A critical concept that particularly interested me in the reading is the structure of narrative. In the context that I want to interrogate this concept, I am working with the definition that narrative structure deals with the “inner ‘workings’ of literary texts in order to discover the fundamental structural units . . . or functions . . . that govern texts’ narrative operations” (Tyson 212). In terms of structuralism as a whole, the structure of narrative is concerned with characterization and plot formulation in relation to language structures within the text. Ultimately, the structure of narrative is useful in that it gives the structuralist critic a way to examine the how the narrative operates within the text and to what end. One thing I realized when reading this section was the specific use of this concept with fiction; therefore, I wonder how applicable this concept is to nonfiction texts. How does structuralist narratology work with a nonfiction text such as a memoir, which does not include the same plot formula as a fiction work?

The best way I can think of to delve into this question is to think about the “units of narrative progression” (Tyson 212) in both fiction and nonfiction. In fiction, the narrative progression takes the structural form of a plot mountain, with the conflicts, tensions, climaxes, and resolutions clearly labelled. In a memoir, I believe the narrative progression is not as easy to map out, mostly because the progression depends upon the order that the events are told in, such as in chronological order. Even if we cannot apply a plot map to a memoir in the same way we can with a fictional novel, I do think that the narrative structure of a memoir can be analyzed in the same or similar way if we look at the text in the way that Gérard Genette does: by observing the tense of the text in regard to order, duration, and frequency (Tyson 216). 

In Gretel Ehrlich’s The Solace of Open Spaces, she says in the preface that this memoir was “originally conceived as a straight-through narrative,” but was instead “written in fits and starts and later arranged chronologically” (ix). If we think about this memoir in terms of the order of the narrative structure, the relationship between the chronology of the story and the chronology of the narrative is technically the same, as the stories are told in the same order as they happened in real life. However, due to Ehrlich’s note in the preface, the reader knows that the writing process did not happen chronologically. With structuralism, this note about how the memoir was written does not really matter in terms of narrative structure. This moment of authorial intention is irrelevant because the critic aims to analyze the text alone, and the only thing that matters in analyzing this memoir is that the chapters or sections are arranged in chronological order. 

In terms of duration, The Solace of Open Spacesis 131 pages and covers roughly ten years of Ehrlich’s life in Wyoming. Individual stories may tell a few months in as little as 10 pages, but the relationship between the length of time of a certain event and the number of pages the narrative occupies is fairly even. Just as in a fictional novel, the speaker can stretch or condense events to fit however many pages she sees fit. The main difference here is that the speaker in a memoir uses the whole book to tell of one portion of her life, making that the main event that occupies all of the pages. In Genette’s last section about frequency, one might note the number of times Ehrlich describes the sky in her memoir, or the recurring trips she takes as a ranch hand and how the experiences differ. In this way, the events repeated in a memoir have much of the same effects as repeated events in fictional novels. 

Circling back to my original question, a critic is definitely able to analyze a memoir in terms of narrative structure in the same way that a fictional novel can be analyzed. Though characterization may not be as much of a focus, the plot of a memoir and the order of events in the memoir give the critic an insight as to what deeper structures are at work within the text. For example, after noticing that the events in a 10-year timespan occur chronologically over a good amount of pages, perhaps the critic would realize that the recurrence of specific events, descriptions, and syntax are additional structural functions at work that allow the reader to understand the landscape and atmosphere of Wyoming and how the land itself can affect a person. 

Ehrlich, Gretel. The Solace of Open Spaces. New York, Penguin, 1985.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. 3^rd ed., Routledge, 2015.