Greimas, Bremond, and the 'Miller's Tale.' - A.J. Greimas; Claude Bremond

Style, Fall, 1997 by Harold F. Mosher, Jr.

Of course, some of the problems with abstracting models are their lack of fit between the one concept and the variety of particular cases subsumed by it as well as the predetermination by the isotopic term and its generated contraries of the contradictories. The analyst is caught between choosing terms that correspond to the logic of the square and possibly different terms that describe more accurately the situation in the story. A certain amount of arbitrariness or compromise often enters into the choice of terms. Perhaps for these reasons, Bremond would eliminate what he believes to be the unnecessary contrary terms (Logique 93; for an English translation of an earlier version of Bremond's system, see "Logic"). Furthermore, Bremond criticizes Greimas's scheme for its inadaptability to the analysis of a variety of different types of narrative and for its spatializing of the narrative (89-90). Indeed, the dynamic dimension of Bremond's system allows it to account for the time element in narrative while at the same time permitting it to show "spatial" relations of characters and actions that can be taken in almost simultaneously by the reader's eye. (In Figure 41 have chosen to spatialize more than Bremond would no doubt authorize for the convenience of including the whole diagram on facing pages.)

This modification of Bremond's system, based, as is evident, on a three-step process, reveals, I believe, more about the tale than a more linear diagram. (For completeness, I have included a full list of Bremond's roles although I do not refer to all of them.) What I have attempted is no doubt a compromise necessitated by the desire to spatialize, at least in part, the time-governed processes of reading and narrative action. Movement on the figure is indicated partially by arrows and is implied according to the conventions of reading from top to bottom and from left to right, though these conventions cannot always be observed on such a figure. What will appear immediately, as a result of this attempt to combine sequence and simultaneity on the same diagram, are a double vertical division first into a Course of Love and Dissimulation (itself divided horizontally twice into the Courses of Seduction and of Frustrated Seduction with two different interest points of view(4) - those of Nicholas and Absolon - and a third point of view - Alison's - divided between listening to Nicholas and listening to Absolon). More developed than the first part because it represents the complication and resolution of the action prepared in the first part, the second part - Courses of Love, Dissimulation, Degradation, and Retribution (this last term indicating an added motivation) - is also divided into two general subparts: Courses of Love, Dissimulation, and Degradation, involving first Nicholas and Alison's point of view together and subsequently John's point of view: and Courses of Dissimulation, Degradation, and Retribution, involving first Nicholas and Alison's point of view together and then Absolon's point of view.