The analepsis, also called flashback or deja vu, It is a narrative resource that consists of the interruption of the chronological sequence of events to insert events or scenes of previous occurrence. Although analepsis is common in literature, it is also used in television and film.
It is a sequence in time that is transferred to the past, recalling an event that has already occurred and reinforcing the action narrated in the present. Its functions depend on the dynamics of the story.
It can, for example, illustrate the past of a character, or retrieve events whose knowledge is necessary to provide internal coherence to the story.
Similarly, you can convey information about the character's background to readers or viewers. This provides insight into the character's motives for making certain decisions in the course of the story..
At its core, analepsis is the story of an internal conflict. Its use provides stimulus for conflict, deepens poignant effects, and allows the reader to sympathize with the character..
In addition, another of its functions within the narrative is to increase tension. The author seeks, by mentioning a past event, that readers want to know the secrets of the story that is told.
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The main characteristic of analepsis is that it always carries the sequence of the story into the past. The opposite effect is prolepsis (transfer of action to the future).
In general, this type of time management helps to raise the tension, sharpen the drama and the construction of great scenes..
In the case of analepsis, these reversals in time are important because they add complications and depth to the narrative. Also, they can thicken the plots and create dynamic and complex characters..
On the other hand, it can occur as a sudden thought sequence, a hazy dream, or a vivid memory. Also, this can happen without warning in the narrative line..
Analepses are classified as external, internal, or mixed. The internal ones can be heterodiegetic and homodiegetic. In turn, the latter can be completive, iterative or repetitive..
The analepsis is external when its scope goes back to a moment before the starting point of the original story. In these cases, the narration does not interfere with the events of the initial narrative..
The internal analepsis, unlike the external, places its scope within the same primary narrative. The author begins the narration, and then returns to tell details that he had "forgotten".
In these cases, the content of the analepsis is not thematically identified with the moment of action of the original or base story. That is, the narrative content is different from the primary story..
In homodiegetic internal analepsis, the content of the retrospective narrative coincides with that of the base story. Completives are used to fill gaps in the story whose narration was omitted at the appropriate time, and then retrieved to provide important information.
For their part, the iterative ones do not aim to recover a singular event, but refer to events or time segments that are similar to others already contained in the story.
In repetitive homodiegetic internal analepsis, the story turns on itself in an explicit way and refers to its own past.
The mixed analepsis is one that has its scope at a time prior to the beginning of the main story. In terms of its scope, it covers a period of time that ends within the original story..
In the story "Tuesday nap”By Gabriel García Márquez, the opening seems to follow a chronological order that is later broken by the account of a previous event mentioned in the
middle of the narration.
In this way, the time sequence of the story is interrupted, allowing the reader to begin putting the pieces of the story together in the form of puzzles..
Thus, the reader discovers that the poor woman and her daughter, both dressed in black, come to this nameless town to bring flowers to a grave. Only then do readers learn that the son was killed in an attempted robbery..
”The father began to sweat. The girl unbuttoned the loop of her left shoe, took off her heel and leaned it against the buttress. He did the same with the right. Everything had started on Monday of the previous week, at three in the morning and a few blocks from there.
Mrs. Rebeca, a lonely widow who lived in a house full of trinkets, felt through the noise of the drizzle that someone was trying to force the front door from outside ".
The novel by Gabriel García Márquez The Autumn of the Patriarch you belong to a well recognized subgenre of Latin American fiction: the novel of the "dictator".
This work begins with the discovery of the dictator's body that carrion birds have already rendered unrecognizable in the dilapidated presidential palace.
The main character of the story has lived for more than a hundred years and his story unfolds in six long and poorly punctuated analepses in which the narrative voices change without warning..
Each section opens with the initial moment of discovery to reveal a few different aspects of the past..
“He has a fever in the canyons, it is useless. We never heard that phrase from him again until after the cyclone when he proclaimed a new amnesty for the prisoners and authorized the return of all the exiles except the men of letters ... ".
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