tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 24 16:33:07 2000
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my final word on analepsis
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: my final word on analepsis
- Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 19:31:37 EST
from
http://icdweb.cc.purdue.edu/~felluga/guidesf.html#analepsis
Analepsis and Prolepsis:
Analepsis is the narratological term for what is more commonly called
"flashback." It is thus one way in which a narrative's discourse re-order's a
given story. The corresponding term is prolepsis, which refers to those
instances when a later event in a narrative is presented before it has
actually happened in the story. The classic example is prophecy, as when
Oedipus is told that he will sleep with his mother and kill his father. As we
learn later in Sophocles' play, he does both despite his efforts to evade his
fate. Another good example is the first scene of La Jetée. As we learn a few
minutes later, what we are seeing in that scene is a flashback to the past,
since the present of the film's diegesis is a time directly following World
War III. However, as we learn at the very end of the film, that scene also
doubles as a prolepsis, since the dying man the boy is seeing is, in fact,
himself. In other words, he is proleptically seeing his own death. We thus
have an analepsis and prolepsis in the very same scene.
lay'tel SIvten