Narrative Distance

Narrative distance is a category of narratology designating the degree of remoteness or nearness of the narrator (and, with him, the reader) to the depicted events and characters in time, in space, and also in the emotional and evaluative plane. The distance may be great (the narrator is detached, objective, looking at events 'from above' and from afar) or small (the narrator is merged with the hero's consciousness, and events are given 'from within', immediately). The regulation of narrative distance is a subtle means of artistic expressiveness: the change of distance governs the reader's empathy, the degree of identification with the hero, and the measure of irony or compassion. For example, in the psychological prose of Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky the distance is minimal — the reader sees the world through the hero's eyes; the epic, omniscient narration of the classic novel, by contrast, presupposes a greater distance. The conscious variation of narrative distance deepens the psychologism and multidimensionality of the artistic depiction of reality.