Presentation of Character’s Subjectivity in Literature and Film

Abstract

The reading of Burgess’s and Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange questions the narratological concept of narrative as a deep structure independent of its medium. Conversely, it focuses on the specific artistic material which determines protagonist’s role in narration. Examining the relation between the remembered and the remembering level of first-person narrator, it draws on the concept of focalization; a textual structure which by experiencing the narrative generates the process of narration. In both novel and film, the protagonist is the only focalizer that suppresses all others sources of narrative information and thus influences reception. The analysis of language in the novel proves that despite the psychological and temporal distance, the narrator’s account of events is conducted in nadsat – protagonisfs idiolect which signifies his youthful rebellion. Narrative objects are thus not only perceived but also verbalized through the consciousness of the focalizer. Nadstat is a humorous mix of Russian and English lexicon which clouds violent narrative events and consequently adjusts the receiver’s interpretation of narration to the protagonist’s. Focalizer’s influence in film is felt mainly in narrative space; a series of mental landscapes, externalizations of the protagonist’s consciousness. In violent scenes, attention is drawn to aesthetic elements; the choreography of rape and fights. The analysis of strategies which impose on the receiver protagonist’s interpretation of the narrative was conducted through parallel readings of novel and film to indicate the specifics of the manipulative potential of cinema and literature.