A Study On The Interrelationship Of Temporality And Causality In Literary Narrative Plot

The discussion of temporality and causality in literary narrative plot has always been one of the focus of narratology. However, most of the existing research results aim at the feature and function of temporality and causality, which have not yet deliberated on the interrelationship of them in its entirety. On the base of some representative viewpoints in both China and the west, this paper will make an intensive study of the external contrary relations and the internal unified relations of temporality and causality, in which we can prove their importance in literary narrative plot, and reveal the enlightenment for contemporary narrative culture.The interrelationship of temporality and causality in literary narrative plot mainly reflects in two aspects:the external contrary relations and the internal unified relations. For the former, the essence of temporality is being presence, which means watching and experience of the viewpoint toward objects on the scene. The essence of causality is departure, which means organizing the scene with language and acquiring introspection through the viewpoint. To this extent, temporality and causality are in opposition. For the latter, temporality and causality have their own disadvantages in construction of literary narrative plot, which can also be covered by superiority of each other. On the one hand, the author can’t gain comprehensive perception when being presence and watching because of the blind spot, which becomes the deficiency of temporality. And only departure can view the whole scene through introspection. The linguistic turn discovered the intransitive feature of language and its existence as meaning system, as a result of language, causality organizes and clarifies all events on the scene logically. On the other hand, the downside of linguistic turn results in the swell of narrative techniques. People pay more attention to "storytelling" than "story", which becomes the deficiency of causality. However, "narration" is a relative act, which just pointing at parts of a whole story, it must act on the hermeneutics premise that respecting "story" itself. So the author who has left the scene already need to be presence again, and balance "narration" and "story" through the experience on the scene. Comprehending the dialectical relationship of temporality and causality can help us to understand literary narrative plot in more depth theoretically, and can also help us to establish some more reasonable concepts about narration in practice.