Narrator as the moderator of the author’s intention (case study of the literary biography by W. Isaacson "Steve Jobs: biography")

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Kherson state agrarian and economic university

Department of hotel and restaurant and tourist business and foreign languages

Hlavatska Yu.L., C. Philol. Sc., Ass. Professor

Kropyvnytskyi

Abstract

The article describes the difference between the author and the narrator in general, and the features of the author's presence in artistic and biographical texts in particular. Traditionally, the difference between the author and the narrator is that the author is someone who publishes or writes a book, essay, poem, or other work. On the other hand, the narrator is a character or an observer who tells what happens in a book or movie. The narrator's voice can be his own or the voice of a third person who does not participate in the narration. The narrator's voice sometimes merges with the voice of the omniscient author, sometimes with the voice of one of the characters, but sometimes it separates and makes a direct appeal to the reader.

It has been noted that biography is a genre characterized by the coherence of the text and the appropriateness of the presentation of the facts of famous figures' lives in chronological order with corresponding interpretations and comments of the author.

The critical and analytical review of the scientific literature proves that the question of narration and the narrator as well as the author and the narrator has been studied to a great extent and, accordingly, many viable solutions have been found. Attention is drawn to the types of narrators (heterodiegetic, extradiegetic, omniscient) and types of narration (the first- person and the third-person).

The case study is W. Isaacson's “Steve Jobs: Biography”. It has been found that the author's intentions in the text of the literary biography are presented by the author's digressions, which are grammatically manifested as a presentation from the first person (introduction and part of the final chapter) - the omniscient narrator, and from the third person (the main text of the biography) - the extradiegetic narrator.

It has been clarified that in the literary biography “Steve Jobs: Biography” the essence of the narrator as a moderator of the author's intention is reflected in the author's digressions of a philosophical, journalistic and historical nature. In the digressions of a philosophical nature, we observe both the first-person and the third-person form of narration, while in the journalistic and historical digressions of the author, the third-person form of presentation prevails.

Keywords:literary biography, author, narrator, heterodiegetic narrator, extradiegetic narrator, omniscient narrator, protagonist, the author's digression.

Анотація

Наратор як модератор авторської інтенційності (на матеріалі літературної біографії У. Айзексона “Steve Jobs: biography”)

Главацька Ю.Л., к. філол. н., доцент кафедри готельно-ресторанного та туристичного бізнесу й іноземних мов, Херсонський державний аграрно-економічний університет, м. Кропивницький

У статті описано різницю між автором і наратором загалом, і особливості авторської присутності у художньо-біографічних текстах зокрема. Традиційно, різниця між автором і оповідачем полягає в тому, що автор - це той, хто публікує або пише книгу, есе, вірш чи інші твори. З іншого боку, оповідач - це персонаж або спостерігач, який розповідає, що відбувається в книзі чи фільмі. Голос оповідача може бути його власним або голосом третьої сторони, яка не бере участі у розповіді. Голос наратора часом зливається з голосом усезнаючого автора, часом - котрогось із персонажів, однак інколи відокремлюється і здійснює пряме та безпосереднє звернення до читача.

Зазначається, що біографія - це жанр, якому властиві когерентність тексту та доречність викладу фактів життя особистостей у хронологічному порядку з відповідними інтерпретаціями та коментарями автора.

Критико-аналітичний огляд наукової літератури доводить, що питання нарації та оповідача, а також автора та оповідача було значною мірою вивчено, і, відповідно, було знайдено багато життєздатних рішень. Увагу звернено на типи нараторів (гетеродієгетичний, екстрадієгетичний, відавторський) та види нарації (першоособова та третьоособова).

Матеріалом дослідження постає робота У. Айзексона «Стів Джобс: біографія». З'ясовано, що авторські інтенції у тексті літературної біографії презентовані авторськими відступами, які граматично виявляються як виклад від першої особи (вступ та частина фінальної глави) - від авторський наратор, так і від третьої особи (основний текст біографії) - екстрадієгетичний наратор.

Уточнено, що в літературній біографії “Steve Jobs: Biography” сутність наратора як модератора авторської інтенційності віддзеркалена в авторських відступах філософського, публіцистичного та історичного характеру. У відступах філософського характеру спостерігаємо як першоособову, так і третьоособову форму викладу, в той час, як у публіцистичних та історичних відступах автора переважає третьоособова форма викладу.

Ключові слова:літературна біографія, автор, наратор, гетеродієгетичний наратор, екстрадієгетичний наратор, відавторський наратор, протагоніст, авторський відступ.

Defining the problem and argumentation of the topicality of its consideration

It should be stated that the artistic text is the main object of philological research in recent times. The most difficult and probably the key problem for an adequate characterization of the image of the author is to identify the specifics of his stylistic hypostasis in the text - the narrator as an element of the inner world of the text. This problem can be solved by identifying the narrator's different “hypotheses”, the positions he chooses and the roles he plays. Each position chosen by the narrator contributes to solving a specific artistic task: describing a portrait of a character, reproducing his inner state, depicting an interior, a landscape, etc. Such an instruction makes it possible to show the significant complexity of the textual structure of the artistic text analyzed, its volume and content [1, P. 547].

The phenomenon of biographical texts has been widely observed within modern humanitarian sciences presenting their various aspects. We have already pointed them out in our previous papers [2; 3; 4].

Experts have always seen the biography as the genre “delivering accurate, coherent stories of their subjects and presenting the pertinent facts of a life, usually chronologically, with appropriate interpretations and comment interspersed” [5, P. 19]. Moreover, “these accumulations of facts and interpretations are meant to display the fullness of the personality [...], and help us understand what made the person tick” [5, P. 19].

D. Middlebrook states that “we have all read the sort of biography that simply sets forth a sequence of events, “one damn thing after another”. But in a really good biography, the documentation has been selected and shaped into an unfolding story; and the story has been infused with explanations, judgments, informed speculations” [6, P. 5].

In addition, artistic and biographical literature is communicative in nature. With the help of the text, we observe a dialogue between the author and the reader. At the same time, the addressee appears in the text either in the image of the author or in the image of the narrator [7]. The difference between the author and the narrator is a complex problem and to simplify it requires deep and grounded investigations. This issue has received substantial interest in the area of the literary biography in general and in “Steve Jobs: Biography” in particular.

Previous Research in the Area. The problem of narration and the narrator as well as the author and the narrator has been largely studied and many viable solutions have been found. The critical and analytical review of scientific literature proves that the leading literary critics of the time have substantiated the issues of narratology and narrative structure of the text in detail (R. Barthes, G. Genette, J. Lintvelt, G. Prince, S. Chatman, W. Schmid, etc.). Ukrainian scholars are also interested in narrative problems (L. Matsevko-Bekerska, I. Bekhta, M. Tkachuk, I. Papusha, K. Kovalenko, etc.).

T. Kushnirova, for instance, concretizes the idea of “narrative”, analyzes the main narrative theories, compares the basic concepts of narratology in the scientific works of outstanding scholars, points her attention to different vector positions of the narrator, the extent of the author's intervention in the narrative [8, P. 59]. She also introduces the new concept of “multiple” narrator, whose different voices are endowed with personal traits and profess their own ideology [8, P. 61].

I. Bekhta distinguishes three main types of narrators in a prose work: an authorial narrator in the form of “he”, a personal narrator in the form of “I” or in the form of another person speaking on behalf of “I”, a personified marrator, designated by a name. The author singles out an authorial narrator - a super-narrator who has complete information, objectively evaluates and can intervene in the interpretation of events. According to the researcher's point of view, a personal narrator is one who takes part in events and tries on the mask of an observer, witness, etc. A personified narrator is the identified hero of the artistic text [9, P. 69].

L. Matsevko-Bekerska states that “narrator as a central gist of the concept arises as a complexly organized subject with many ways of its expression, like mediator between the real world to which belongs the author and unreal world of the literary text; depicted by a symbolic meaningful world of the literary text and by the cognitive competence of the reader. He is an embodiment of the intellectual, word outlook, aesthetical, moral experience of the author and readiness of the reader to the specific, one side dialogue” [10, P. 292].

K. Kovalenko, besides the analysis of different characteristics and classifications of a story-teller as the main object of narratology, focuses on such a type of the narrator as the authorial narrator, who is outside the world of narration, standing above this world. This is an omniscient and omnipresent narrator [11, P. 4]. The auctor acts as a pure narrator, objectively independent from the events described by him and is not the protagonist of the narrative story (heterodiegetic narrator) [11, P. 5].

E. Smith considers that “the difference between the author and the narrator is that the author is someone who publishes or writes a book, essay, poem, or other pieces of writing. On the other hand, the narrator is a character or nonparticipating observer who tells you what is happening in a book or film. The Narrator's voice might be his own or that of a third party not involved in the story” [12].

The present paper aims to find out the difference between the author and the narrator, on the one hand, and to prove that the narrator is the moderator of the author's intention via his digressions, paying attention to the types of the narrator and the narration as well.

Results and Discussion

For the current paper, it is sufficient to point out that according to the definition of W. Shmid, the narrator is the addressee of fictitious narrative communication. The concept is quite common; it is identified with the narrator. The narrator is established in the text and perceived by the reader not as an abstract function, but as a subject inevitably endowed with certain anthropomorphic features of thinking and speech. The scholar identified the main features of the narrator: omniscience, the ability to penetrate into the most secret corners of the characters' minds, the presence of a certain point of view on events and situations [13, P. 64-65]. “The narrator is more or less clear (explicit), knowledgeable, omnipresent, self-aware and reliable, he can be located at a greater or lesser distance from the narrated situations and events, characters and/or the author” [14, P. 84].

K. Kovalenko affirms that any text of artistic and biographical prose can be conditionally divided into two blocks depending on the degree of the author's presence in the text. The first block, with a greater degree of the author's presence, includes his name on the title page, the title of the text, the epigraph, the preface, the author's notes, the afterword, etc. The main part of the text belongs to the second block - a lesser degree of the author's presence. In this case, the contact with the reader is established, being oriented towards the further cooperation [11, P. 47]: “I leave it to the reader to assess whether I have succeeded in this mission. I'm sure there are players in this drama who will remember some of the events differently or think that I sometimes got trapped in Jobs's distortion field" [15, P. 13]. This thesis belongs to the author of the literary biography, W. Isaacson, who in the introduction to the biography describes how this book came to be (How This Book Came to Be) [15, P. 10]. A. Korolova calls such an author “the author title" [16, p. 87].

According to the above, the literary biography “Steve Jobs: Biography" contains all the listed elements: the author's name on the title page, the title of the work, the epigraph, the annotation, the notes, and the coda. For example, the epigraph: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. - Apple's “Think Different” commercial, 1997" [15, P. 5]. Moreover, the biography includes acknowledgments, sources, bibliography, index, illustration credits, a portfolio of Diana Walker photos, and footnotes [15, P. 590].

Traditionally, it is believed that these elements of the biography emphasize the presence of the author, not the narrator. In the main textual plane, the author-creator gives way to the narrator, who, depending on the author's intentions, can be either homodiegetic (the narrator, who functions in the text, is a participant in the events being discussed), or heterodiegetic (the narrator is in the artistic world, but out of action; outside observer) [8, P. 61]. An extradiegetic narrator is actually the author who leads the reader along, comments on events, and expresses his thoughts; tells from the third person, because he is outside the artistic world [17, P. 194]. This classification is based on the principle of the functional feature. At the same time, the images of the author and the narrator may coincide. So, the author dominates in the first block of the text, and the narrator, correspondent^, in the second one [7, P. 40].

The narrator's appearance is a natural stage in the creation of a certain imaginary-real world. He is independent to an extent; therefore, he does not get involved in the field of comments and explanations, but he is rationally relevant, and, therefore, he provides creatively meaningful, aesthetic and receptive integrity of the text [10, P. 288].

It is known that any text of artistic and biographical prose is built around the name of a certain prominent figure of the past or present. The author carefully selects biographical material, relying on reliable sources, interprets it artistically - and, as a result, we deal with a real literary gem. And indeed, in our case, the reliability of the sources is confirmed by the names of all characters of the literary biography; these are the names of S. Jobs's friends, colleagues, relatives, etc., which the author declares at the very beginning of the text before the “Introduction” under the heading “Characters” [15, P. 7].

We consider the narrator of the analyzed literary biography to be a heterodiegetic narrator in an extradiegetic situation as he is positioned in the text as a narrative instance outside the boundaries of the presented story with the simultaneous presentation of himself as a source of information, his evaluative attitude, the tendency of the presentation, the delineation of the emotionality of the work, etc. That is, we are talking about the narrator, who is outside the boundaries of the presented story as its participant, but is present in the story-telling, being an interlocutor or an observer [11, P. 48].

M. Lehkyi distinguishes two main groups of narrators: “subjective” - the 1st person narration: someone's “I” - the author's one (the omnicient narrator); the “I” of another character (the mediated narrator) and the nonsubject - the illusion of the self-presentation of the work, the narrator hides behind the depicted world” [18, P. 26].

Despite the fact that the author has limited plot possibilities, he feels quite free in the composition as the comprehensive biography is presented in chronological order, highlighting the brightest stages of S. Jobs's life.

Still, the main sphere of the narrator's self-expression remains stylistics, in particular the grammatical form of his presence in the text. That is why the voice of the narrator sometimes merges with the voice of the omniscient author, sometimes with the voice of one of the characters, but sometimes it separates and makes a direct appeal to the reader [10, P. 290]. “The preference of the narrative form is a key point in the author's intentions and depends on his textual strategies” [19, P. 214].

It should be noted that the protagonist of the literary biography can also act as the narrator, reporting his attitude to the described events (here we are dealing with a mediated narrator). Thus, the last chapter “The Legacy” appears as a symbiosis of the third as well as the first person narration: the first part of the chapter is the third person narration, the second one is Steve Jobs's story-telling. The first-person narration serves as the result of a conscious aesthetic choice of the author, on the one hand, and as a sign of the protagonist's openness or confession. At the same time, the main character acts as the narrator (homodiegetic), reporting his attitude to the described events, while the author traditionally remains outside the plot. The reader, in turn, deals with the author's consciousness. For example: “My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary” [15, P. 488]; “I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft” [15, P. 489]; “What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that's been done by others before us. I didn't invent the language or mathematics I use” [15, P. 490].

The author's intentions in the text of the literary biography are presented by the author's digressions, which are grammatically expressed as a presentation from the first person (introduction and part of the final chapter) - the omnicient narrator, and from the third person (the main text of the biography) - the extradiegetic narrator. author narrator artistic biographical іsaacson

In modern lexicographic editions, we find the following definition of the author's digression: “A lyrical digression is such an author's digression from the unfolding of events, pictures and images, in which he directly expresses his feelings and moods in connection with the characters' fates, reveals his attitude towards them, etc.” [20]. Such intervention of the author in the depicted events contributes to revealing his interest in the raised issues, thoughts, views and behaviour of the characters. This narrative tactic, first of all, shows that the author wants to make his discourse more convincing.

V. Radziievskyi states that “the author's digressions are extra-fictional, structurally significant elements of the text affecting its genre specificity” [21, P. 11]. In our paper, we believe that it is possible to put an equal sign between the author's digressions and the presence of the narrator's thoughts and opinions as the author, acting as an interviewer, not only conveys the content of his conversations and meetings with people, who surrounded Steve Jobs, their comments, characteristics, but also declares his own vision and attitude to what he describes. It is in the author's digressions that the same position of the author is reflected, which is common in the text of the literary biography - “to check and flesh out his story” [15, P. 12], as stated in the introduction to the biography.

According to I. Bezpechnyi's classification, lyrical, philosophical, historical and journalistic digressions are distinguished [22]. After having analyzed the text of the literary biography we can conclude that journalistic, historical and philosophical digressions prevail in the text.

In digressions of a philosophical nature, the reader's attention is drawn to the uniqueness of the narrator's thinking, his prudence and emotional directness. In the text of the literary biography, the ability to comprehensively weigh and reflect is conveyed with the help of questions that are skillfully embedded in the author's digressions. So, for example, in the last chapter “Legacy”, W. Isaacson, summing up the series of products having been transformed into the entire industry, asks questions about Steve Jobs's mind, and gives the answer himself, emphasizing the genius, mental strength and intuition of this person, which, like a sponge, absorbed information and felt what would happen in the future: “Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead” [15, P. 487]. Here W. Isaacson resorts to the comparison (like a pathfinder), the metaphor (sniff the winds) and the epithets (imaginative, instinctive, unexpected, magical), which add to the genius of the image of S. Jobs.

Another example illustrating the narrator's unique point of view regarding the personality of S. Jobs as an emotional person, capable of evaluation, and sometimes rough: “But I think he actually could have controlled himself, if he had wanted. When he hurt people, it was not because he was lacking in emotional awareness. Quite the contrary: He could size people up, understand their inner thoughts, and know how to relate to them, cajole them, or hurt them at will" [15, P. 486].

So, in the digressions of a philosophical nature, we observe both the first-person and the third-person narration and the extradiegetic narrator as well.

The narrator's thoughts and reasoning within journalistic digressions correlate with his ability not only to master the situation in general, but also to resort to synthesis and generalization of the thoughts of the characters of the biography, that is, the ability to outline the overall picture. Sometimes the narrator comes to unexpected conclusions. Yes, the thirty-ninth chapter entitled “New Battles And Echoes of Old Ones" directly tells us about a clear conflict with the Google company as it intended to compete with the Apple company in the mobile phone market: “Jobs was furious that Google had decided to compete with Apple in the phone business” [15, P. 441]. The general picture of the conflict is conveyed by Steve Job's indignation, on the one hand, and quantitative and qualitative indicators, on the other one. Quantitative (quantitative) indicators are the author's mention of specific dates and certain percentages in his comments. Sometimes such journalistic digressions are accompanied by questions: “The comparison between what Microsoft wrought in the 1980s and what Google was trying to do in 2010 was not exact, but it was close enough to be unsettling and infuriating. It exemplified the great debate of the digital age: closed versus open, or as Jobs framed it, integrated versus fragmented. Was it better, as Apple believed and as Jobs's own controlling perfectionism almost compelled, to tie the hardware and software and content handling into one tidy system that assured a simple user experience? Or was it better to give users and manufacturers more choice and free up avenues for more innovation, by creating software systems that could be modified and used on different devices?" [15, P. 443].

Qualitative indicators are represented in the text of the literary biography by the names of campaigns (anthroponyms) and places of events (toponyms), for instance: Google, Microsoft, the Apple iOS, Apple's Fifth Avenue store, Windows, Adobe тощо: “On that he was right. Losing the ability to differentiate Apple's platforms - allowing them to become commoditized like HP and Dell machines - would have meant death for the company ' [15, P. 444].

Thus, in the author's digressions of a journalistic nature the third- person form of narration prevails and the narrator positions himself as the extradiegetic one.

Historical digressions in the text of S. Job's biography arise as a result of the synthesis of the ideological and thematic connection and events that the author describes in chronological order. W. Isaacson presents important moments from Steve's life and his family, his career growth, etc. in order to show how these dominant events influenced the development of his personality. So, for example, in the first chapter of the literary biography “CHILDHOOD. Abandoned and Chosen" the author emphasizes the coincidence of circumstances in Steve Jobs's life being a child, who was abandoned by his biological parents, and Steve, the father, who himself abandoned his first child: “Later in life, when he was the same age his biological father had been when he abandoned him, Jobs would father and abandon a child of his own. (Heeventually took responsibility for her.) Chrisann Brennan, the mother of that child, said that being put up for adoption left Jobs “full of broken glass”, and it helps to explain some of his behaviof" [15, P. 25]. Here we observe the narrator's comment on Steve's responsibility, which will come to him later. In addition, Chrisann Brennan, the girl's mother, hints at Steve's complex character as if the adoption process left its mark on his behaviour.

So, in historical digressions, the third-person form of presentation prevails and we deal with the extradiegetic narrator.

Conclusions and perspectives

The main conclusion that can be drawn is that the text of the literary biography “Steve Jobs: Biography" preserves the main features of artistic and biographical texts, such as: truthfulness, a bold search for the truth, an attempt to depict the complexity and multifacetedness of the personality, and documentary. They have a different degree of the authorial presence in the text. As a rule, the strong positions of the text reveal a high degree of presence of the author in general. And in the main text plane, the author gives way to the narrator.

The presence of the author in the text of the literary biography is characterized in two ways: on the one hand, we observe “the author title”, and on the other - the heterodiegetic narrator in an extradiegetic situation. The form of narration remains the first person (introduction and part of the final chapter), but the narrator takes on the role of the omniscient narrator, who is able not only to record the external manifestations of the characters' emotions, but also to reproduce their thoughts and feelings (the third-person form of presentation). The essence of the narrator as a moderator of the author's intention is reflected in the author's digressions of a philosophical, journalistic and historical nature. Together, they contain the narrator's reflections and considerations regarding the protagonist of the literary biography, his life, life principles, character traits, etc. These author's intentions are presented both in the form of the first person as well as the third person narrative.

These findings add substantially to our understanding the difference between the author and the narrator. Future work will focus on the description of language means of evaluating the narrator's as well the protagonist's speech.

References

2. Hlavatska, Yu. (2022). An autobiographical text: the shifting of the linguistic form (case study of its typology and stylistic features). Visnyk Zhytomyrskoho derzhavnoho universytetu imeni Ivana Franka. Seriia «Filolohichni nauky» - Bulletin of Zhytomyr IvanFranko State University. Series “Philological Sciences”, 3 (98), 79-89 [in English].