To demonstrate how one can determine the parameters and end-section of a narrative, I will examine the skeleton, or plot structure, of two Genesis narratives, the Adam and Eve story (Gen 2:4b-3:24) and the Abraham story in which he purchases a burial site (Gen 23).
As mentioned previously, analysis of the steps in a plot is an abstracting process and once it has been accomplished one can then “reattach” all the forms and ideas and the literary and didactic devices of the author and analyze the full text as written. It is at that point that the closural devices used by biblical writers and editors in the end-sections of their narratives can be analyzed and compared.
For the analysis of plot I will follow the narratological method presented by Emma Kafalenos in Narrative Causalities. Her system provides an abstracted pattern of “functions” that recur in the plots of narratives. The term “function” refers to a position in a causal sequence. That is, one thing happens and causes the next, and that causes the next… Kafalenos’ theory of narrative functions is drawn in part from that of Vladimir Propp, who analyzed plots in Russian folk tales. In his studies, Propp removed all verbal considerations from the tales and found that all the tales could be described abstractly using thirty-one functions.21 His named functions for the folk tales included actions such as: a member of a family leaves home (the hero is introduced); an interdiction is
addressed to the hero (such as “don't go there”); the interdiction is violated (a villain
21 Vladimir Propp, “Fairy Tale Transformations,” in
enters the tale); a villain causes harm/injury; a victim is taken in by deception, unwittingly helping the enemy; a member of family lacks something or desires
something. The importance of Propp’s discovery was that it explained that the relations between elements and not just the elements themselves were the basic units of narration. Propp saw that not all functions were needed for any one story, and most importantly, the functions always occurred in the same sequence.
Kafalenos adapted Propp’s system so that abstraction of a plot can be applied to a wider variety of narratives. I am extending her system to include biblical narratives. Kafalenos has limited the number of functions in a plot to ten (compared to Propp’s thirty-one) and generalized them to some extent. As with Propp’s functions, her ten always occur in a prescribed order, and only some of them may appear in any particular narrative.
Before I present Kafalenos’ system, it is valuable to understand two additional elements of her system, for which she is indebted to Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov demonstrated that there was a marker at the beginning and end of all the narratives he investigated—it was “equilibrium.” As his data source, Todorov
used The Decameron by Boccaccio. In his studies of those separate but related
stories, Todorov saw that each story began and ended in equilibrium, that is, in a relatively stable situation. He defined equilibrium as the “existence of a stable but
not static relation between the members of a society.” 22 He even described narrative by its relationship to equilibrium: a narrative is “two moments of equilibrium separated by a period of imbalance.” For a plot to be complete, it must shift from one equilibrium to another. The newer equilibrium will be similar, but not identical, to the first. Equilibrium as a marker of beginning and end will be tested below in narratives whose beginning and end is easily
identifiable; these narratives are not in Genesis.
Another contribution of Todorov was his understanding of the role of narrative transformation in a plot.23 Todorov observed that Propp’s syntax of functions led to transformation—a relationship between characters is transformed, distorted facts (or situations) are corrected, a riddle is solved, a prediction is realized. There are many elements in a plot that can be transformed over the course of the action. He explained that the major plot transformation is what makes a narrative feel or appear complete.
I use the Kafalenos chart of causal functions, or steps, in a narrative to abstract the narrative and reveal the structure of the plot.24 This provides clarity
to the actions that mark the advancement of the plot. But it must be remembered
22 Todorov, “Structural Analysis of Narrative,” 75. “The minimal complete plot can be seen as the shift
from one equilibrium to another….The two moments of equilibrium are separated by a period of imbalance, which is composed of a process of degeneration and a process of improvement.”
23 Todorov,
The Poetics of Prose, 218-33. Todorov lists more than 12 types of transformation on the
syntagmatic level of text; these occur in different dimensions, and the more complex transformations relate back to the first action in a narrative.
24 Kafalenos,
that an artistic text is not “designed” to fit into any critic’s system. This approach, like any other, should be viewed as a guide that helps explicate the narrative. A few of the narratives in this study have minimal action, and for them I will use the guide of a “minimal story,” as defined by Gerald Prince.25 In the next few pages I will present the Kafalenos paradigm and demonstrate its applicability to biblical narratives.