Gendered Storytelling: Femininity in
the Screenplay of Carol
Sebastiaan Leeman
MA Film Studies – Professional Track Thesis supervisor: F.A.M. Laeven
Second reader: G.W. van der Pol
Word count: 20.404
Summary
This thesis explores gendered dialogue and the gendered structure of the screenplay
Carol. The question is not how the story and dialogue of Carol is masculine or feminine,
but it tries to show how femininity can be recognized in the story. This contributes to knowledge about the perceptions of feminine stories and it can help critically think about stories that do just to a feminine perspective or to consciously oppose gender perceptions. The following main question will be answered in this thesis: How can an analysis of a screenplay do justice to a feminine perspective in the story and how can this be applied to the dialogue and structure of the screenplay Carol? To answer the main question, this thesis will define analytical tools to analyze the femininity in the story, specifically in the story structure and dialogue. The analysis of Carol will explore the moments where femininity is performed in the dialogue and how this also supports a feminine story structure.
Index
I. Introduction 4 II. Screenplays and dialogue 9 Introduction 9 II.I Screenplays 9 II.I.I Intermediateness 9 II.I.II Literary Text 10 II.II Dialogue 13 II.II.I Functions 13 II.II.II Subtext 15 III. The Performance of Language 16 Introduction 16 III.I Language 16 III.I.I Gender 16 III.I.II Linguistics 18 III.II Performance 19 III.II.I Discourse 19 IV. Feminine storytelling 22 Introduction 22 IV.I Storytelling 22 IV.I.I Narrator 22 IV.I.II Narration 24 IV.II Feminine narrative 26 IV.II.I Feminine Story 26 IV.II.II Screenwriting Manuals 27 V. An analysis of Carol 29 Introduction 29 V.I. An approach to analysis 29 V.II Narrator 30 V.II.I Fictional narrator 30 V.II.II Hypothetical narrator 31 V.II.III Key scenes and dialogue 39 V.III Feminine dialogue 41 V.III.I Minimal responses and turn-taking patterns 41 V.III.II Hedges, topic and topic development 41 V.III.III Questions 46 VI. Conclusion 51 Bibliography 55 Appendix 59I.
Introduction
“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” - Maya Angelou
As part of my master’s program I ran an internship at the Dutch public broadcaster NTR. I had a chance to read many screenplays in development in the Dutch film industry, including many film proposals for the different talent development competitions. During my time at the NTR I increasingly paid attention to the role of women in screenplays, because my interest in this topic was ignited by a course in my master’s program. My experience was that many screenplays feature women in recurring gender specific roles, which film journalist Karin Wolfs named as the following: young women who are sexy, the frustrated mother, the cold career women and grandmothers who are suffering from dementia or are infirm (Filmkrant, june 2015). I began to question why filmmakers continue to portray women in roles that seem repetitive, and I became convinced that there still needs to be special attention for the role of women in movies to support a more diverse story.
The status of women in films is also problematic in international context. One of the examples that makes this perfectly clear is the recent revelation that Iron Man 3 was supposed to have a female villain. However, the villain was changed to a male gender because people were worried a toy of the character would sell less if the villain was female (The Guardian, 17 may 2016). Besides, in many international films there are problems with the representation and inclusion of women. There are numerous tools developed over the years to draw attention to the representation of female characters in movies. A famous tool is the Bechdel test, which basically asks three questions: 1) are there more than one woman in the movie 2) are they talking to each other and 3) are they talking about something other than a man. Other tests which try to make a statement about the presence of women in movies are The Mako Mori test and The Sexy Lamp test. The Bechdel test is the most well-known test and easy to apply to a corpus of movies, and while this test points to a lack of inclusion, there also needs to be asked how this lack of inclusion is created on a storytelling level.
There are many factors contributing to an uneven gender division in movies, for example marketing expectations or sexist ideologies. But even well-intentioned film professionals can contribute on other fronts to a marginalized women’s role. A recent study into dialogue lines in movies revealed men talk more than women in
movies, even when the movies have female protagonists (Vox, 9 April 2016). A solution to these problems may be that feminine qualities of the story, whether it’s the characters, setting or structure, should be valued in it’s own right. This would result in a better understanding of the influence of gender on stories and how a story can construct femininity. Nowadays there is also attention for other unequal representations in film, such as race and class. In academic research these factors are combined to give contextual analysis to representations, instead of concluding essentiality that just one category is a defining factor. However, this doesn’t mean that gender cannot be analyzed as a separate category anymore. It’s true that gender is always in relation to other factors, but analyzing gender as a single category is still valuable for showing representational problems. In this thesis I will research how femininity can be analyzed in the story and how important a feminine perspective on storytelling can be. My research will not focus on how equality can be achieved, but on the appropriate valuation of a feminine perspective and point to gender perceptions in storytelling analysis. If the femininity of the story can be analyzed, storytellers can more consciously decide how they can do justice to a feminine story or want to change these gender perceptions. It can also show how a feminist reading in academic research is still a valid approach in analyzing the influence of gender.
Usually, film development begins with the writing of the screenplay. When the role of women in movies has to be researched it’s good to start at the beginning of the film production process and thus the writing of the screenplay. The question that needs to be asked is: What are the ideas and dramaturgic choices that needs special attention in a screenplay analysis to look at the position of women in the story? An interesting screenplay to analyze for this research topic is Carol (Nagy). The movie follows the growing love between two women and passes the previously mentioned Bechdel Test as a ‘women friendly’ movie. This object of research can show how analyzing the screenplay, while taking the genderization of the story into account, would contribute to a broader understanding of movies and a better appreciation of more diversification.
In the analysis of the screenplay one important category is dialogue. Dialogue is one of the components of a film which is more easily written down in a text form and thereby is prominent in the screenplay. The analysis of Carol will explore how dialogue supports a feminine story structure. This leads to the following main question: ‘How can an analysis of a screenplay do justice to a feminine perspective in the story and how can this be applied to the dialogue and structure of the screenplay
Carol?’ To answer the main question, the following subquestions are addressed: 1)
What is the status of screenplays? 2) How can dialogue be studied? 3) How can a feminine speech and feminine story structure be constructed in screenplays? and 4) How can dialogue support the femininity of the story of Carol?
To answer this main question, the status of screenplays and dialogue in film studies needs to be considered first. In general, film studies and media studies has tried to define its objects of research in visual qualities. Screenplays are dichotomous to fall under one particular kind of study: at one hand it does provide a first attempt at the visualization of the movie while at the other hand it’s still very text centric. This results in a debate in film studies, and screenwriting studies in particular, on how a screenplay needs to be studied. A text centric approach to the screenplay is undervalued in film studies because of its association with literary studies, but the screenplay does not have the same qualities as the novel, which in turn prevented a study into screenplays from a literary perspective. Screenwriting studies aimed to define the screenplay in it’s own terms and tried not to borrow from the vocabulary of the narratology, literary or film studies field. Now, screenwriting studies primarily focuses on the intermediate aspect of the screenplay. Led by work from scholars such as Ian MacDonald and Steven Maras this focus results in more research toward screenplay development instead of the screenplay as a text. However, there are reasons why a literary definition of the screenplay provides a valid object of research. These reasons are described in chapter two, in combination with the debate within screenwriting studies about the status of the screenplay as an object of research. Also, the second chapter describes the position of dialogue studies within film studies. Sarah Kozloff is an important academic in the dialogue studies field, and pointed to the importance of dialogue into the construction of a film (Kozloff 14).
Academic research oriented to gendered dialogue hasn’t been extensively conducted yet, and therefore linguistic research has to be studied to provide a basis for the analysis of dialogue in a screenplay. The third chapter will revolve around language and gender, and how these two categories intersect. The gendered component of language has been researched by scholars like Robin Lakoff and Deborah Tannen. However, their studies divided men and women in two essentialistic categories where one cannot escape their biological sex and always stays within the same group. In this way, men cannot speak a women’s language and vice versa. Within gender studies, Judith Butler shows how gender is a much more fluid concept. Butler’s central argument is that if one wants to belong to a gender category that
person has to deliver a performance to be recognized by society as male or female (Butler 175). Because one must act according to societal norms about gender to be recognized as male or female, the performance says something about societal norms about masculinity and femininity. A discursive approach to analyzing gender is most appropriate to value the constructiveness of an object. Therefore, the analysis of Carol will be conducted through this discursive approach. It’s important to note that if, in the continuation of this thesis, there are statements about men or women it doesn’t mean the argument falls back on essentialist categories. For example, if it’s stated that women use more hedges, the word ‘women’ stands for the gender category and encompasses much more than just the persons biologically belonging to the category ‘women’.
The fourth chapter will delve into the influence of gender on the narrative structure. Dialogue isn’t a self-contained component of the screenplay and is part of a much bigger narrative. The influence of gender on the narrative has been researched by feminist narratologists and this resulted to some characteristics of a female story. While academic theory does help to establish a clearer picture of the narrative, the practical application can seem ambiguous. A more practical theory is also needed to show how feminine stories are constructed in recent movies. The Virgin’s Promise by Kim Hudson is a counter argument to the The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell, and shows how a feminine story isn’t just swapping the gender of the character but results in different kinds of journeys for the protagonist (Hudson, xxv).
In the last chapter the screenplay of Carol will be analyzed according to an approach for finding gendered dialogue. The goal of the analysis is twofold: to analyze how femininity can be analyzed in the structure of the narrative and whether feminine dialogue is present in the screenplay, and how this supports the feminine narrative. The feminine narrative is analyzed according to five categories that are derived from the conclusions of feminist narratologists. The feminine narrative categories are connectivity, interdependence, circular narrative, self-discovery/oppression theme and the private sphere of the story world. To establish an analysis of dialogue it helps to know which scenes are important beats in the story. It’s possible that those scenes show the femininity of the dialogue in the most clearly visible way. The Virgin’s Promise is used to divide Carol into beats of the virgin’s journey and thereby key scenes are established. Thereafter, dialogue in those scenes and the rest of the screenplay will be analyzed according to the categories of Janet Coates. She subdivides categories that describe the research into gendered speech and how the conclusions of this research
outlines how female and male speech is constructed. The categories that will be used for analysis are hedges, topic and topic development, minimal responses and turn-taking patterns, questions and tag questions. In the analysis of dialogue, special attention will be paid to the contribution of dialogue to a feminine story. After the analysis the main question will be answered, and it will be clear how an analysis of the screenplay can be improved to include a feminine perspective.
II. Screenplays and dialogue
IntroductionTo thoroughly analyze the screenplay, it is necessary to understand the function of screenplays in the film production process. There are medium specific qualities to the screenplay which require setting up the analysis differently from a more traditional film analysis. The analysis of films more frequently emphasizes the visual aspects of the medium, while screenplays have a textual basis with the goal of producing a visual product. This discrepancy is further researched in this chapter. The status of screenplays in film production and the literary qualities of screenplay will be scrutinized as well. A prominent literary feature of screenplays is dialogue. This chapter will incorporate the different functions of dialogue in a screenplay as well as the status of dialogue in film studies. The relationship between dialogue and subtext will be further explored to find the deeper meaning of dialogue.
II.I Screenplays II.I.I Intermediateness
In screenwriting studies one concept used frequently to describe the uniqueness of screenplays is the intermediately. Screenplays are always used in the film production process to produce something else: the final film. The destiny of a screenplay is to blend into images. The question then becomes if a screenplay can be finished, whether the destiny of the screenplay is to be something else. There is an ambiguity around the final version of the script: is the continuity script the final version of the screenplay and therefore a satisfying object to study, or is it the shooting script? This ambiguity can exist because the screenplay is always evolving: it is an intermediate product. Ian MacDonald supported the intermediately of the screenplay by concluding that the screenplay can never be final, and he additionally states that it also cannot be the work of one author and that it is not image based nor literary based (90). These three facets of the screenplay as defined by MacDonald describe the intermediately of screenplays. Besides the infiniteness of the screenplay, one aspect of MacDonald’s argumentation for the intermediately of the screenplay is the inability to see one person as the author of the screenplay. The screenplay is going through different production phases where different people can influence the screenplay creatively, mainly because film production is a collaborative endeavor. In the pre-production
process many film projects use a script editor (Finney 29) and they will provide feedback to a screenwriter and producer about the status of the script, which influences the screenplay indirectly. The director also has a strong influence on the screenplay, since the director will lead the effort to translate the words on the page to the screen. In this way, one can say the screenplay has no real author. Another facet of MacDonald’s categorization is the inability to classify the screenplay as literary or visual. A screenplay has to be written to evoke images, but at the same time the screenplay has to be of high quality to continue film production and it’s financing (Ellis 61). Therefore, screenplays miss the freedom of literary work, because the words on the page are restricted to visual qualities. Nonetheless, screenplays are not true visual products because they have to be expressed in words. The screenplay falls between the literary and visual category because of its intermediateness.
The intermediateness of the screenplays holds back a classification of the script as a true work of art, whereas film and literature are respected objects of arts in their respective academic fields. If a screenplay can’t be easily situated in existing academic fields, how can a screenplay be a relevant object of study? Scholars like MacDonald and Steve Maras have introduced new qualifications for studying the screenwriting development process while at the same time taking the intermediateness of screenplays into account. MacDonald introduced the screen idea and Maras suggested using the term scripting. MacDonald defines the screen idea as follows: “Any notion of a potential screenwork held by one or more people, whether or not it is possible to describe it on paper or by other means” (90). In this definition, the screen idea is not the same as the screenplay. It has to be seen as a common goal which all involved in the pre-production of a film try to achieve. In Maras’ terminology, scripting can be applied to many other film production related works. Scripting is another word for writing a story in all of the filmmaking fields. The focus is not solely on a manuscript based version of writing. Writing with sound is also possible in this definition (Maras 2). It emphasizes that writing does not always have to be putting words on a page. The approach of MacDonald and Maras to the study of screenwriting seems to have a predominant place in screenwriting studies (Moreno 78).
II.I.II Literary Text
The theory of MacDonald and Maras can be used to study the development of screenplays, but they fail to provide analytical tools for an analysis of the screenplay itself. Studying the screenplay can be accomplished by viewing the screenplay as a literary text. As can be derived from the previous paragraph, this classification is
already debated in screenwriting studies because the unique features of a screenplay defer from literary texts significantly. However, there are also advantages of executing a literary analysis of the screenplay.
First, a literary perception of the screenplay provides space to the screenwriter as an artist instead of just a collaborator. In the historical book of Steve Maras on screenwriting he discusses the thin line between the screenplay as an autonomous or intermediate work and cites the observations of theatre scholar John Gassnar, a theatre scholar who defended the literary form of the screenplay. Gassnar stated that theatre drama scripts are already seen as literature, and screenplays could achieve the same status (Maras 53). Theatre dramas scripts were first seen as as a tool for actors that would help them perform, just as screenplays are also seen as an instrument for production. Additionally, Gassnar contests the notion of the screenplay as just an instrument for the director. There is much more to be read in modern screenplays than just shot descriptions, which are a primary interest of the director. Screenplays consists for the most part of the following elements: dialogue and description. Together with other aspects of the screenplay it forms a highly stylized entity: scene headings always display the location of the scene and dialogue is always in the center of the page. This provides an easy reading of the screenplay (Maras 54), and the screenplay is presented to be read. The effort of providing this reading is an artful practice. The instrumental function of the screenplay shouldn’t be undervalued, but the same is true for it’s literary function. Screenplays can have the same status as a play: a screenplay can be seen as a “work written with the intention that it should be filmed” just as plays can be seen as “work written with the intention it should be performed” (Horne 52).
Secondly, by valuing the screenplay as a work of art the practice is derived from it’s association as just being a craft. Jill Nelmes acknowledges the perception of writing screenplays as a craft (Some Thoughts 108) and situates the cause of this thinking in the general perception that screenplays are being written in a highly industrialized form and are driven by industry conventions. Also, the many manuals about screenwriting suggests that screenwriting is something that anyone could do if they learn the appropriate method. Nelmes responds to this thinking by emphasizing that no artwork can be created without learning a craft. Sculptors can’t make masterpieces out of nowhere: they have to learn their craft to create their artwork. As Nelmes articulates it: “In the case of the screenwriter, many years are usually spent learning their art and craft, which seems to be a complex mix of inspiration and creative ideas, a synthesis of art and craft” (Some Thoughts 109).
Third, many screenwriting forms that seem to contradict the notion of screenplays as instrumental are now incorporated in the artful status of the screenplay. An example of these forms is the frequent use of spec scripts for television series in America. These scripts are only written to show the executives the talent of a writer (Nannicelli 149). Matthew Weiner wrote a spec script to demonstrate the showrunner of The Sopranos, David Chase, his qualities as a screenwriter. Chase liked this screenplay and suggested it should be made into a series to HBO’s development department (Edgerton 6). Eventually the television channel AMC picked up this script and premiered it under the title Mad Men in 2007. This example shows that screenplays can also be written without the precondition of ever being filmed, while readers still can enjoy the artistic qualities of the script. Screenplays are also more and more published in book form. Mostly these are shooting scripts, which are the versions of the script before it is filmed. In this way the screenplay is being read as a text distant from the movie: the published screenplay is considered to be something else than the film (Korte and Schneider 96-97). Another example are the screenplays of Ivo Michiels, a Belgian screenwriter who wrote his screenplays in an experimental way and not held himself to industry conventions about the formatting (Geerts 128). Virtual series is a phenomenon where screenplays are written in a serial format while they are never being filmed. This also presents a derivation of viewing the screenplay as an instrument in film production (Nannicelli 142).
All of these arguments above support a view of the screenplay as an artistic text. It doesn’t exclude the instrumental value of screenplays in the film production process, but to deterministically conclude this is the only function a screenplay can have limits academic knowledge about screenplays. For this thesis, a screenplay will be considered a work of art from this moment forward. Although a literary analysis of the screenplay does not fully justify the unique qualities of the screenplay, it seems to be the only available academic theory that provides the vocabulary necessary to say something insightful about the screenplay as a text. Through the use of classifications like ‘scripting’ or ‘screen idea’ the focus is more on the development phase of the screenplay and not so much on the screenplay as a text. Although the screenplay is further developed after the shooting script, this version of the screenplay shows the version of the story before it it is taken into production, before filming, and hence the most autonomous version of the screenwriter.
II.II Dialogue II.II.I Functions
Dialogue is one of the most important elements when studying the screenplay. The screenplay in it’s modern form are sometimes described as a “dialogue driven script” (Murphy 176). The definition of dialogue as a driving force in the screenplay is too simplistic for this thesis, but it shows how important dialogue is in a screenplay. Independent filmmakers who want to create an alternative to the screenplay critique the script on empathizing too much on dialogue. Richard Walter wrote a screenwriting manual stating that the script is mainly talk and that dialogue constitutes the main element in a screenplay (Walter 83 in: Murphy 177). This observation makes it more bewildering that dialogue is a minimal researched branch in film studies. One important academic study into dialogue has been conducted by Sarah Kozloff, who wrote the book Overhearing Film Dialogue. Another work worth mentioning about dialogue is Writing Dialogue for Scripts by Rib Davis. This work is a screenwriting manual and is worth incorporating into the research because, unlike most screenwriting manuals, this book doesn’t treat dialogue only as a subdivision of the script but gives more insight into the working of dialogue itself. The works by Kozloff and Davis combined provide extensive knowledge about the use of dialogue in the screenplay. On the basis of these works some characteristics will be listed.
A thought about the role of dialogue in screenwriting is that dialogue should be kept to a minimum and be functional. Davis thereby states that this statement is especially true for dialogue in film because film is expected to convey its story by visual means (47). Kozloff also underlines the idea that dialogue should be kept to a minimum (28). A common heard phrase in filmmaking is ‘Show, don’t tell’, and this implicitly expresses the greater valuation of images over words in film. Film Studies in general also values the image higher than the spoken/written word and therefore contributed to a neglect of properly analyzing dialogue. Most film analysis are dealing with the meaning and interpretation of images instead of researching dialogue. Dialogue in the mainstream Hollywood movie is also believed to always put focus on the plot and to what degree the dialogue will thrive the story forward (Berliner 6). There is a sort of pragmatism about dialogue: it does not have to be chatter, it has to be functional.
The functionality of dialogue can be explained on the basis of nine functions of dialogue introduced by Kozloff. These nine functions include:
1. anchorage of the diegesis and character 2. communication of narrative causality 3. enactment of narrative events
4. character revelation
5. adherence to the code of realism
6. control of viewer evaluation and emotions 7. exploitation of the resources of language
8. thematic messages/authorial commentary/allegory 9. opportunities for “star turns”
(33-34)
The functions of dialogue as named by Kozloff show how dialogue can be of importance in a visual medium and subsequently the importance of dialogue in the screenplay. Point 1 shows how dialogue can give meaning to the images on screen. Most of the time the location or characters names are unknown to the audience and dialogue can provide this information to the public. Point 2 is about the way dialogue can push the story forward and set up a causal relationship between narrative events. For example, many times a ‘deadline’ is employed in a movie. A character has only until a certain moment in the story to complete something or be somewhere. This is made clear through the dialogue and brings meaning to an event and a causal relationship between scenes. Point 3 indicates that a key scene in a movie can be a verbal act instead of a visual one. Most of the times this is the plot point at the end of the second act and through this a revelation occurs (Kozloff 41-42). Another example of an important verbal act is the declaration of love. Point 4 proves how dialogue helps the moviegoer with getting to know a character. Point 5 shows the construction of realism through the use of dialogue. Realism is important in movies because it absorbs the audience into a story (Nelmes, Realism 223). The audience must not be concerned with the constructiveness of the movie. Dialogue in movies are therefore mimicking ‘real talk’ while at the same time omitting all speech which is not functional for the narrative (Davis 48). Point 6 is concerned with the guidance of the interpretation by the viewer. If a character shouts to another character to run away the viewer is guided to interpret the situation as tense. The last three points of Kozloff don’t have a narrative function and dialogue becomes an aesthetic quality of it’s own, in contrast to the narrative supporting role. Jokes are an example of using language aesthetically and thereby not supporting the narrative.
II.II.II Subtext
The functional view of dialogue in films has now become apparent. However, dialogue also expresses meaning outside the spoken words. There is great value in film for the things that aren’t stated directly because dialogue should only have a functional contribution to the story. Dialogue is imposed to not take over the action in a screenplay. For example, when the punching of a character is important in the narrative it is ought to show the punching itself instead of characters telling about it (Davis 70). The words in the dialogue must communicate something else other than the action. For example: the emotion of a character towards the action in the scene. When a character gets punched he can yell curse words and this reveals the pain or anger of the character. A character ought not to state exactly how he or she is feeling in that situation, because it wouldn’t adhere to reality where speech also isn’t used only to say what people mean.
Thus, through all dialogue there is a difference between what is said and what is meant: a difference between text and subtext. John Yorke discusses subtext briefly in his examination about storytelling in the book Into the Woods: How Stories Work and
Why We Tell Them. He describes ‘masked desire’ as the main source of subtext (Yorke
165). A character doesn’t want to speak out his or her true intention in a scene and the character tries to hide behind words so he can hold up a façade. The difference between the intention of a character and their real feeling provides drama. The audience cannot really grasp what a character is thinking (except with the use of a voice-over) and this ambiguity makes good dialogue possible (Davis 79). In an analysis of dialogue, subtext will point to the meaning of dialogue in a scene.
The previous paragraph has shown the tendency in film to keep dialogue contained. The question remains why this tendency has developed in this way. According to Kozloff, the lesser appreciation for dialogue exists because it is associated with femininity (Kozloff 13). The minimalism of speech is discursively valued as masculine, while more commonplace talk is being associated with femininity. The thinking is that if women speak minimalistic they aren’t realistically female and then their female identity is established in other ways by the audience. As a result, women tend to be judged more on their looks and their visual qualities than their spoken words. This conclusion by Kozloff provides a glimpse at the influence of gender on dialogue in movies. The next chapter will further explore how language and speech are gendered.
III. The Performance of Language
IntroductionIt is necessary to look more closely at the words and language used in film dialogue: literary language. This chapter will focus on the genderization of dialogue, and whether there is a division between male and female speech in language. The term female speech suggests a different adaptation of language by women, in contrast to men. Such a definition prevents men from performing a feminine speech and vice versa. To address this issue, there will first be an exploration of the difference between sex and gender and performativity theory by Judith Butler. Subsequently, there will be a closer look at how gender theory intersects with the linguistic field. Lastly, the use of discourse analysis to analyze language will be discussed. This chapter will elucidate how the employment of language contributes to a feminine or masculine speech. III.I Language
III.I.I Gender
The categorization of male and female depends on socially constructed definitions of what constitutes a male or female being. By adhering to these notions of being male or female one is recognized as such. One of the first theories about the construction of gender was done by Simone de Beauvoir, who stated that “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman” (273). Other theories elaborated in more detail about the constructiveness of gender. Zimmerman and West pointed to the difference between sex, sex category and gender (West and Zimmerman 127). Sex is a socially accepted definition which is based in most societies on biological characteristics at birth, which leads to a difference between male and female. Sex category is the recognition by society of your sex. Gender is a practice of all things a person undertakes to belong to a sex category. It is the role that one acts for being recognized as female or male. Gender is not a category on it’s own: it expresses the desire of a person to be accepted in one of the two sexes and the actions one must undertake to get the societal recognition of that sex.
The activity of people to belong to a male or female gender can be seen as a performance. A scholar who made performativity of gender central to her argument is Judith Butler. Butler wrote one of the most cited works on gender theory. Butler redefined the different categories belonging to the production of gender into
“anatomical sex, gender identity and gender performance” (Butler 175). Butler is radical in the consequences of this differentiation for the anatomical sex. According to her, when gender is a performance, the distinction between male and female is part of that performance. Male and female are not biological categories but socially constructed ones. The anatomical sex distinction is made biological to hide the performative act of gender. Butler phrases this as follows:
That gender reality is created through sustained social performances means that the very notions of an essential sex and a true or abiding masculinity or femininity are also constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of masculinist domination and compulsory heterosexuality. (180)
Butler touches upon another important element of gender: normative heterosexuality. Heterosexuality shapes the distinction between male and female. Only in this spectrum gender identities are possible. But people who are gay, lesbian or transgender don’t fit in this heterosexual norm. The deviations from the heterosexual norm thereby uncovers the performativity of gender.
The enactment of gender can define norms about masculinity and femininity (West and Zimmerman 126). Heteronormativity is central to understanding the construction of masculinity and femininity. This is because heteronormativity shapes two gender categories, male and female, and in this binary system males have historically acquired more power than women. This “hegemonic masculinity” is maintained by practices which “allowed men’s dominance over women to continue” (Connell and Messerschmidt 832). Not every form of masculinity is in favor of protecting existent power relations, but it’s the norm. Every other form of masculinity must position itself towards that norm. On the other hand, femininity is always in difference with masculinity: femininity is everything masculinity is not and masculinity is everything which is not femininity. Femininity is a subordinate position. If women do have masculine qualities these qualifications are reconfigured: a woman with authority is a bitch, a woman with desire for other women is a lesbian and a violent woman is badass (Schippers 95). Masculinity and femininity must be displayed on different levels to keep the power relations intact. Levels where masculinity and femininity are displayed can be seen “in the form of culture, social structure and social organization” (Schippers 91). Language is an integral part of culture and thereby would show conceptions of masculinity and femininity.
III.I.II Linguistics
Languages and cultures are highly context specific. It matters which language is being researched and conclusions about one language cannot be applied to another language without hesitancy. In this thesis the English language is meant specifically when using the lexicon language. The American tradition of researching gendered language is more concerned with how women actually speak and how this is a sign of the oppression of women, instead of language facilitating this oppression. American thinkers wanted to create a language that doesn’t oppress women as well, but they don’t want to change language completely. American thinkers wanted to reshape language instead of rebuilding (Gilbert and Gubar 519). A reason for why this different way of thinking was developed can be explained through the lack of a sex distinction in English grammar. English is a natural gender language. The pronouns in the English language are gendered but gender has no reflection in grammar. However, the French language has a division of the sexes in the grammar (Gilbert and Gubar 520) and therefore French is a grammatical gender language (Prewitt-Freillino et al. 269). As a result, French theorists concentrated more on the way how language can be formed to escape this paradigm and how women have to create a language of one’s own. Notwithstanding, the most influential research toward gender and language has been written within the American rebuilding tradition.
To research the role of gender in language it is necessary to ask first if there is a difference between the appliance of language between men and women. According to Robin Lakoff, this difference does exist and in her influential essay she listed characteristics of a ‘women’s language’. Women’s language is not only the language that women use, but also the language that is used to describe women (Lakoff 48). The characteristics of Lakoff show the inferiority of women by their use of language. Lakoff’s argument is that women are using language which men don’t want to use because it devalues their status. One key concept in the argument of Lakoff is politeness: women are expected to behave polite because they are people who can control themselves (51). As a result, women often answer questions in the form of a combination between a statement and a question. It’s an answer where the question is answered without making a definitive statement. An example of a statement as a question to ‘Which time will you be home?’ can be: ‘Round 6 o’ clock...’? An answer is given to the question but it leaves the addressee some space to undermine the answer. It’s a way of being polite to the addressee, because you make the other feel superior. The listener is not up for making a decision and leaves it to the addressee to decide if
the answer is appropriate (56). Other characteristics by Lakoff of women’s language include the use of describing color precisely, using adjectives such as kika, lavender or turquoise (46), or describing precisely the appreciation of a subject with words like divine and lovely (51).
As gender theory has shown it’s ultimate deterministic to assume there is an essentiality to women’s language as opposed to men’s language. Women’s language isn’t a characteristic, it’s a performance. In that performance other factors also play a role, such as race and class. For an analysis about gender and language, a more qualitative approach is needed. Linguistic research developed more and more toward a qualitative approach. Coates differentiates four subgroups of research into gender and language: deficit, dominance, difference and dynamic (Coates 6). Lakoff is an example of the deficit approach, as it shows how women are inferior to men. The dominance approach tries to uncover the oppression of women by men and the difference approach shows how men and women are from different subcultures. Deborah Tannen, an important scholar in the linguistic field, contributed to research into gender and language within the difference approach (Coates 6). The dynamic approach is mostly applied in modern day research about gender and dialogue and views the use of language as part of a social construction. People perform masculinity and femininity, and language is part of this performance. This dynamic approach introduces discourse into the realm of gender and language.
III.II Performance III.II.I Discourse
Gender research has emphasized the performative aspect of gender, and discourse analysis demonstrates how language is a performance to achieve gender identities. In the production of gender identities people are active agents instead of being passive victims of their societal grouping (Litoseliti 61). The way people operate in discourse is twofold: discourse makes meaning possible so that people can create their identity, but the constructed gender identities can contribute to the production of a discourse. For example, people who fall out of a gender discourse can create an identity with the gender discourses available and thereby help create a new category in gender discourse. Holmes states that “using this approach, people operate within subject positions, positions created and sustained by the use of language” (202). People can create multiple gender identities around different discourses and these positions can
change over time. This reinforces the notion of gender as a performance: a performance must be displayed over and over again and the context of that performance changes which will lead to other gender identities.
Two discourses around masculine talk and feminine talk seem prevalent: masculine speech is more adversarial and feminine speech is thought about as cooperative (Coates 126). It should be noted these categories are derived from research into same sex talk. In same sex talk, Jennifer Coates describes the categories which contribute to the prevalent discourses of feminine speech. Feminine speech is achieved by 1) topic and topic development 2) minimal responses 3) hedges 4) questions and 5) turn-talking patterns. Point 1 states that women often chose to talk about people and feelings while men are more likely to things such as current affairs, travel and sport (128). Point 2 discusses the notion that females are more likely to use words like right,
yeah, or mhm to signal support and active participation in the conversation (128). Point
3 includes the more frequent use of hedges to facilitate a discussion instead of making a statement (129). Point 4 advocates that women tend to ask more questions because they want to avoid being the expert. Questions in feminine speech are therefore not questions with the goal of acquiring knowledge but its intention is described as an invitation to contribute to the conversation (130). Point 5 is concerned with the way in which women tend to not adhere to the rule that a conversation takes turns. Feminine speech is perceived as more collaborative (131) where women help to build a conversation instead of just contributing.
The earlier mentioned construction of femininity can be found in conversational practice. In applying these conclusions to a screenplay there has to be attention for the restrictions of a screenplay for linguistic research. Janet Holmes previously researched the construction of linguistic gender identity in advertisements. Hereby, Holmes warns that analyzing an advertisement does not feature a natural conversation but a carefully constructed and written dialogue. These constructed conversations may give more stereotypical gender identities than natural dialogues. Despite this disadvantage, Holmes argues that researching advertisements through “a sociolinguistic analysis can provide illuminating insights into the ways in which a society constructs stereotypical gender identities and reinforces normative models of femininity and masculinity” (211).
In the construction of conversations narrative can play an important role. For example, in a remembrance of an event, people often omit certain elements, otherwise the story will be too long. The importance of narrative is made clear by Threadgold
when he concludes the following: “Narrative, telling stories, seems to be an important part of the way in which the habitus is negotiated and thus of the way in which the social is embodied, enacted and remade” (263). Under the influence of cultural studies, critical discourse analysis and post structural theory, narrative analysis tends to be more focused on power relations and who has the power to exclude events out of the narrative (Threadgold 264).
This chapter provided more insight into the linguistic field by combining language studies with gender research. It became clear that there is not an essentialist difference between men and women in language but people perform masculinity and femininity with language. One way of analyzing the masculinity and femininity is through an analysis of the narrative. The next chapter will be devoted to another kind of narrative: the screenplay. Although the screenplay is carefully constructed it can still contribute to a better understanding of gendered dialogue. Therefore, the next chapter will start reviewing insights from the field of narratology.
IV. Feminine storytelling
IntroductionNarratology is an academic field that covers multiple art forms: literature, television, new media and film. In the previous chapter narrative was discussed as a conversationalist practice, while narratology is more concerned with the way fictional stories are told. The knowledge from this perspective is needed to say anything about the position of analyzed dialogue lines in the story. Scenes are part of a bigger narrative and it would be unwise to leave the contextual circumstance in the text out of an analysis. Certainly because the narrative can have a gendered component and not solely the words used in the narrative. This chapter will focus on the way the story is told and how it can be masculine or feminine. First it is necessary to provide some clarification on the status of the narrator of the text, and subsequently an examination will follow of what exactly constitutes a female narrative.
IV.I Storytelling IV.I.I Narrator
Before anything can be concluded about the way in which a story is told it’s important to focus on who is telling the story. The narrator has a huge influence in the way a story is told and to analyze the interceptive role of the narrator a distinction has to be made between the fabula and the sujet. These terms were introduced by Russian formalists scholars, but other wordings can point to the same distinction. For example, Aristoteles used the concepts muthos (sujet) and praxis/holos/logos (fabula) (Walsch 592). A narrator shapes the plot out of a story. 1In other words, the placing of the sujet can demonstrate the intervention in the story. Therefore, the gender of the narrator can be a fundamental aspect in the shaping of the plot.
To attribute a narrative role to some entity is more difficult in film than literature, because it’s more ambiguous who tells the story. It is therefor debatable whether literary definitions about the narrator are applicable to film. Some scholars have discussed this critique in their work (Prince 79). Seymour Chatman has sought to provide some insights into defining the narrator in cinema. In Chatman’s work he
1 The definitions of plot and story are used on a structural level and have other
acknowledges the work of David Bordwell on the narratology of film, but as Chatman himself acknowledges there is a profound distinction between him and Bordwell. Bordwell doesn’t believe there can be any kind of narrator in cinema as a text. Instead, the audience themselves narrate the story, by combining semiotic aspects and making sense of the story on their own. Bordwell states that “[…] narration is better understood as the organization of a set of cues for the construction of a story” (62). In short, Bordwell doesn’t believe cinema has a narrator and only provides a narration. Chatman argues against this definition by Bordwell by stating Bordwell’s classification would implicate that the whole concept of narrative is divided between different kinds of media forms and is made media specific (Chatman 133). As a result, the universality of narrative theory is lost.
In present day film studies this debate is settled more favorably for the theory of Bordwell than Chatman. The theory of Bordwell falls under the cognitive narrative approach and another scholar who contributed to this approach is Edward Branigan. Both Branigan and Bordwell are more concerned with the viewer constructing a narrative themselves instead of one fixed author presenting it to them. Branigan expanded this notion with his introduction of the levels of narration. According to Branigan there a multiple levels present in a film on which the viewer can create a narration of the story. The levels as described by Branigan are historical author, extra fictional narrator, non diegetic narrator, diegetic narrator, character, external focalization, internal focalization on the surface and internal focalization in depth (Branigan 87). In the first four levels of narration there is a narrator present: someone is presenting the film to the audience. This happens for example with a character who is retelling the story and thus acts on the non diegetic or diegetic narrator level of narration. But this character can also be the main character of the film, and therefore the casual relationship between story events is experienced through this main character. This main character isn’t aware he is telling the story, he or she is acting in the story world but not for the purpose to present a story. In this way the main character acts on the external focalization or internal focalization level of narration. The theory of Branigan shows how narration in film is more than a narrator presenting the movie, and how narration operates on different levels.
Despite the advancements of Branigan in the field of narratology it doesn’t provide a proper tool of analysis when studying a screenplay as a literary text. The theory of Chatman is grounded in literary semiotic theory which views the text as a presentation of the story by a narrative entity. When there is a narrator responsible for
the story as a whole, the gender of this narrator becomes more important. With the theory of Chatman, the implications of gender on the narrative are made more explicitly clear. Therefore, this thesis will build upon the narrative theory of Chatman. Chatman states the following about the status of the narrator in a film:
Films, in my view, are always presented—mostly and often exclusively shown, but sometimes partially told—by a narrator or narrators. The overall agent that does the showing I would call the "cinematic narrator." That narrator is not a human being. The nomina agentis here refers to "agent," and agents need not be human. It is the cinematic narrator that shows the film, though it may on rare occasions (as in Stage Fright) be replaced by one or more "telling" voices on or off the screen. (133-134)
The cinematic narrator is an agent which combines all the different elements from a film, aural and visual, and presents this to an audience. With the definition of Chatman, it is possible to indicate a narrator in a film.
There are two kinds of narrators in a text: the hypothetical narrator and the fictional narrator (Barwell 68). This distinction is made according to a theory by Ismay Barwell. The difference between these two kind of narrators is the following: the hypothetical narrator is aware of the construction of the narrative and it’s positioning, the fictional narrator is not aware of the constructiveness of the narrative and tells the story as it is presented by the hypothetical narrator. The claim Barwell deposits is that the gender of the text is the gender of the hypothetical narrator (69). Important to note here is that the hypothetical narrator is not the same as the author. The author shapes the hypothetical narrator, but through the gender of the hypothetical narrator the author attributes a gender to the fictional narrator, which can differ from the biological sex of the author. The gender of the hypothetical narrator is a performance and is a construction made by the author. In short, when analyzing the gender of the narrator one has to look at the hypothetical narrator of the story, which says something about what’s included in the sujet from the fabula.
IV.I.II Narration
Much research into the narration of a story concentrated on finding a basic progression in the story. The consequence of this structuralist narrative research is that it does not acknowledge the existence of other story structures. In this way, many screenwriting manuals serve as an example of structuralist narratology because most manuals teach how to learn the craft of screenwriting without contextual factors. Screenwriting
manuals written by Robert McKee, Blake Snyder and Syd Field rearticulate these structuralist ideas about narration (Dalton 23). To limit the negative consequences of structuralist narratology, scholars began to emerge in another field which is called postclassical narratology (Gymich 705). Postclassical narratologists take contextual factors like race, gender and class into account in their analysis of narrative. The first scholars who began to incorporate contextual factors into research of narrative were academics who fall under the banner ‘feminist narratology’.
Feminist narratology showed how normative storytelling principles have a gendered basis, and gives a starting point to discuss a feminine perspective on story structures. A narration practice that shows the male gender of a story is the quest narrative. Susan Knutson writes in her article ‘For Feminist Narratology’ about this quest narrative, which seems to be prevalent in narratives in Indo-European languages. This quest narrative is also prevalent in the theory of the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell. Campbell even describes how most stories follow a similar structure, that he calls a monomyth (28). Knutson states that classical narratives [my classification] are based on the following placement of the sujet: “A subject has an aim or object, and is helped by helpers and opposed by obstacles. The subject's success or failure depends on his or her power, and someone or something benefits at the end” (10). Knutson states that the quest is the kind of narrative grammar in which most stories are written. Knutson then follows the conclusions of Teresa de Laurentis that in the quest narrative the protagonist of the story is mostly male and the obstacles in the journey of the hero are ascribed as female. Because Knutson’s article was written in 1979, she doesn’t address performativity theory and she writes about two essentialistic categories. A key theorist in the field of feminist narratology, Susan Lanser, does incorporate in her later work the explorations of Butler’s gender theory and the performativity of gender. The actual text, movies/novels, are not essentially female or male, but they perform masculinity or femininity (Gymich 711).
The interest in feminist narratology seems to have disappeared in recent postclassical analysis (Douglas-Peters 300). An explanation of this disappearance can be the dichotomous term feminism has become in narratology research. Feminism has originally been a movement that supports equality between men and women, but research in the field of narratology developed more into the performance of femininity and masculinity. As a result, the gender of the author or characters became less important. As scholar Douglas-Peters concludes in her analysis of the novel Alias Grace, a feminist narratologist reading can still be viable for research into the field of
narratology. However, much of the knowledge about narrative from a feminist point of view has its basis in the 1980s. The conclusions of feminist narratology can still be relevant, but the constructiveness of gender has to be acknowledged to catch up with the insights of performative theory.
IV.II Feminine narrative IV.II.I Feminine Story
Female stories don’t exist, feminine stories do. Nevertheless, feminist narratology research focused more on the difference between male and female stories. These conclusions can still be viable for this thesis when those results aren’t seen as characteristic for male or female stories, but for feminine and masculine stories. The characteristics of feminine stories ultimately contribute to the understanding of when something is perceived as feminine. In feminist narratology there isn’t a consensus about the structure of female/feminine stories. Because there isn’t really a consensus present in the reviewed literature, what will follow is a brief exploration of studies concerning female stories to provide some consensus about what is perceived as femininity in a story. An analysis of the characteristics of a feminine story in the screenplay Carol can support if the conclusions of feminist narratologist research are indeed relevant today.
Six different functions can be named that have in general shaped the female experience and subsequently also the point of view of women. This numeration is done by Josephine Donovan, who names the following points: 1) Women, individual or as a group, have been an oppressed group 2) The domain of women was found in the domestic sphere 3) Women have created objects of use rather than exchange in their household domain 4) Women share experiences like menstruation, childbirth and breastfeeding 5) Women have traditionally inhabited the role of the caretaker of children and 6) Women are prepared for a societal role of reproduction (101-105). These points do say something about the experience of women in society and how it has influenced their worldview. How these points influence stories have to be researched further. Donovan begins in her own article by pointing out the plotless narrative structure. According to Donovan, female narration is more corresponding to a web instead of a hierarchical/linear structure (106). This is a consequence of the women’s experience which is named in point 6: because women are more concerned with reproduction instead of production, they tend to be more connected and more
concerned with the relationship between people. The rationalization is that men have a tendency to, contrarily to women, emphasize separation and the individual in a relationship (Donovan 105-106).
Other additions to the theory of Donovan, including cinema, were provided by Mary Dalton. Her article on the gendered narrative focuses on two themes: connection and conquest. The argument of Dalton is that ‘stories told in a conventional, masculine form are generally linear, hero-driven tales about conquest, whereas stories told with a more circular and sometimes collective feminine structure are often about overcoming obstacles in order to find connection (23). The difference between feminine or masculine structures can be seen when looking at the longing for independence by the characters. In most classical narratives the protagonist must overcome obstacles, and through this the independence of the character is being developed: he has to undergo the journey on his own. Feminine stories have a more interdependent motivation of the protagonist. Interdependence evokes connections while independence evoke quests (27). Mikel Koven has build on work of other scholars than Donovan to build his argument on the feminine narrative and defines the following attributes: 1) Women tend to tell their stories in the private sphere instead of the public sphere, 2) Women tell stories because they want to evoke mutual support 3) Women’s narratives are open-ended 4) Women’s narratives are not goal oriented 5) Major themes in the narratives are oppression and self-discovery 6) Women tell stories where they only play a pivotal and minor role (295-297). When combining the arguments made by Donovan, Dalton and Koven one can come to the following list of features of the feminine story:
- Characters seek connection
- Characters are interdependent / seek support - Open-ended narrative
- Web narrative or Circular narrative - Theme of oppression
- Theme of self-discovery
- Story takes place in private sphere/domestic sphere
IV.II.II Screenwriting Manuals
Another way of researching the influence of gender on the narrative is examining screenwriting manuals. Screenwriting manuals can help reflect the practical thinking
about femininity in a story, instead of knowledge derived from an academic tradition. One manual written about the creation of female characters is The Women In The Story by Helen Jacey. Jacey doesn’t state the possibility of male characters having a feminine narrative and this makes the manual limited in scope. A screenwriting manual which provides a feminine narrative, without excluding men from having a feminine story, is The Virgin’s Promise by Kim Hudson. She goes into detail about the influence of gender on the narrative and advocates that there is a difference between a female kind of story and a male oriented one.
Hudson writes her book in reaction to The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Cambell. Hudson describes the frustration she felt when applying the hero’s journey to a female protagonist and introduced a structure of 13 beats for a Virgin’s Journey: The Virgin is living in a dependent world [1], where she is constrained of being her own. She pays a price for this conformity [2] and is not happy with it. Then, a moment arises where she has a chance to escape from her oppression [3]. She dresses the part and goes on her journey [4]. Then two worlds exist: one world where she lives in oppression and a secret world where she has a chance for self-fulfillment [5]. The juggling between the two worlds result in her not fitting either world [6] and she is being exposed for who she truly is [7]. The Virgin realizes she can achieve her dream and gives up on what kept her stuck [8]. As a result, her dependent world goes into chaos [9]. While she wanders in neither world she has the choice to become dependent again and restore the Kingdom’s peace or choosing her own journey. She follows her dream [11] and the Kingdom adjusts to the new situation [12]. In the end, the world is a happier place for The Virgin [13] (Hudson 29).
The Virgin’s Promise provides more insight into the practical application of a
female narrative in modern day movies. Hudson names mainstream examples such as
About a Boy (2002), Billy Elliot (2000) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), and this shows the
model has a practical application (Hudson 78-100). However, The Virgin’s Promise sometimes contradicts insights from feminine narratology. For example, the virgin’s journey is still a quest and the main character has to overcome obstacles to complete its journey. Nonetheless, because The Virgin’s Promise helps to connect the academic theory with the modern day practice this narrative model will be used in this thesis to identify key scenes in the screenplay.
V. An analysis of Carol
IntroductionThe screenplay of the movie Carol will be analyzed in this chapter. This movie was released theatrically in 2015 and received high acclaim from critics (Metacritic). Carol tells the story of two women who fall in love in the 1950s, based on a novel of Patricia Highsmith. The screenplay is written by Phyllis Nagy. In the appendix of this thesis the analyzed screenplay can be read in it’s entirety. This version of the screenplay of
Carol was released by the distributor of the movie at a time when fellow screenwriters
voted for the Best Screenplay category of different award shows. In this chapter, the approach to the analysis is outlined first. This approach will be used to analyze how the structure of the screenplay supports a feminine narrative, and how dialogue expresses this femininity in the words spoken by the characters. As a result, an analysis of the screenplay of Carol can show how dialogue is made feminine in a female narrative.
V.I. An approach to analysis
All the previously cited theories have contributed to knowledge about the different possibilities for studying gendered dialogue in the screenplay, in order to form an analytical approach. Many different academic fields have been addressed, such as studies into screenwriting, dialogue, narratology, feminism, gender and linguistics. The field of narratology provided insight into finding the gender of the narrator, which structures the narrative, and feministic linguistics provided insight into the linguistic performance of masculinity and femininity. The analytical approach will focus on these two levels: the narration and the dialogue.
The narration level of the analysis will concern the gender of the narrator. As previously shown, the different type of narrators can be divided into the hypothetical narrator and the fictional narrator. The hypothetical narrator is particularly important here because this concept can show the genderization of the narrative. To study the feminine story, four characteristics are employed. These characteristics are based on research into the feminist narratology field. Characteristics that overlapped are combined and result in the following categories of analysis: connectivity,
interdependence, circular narrative, oppression/self-discovery theme and the private sphere of the story world. By focusing on these characteristics of the female narrative it becomes
structure is identified as feminine, then the gender of the hypothetical narrator can be seen as feminine. The hypothetical narrator makes structural choices and structures the story in which the fictional narrator operates.
The Virgin’s Promise will be used to connect the femininity of the story of Carol
to a practical structure. This structure will identify important beats in the narrative, and these beats show important scenes in the narrative of Carol. Moreover, The Virgin’s
Promise provides structure to the analysis of dialogue because the key scenes help
realize how important the genderization of dialogue in those scenes can be.
The following level of analysis will be the dialogue. First, the words used in dialogue and the way in which these contribute to a feminine discourse of speech will be analyzed. This analysis will be conducted according to importantcategories in the performance of feminine speech: minimal responses, turn-taking patterns, hedges, topic and topic development and questions. Secondly, the analysis of feminine dialogue addresses how a category supports the feminine story characteristics. In this way the connection between dialogue and narrative is further established.
V.II Narrator
There is a division of two kind of narrators: the fictional narrator and the hypothetical narrator. Building on the theory of Seymour Chatman, it’s suggested that the hypothetical narrator in film is opaque, but that there is always a being who presents the story to an audience. To clarify how the hypothetical narrator differs from the fictional narrator, there will be a brief observation of the fictional narrator. Thereafter, the structure of the story will be analyzed, according to the feminine narrative categories, to establish the gender of the hypothetical narrator.
V.II.I Fictional narrator
Therese is the fictional narrator in the screenplay of Carol. The story is told from her perspective and is subjective. The differences between the screenplay and the movie illustrate the observation that Carol is a subjective story from Therese’s point of view. In both forms the story is told in a flashback narrative. The use of flashbacks is in it’s essence subjective: a flashback is a scene where a situation in the past is told through the perspective of a character in the present day story. Therefore, it’s interesting to observe that the flashback structure is more present in the screenplay than flashbacks are present in the movie.
