of the keys to fully understanding children’s literature is, therefore, a proper analysis of the characterization. It is more possible to understand characterization by adopting a narratological approach.
In order to properly understand the concept of characterization, one potential approach that can help to reveal the basics of characterization and its relationship to the main story is adopting a mimetic approach that views characters as real individuals and then ascribes them a background as well as psychological traits that may not necessarily have any form of support in the literature text. It is always easier to understand characters when they are treated as human being with emotions, feelings and distinctive traits. In fact, when it comes to children’s literature, this is a very recommendable approach given that stories in this genre comprises of very special characters whose interpretation may be difficult if is conducted from a literal point of view .The second approach (the semiotic approach) is not very recommendable because it treat a story’s characters as all the other textual elements; as mere words without any real substance. This approach may not help very much in children’s literature study.
As Nikojaleva concludes that the narrative theory gives researcher and people who are interested in children’s literature tools that help in the analysis of the construction of texts, both at micro and macro levels, and that helps them to understand why some devices in children work and why others do not work (14). It also facilitates historical comparison which exhibits not only changes in values and themes, but also changes in the aesthetic form of children’s literature (14).
Comics are of the forms of children’s literature. Comics are particularly very popular with children and once again in order to fully understand this form of children’s literature. In this regard, the conclusions made by Nikojaleva about the study of children’s literature are comparable to those made by Kukonnen in her article “Comics as a Test Case for Transmedial Narratology", Kukkone’s focus is on comics as one of the forms of narrative. According to Kukonnen, comics are both a type of medium as well as a vehicle for storytelling (32). However, when it comes to the analysis if these two types of literature, the two authors show a distinguishable point of difference. Kukkone seems to advocate for an analysis that is based on the eye can see. In fact, on her analysis of comics. She primarily uses the elements that are conspicuous to the eye and does not advocate for an in-depth analysis. Some of these elements, for instance, that she uses to analyze this form of children’s narrative include speech bubbles, and panel sequences, the words, sequences and the images. This appears to be very contrary to a narratology approach where analysis goes beyond the superficial elements and extends deeper into the constituents of a children’s narrative.
Comics as a form of children’s literature successfully combine images and words to comprehensively tell as a story but a proper analysis of this form should go beyond the word, the images, and the sequences and so on. Using Kukkonen’s suggested model of analysis, for example, temporal quality in a child’s story can be investigated by looking at how characters moves across the page or how the panel sequences are used to link them. On the other hand, a narratological approach as suggested by Nikojaleva, would seek to establish how the temporal structures of the story’s discourse are organized in relation to the story’s temporal structures. The second approach would obviously give more insight and understanding of a children’s narrative even if it is a comic.
Conclusion
There is obviously a huge deficiency in the study of children’s literature. This deficiency is hugely attributable to the analysis approach utilized. A proper analysis is one that goes that beyond the obvious elements of a children’s narrative. It should explore both the superficial as well as the deep and hidden elements of a story. In this regard, a narratological analysis is recommendable approach that can be utilized in studying or analyzing children’s literature. Such an approach when properly utilized can enhance an excellent understanding of the genre of children’s literature.
Works Cited
Kukkonen, Karin. "Comics as a Test Case for Transmedial Narratology." SubStance40.1 (2011): 34-52. Print.
Nikolajeva, Maria. "Beyond the Grammar of Story, or How Can Children's Literature Criticism Benefit from Narrative Theory? “Children’s Literature Association Quarterly28.1 (2003): 5-16. Print.
Hoesterey, Ingeborg. "Critical narratology." Text and Performance Quarterly 11.3 (1991): 207-216. Print.
