Heterocommunicative Narration
In heterocommunicative narratives, neither the individual telling the story (the narrator) nor the individual receiving this transmission (the narratee) is a character in the story. In other words, neither of the participants in the event of narration is a participant in the narrated event.
Heterocommunicative narratives take a heterodiegetic, or third-person, narrator, who narrates a story of which he or she is not a part. Heterodiegetic narrators may be omniscient, and therefore have access to the thoughts and emotions of more than one character, or may else be limited to those of a single character. In Eliza Haywood's Love in Excess, we find an omniscient, heterodiegetic narrator, as the narrator moves easily among the interiorities of multiple characters. In the opening pages, for instance, we learn of Alovisa's private feelings for D'Elmont: "[T]he two extreams of love and indignation; a thousand chimeras came into her head, and sometimes prompted her to discover the sentiments she had in his favour" (39). We are likewise privy to D'Elmont's emotional reaction to Alovisa's expression of romantic interest: "He spent great part of the night in thoughts very different from those he was accustomed to . . . he began to consider a mistress as an agreeable, as well as fashionable amusement, and resolved not to be cruel" (40). |