Taylor Chapman-Moten

COMM 108, 2-2:50

November 17, 2006

 

Prose Performance Analysis

 

 

                  Janet Evanovich is my favorite author, and she captivated my interest once more with the second book of her novel series, "Two for the Dough", the story that I selected a brief piece of prose from to perform. When I analyzed my selection, I examined it by the guidelines of who is speaking; to whom the narrator is speaking; what is the narrator speaking about; where is the narrator; and why, when and how they are telling the story. After breaking down the piece by the Dramatistic criteria, I filtered it through the Modal analysis: in the selection, what is the speaker mode and why; how the audience modes operate, and how the modal analysis helps expand my comprehension of the relationship between the narrator and the writer or the narrator and audience.

                  In the chosen selection, a bounty hunter by the name of Stephanie Plum is the narrator. She tells the story from a first person point of view because she places herself directly in the events of the story realm. She says, "I rumbled off to Vic's Video and rented Ghostbusters", this is first person because she relates to the events in the "I" form. Third person would remove themselves in maintaining, "Stephanie rumbled off...", while second person would assert, "You rumbled off...", placing the reader or audience in the position of the character in the story. Given the manner in which she behaves and explains herself, I would assume that she is in her thirties and in pretty good shape—because she is always running down a bad guy. She definitely has a round dynamic character, since Stephanie shows different sides of her personality as events occur. She doesn't remain pessimistic through the whole story; she gets depressed, excited, contemplative, and mischievous—she undergoes various character fluctuations. She feels differently about the other characters as she gets to know them with the audience. This is interesting because it allows us to follow her along, because she is not playing a third person omniscient role. Even though she is retelling the story, she discloses the information in the same way she discovered it the first time. She doesn't expose who is good or bad until they do something. However, I can tell how she feels about certain characters based on how much she relates about what she knows about them. For example, Ranger is one of her partners who she has admitted to having a slight crush on. Therefore in the story she often explains little bits of information about him and does so in greater depth and more often than with any of the other characters. Stephanie explains, "Ranger drove a black Mercedes sports car when he wasn't expected to transport felons. When it was hunting season, he came loaded for bear in a black Ford Bronco."

                  The story takes place in the ghettos of New Jersey where vicious crimes and criminals are commonplace and hidden in impoverished neighborhoods. This is depicted when the narrator spoke of where to meet her partner; she asserted, "It was an area of town so intensely depressed, it was deemed unworthy even of gang graffiti." The story is of course told in the past tense; however, the narrator uses the summary style in retelling the events. She explains, "She called something over her shoulder to someone in the house and left. The blond guy and Julia sat kissing in the car for a few minutes. The blonde guy cranked the engine over and the two of them drove away." She told the events as they happened, with just enough detail to get three clear snap shots and blend them together in the gist of the event. She also moves the story along at a pretty quick pace in areas where not much happened. Stephanie goes from Vic's Video and describing what she got there to, "the red light was blinking on my answer machine when I got home." This obviously speeds up the virtual time pace in the story realm. It cuts out her getting back in the car, driving home, walking up to her apartment etc. This means that the narrator was in the virtual present retelling the story, even though the events that transpired were in the virtual past (because in the virtual story realm they had already transpired).

                  The implied audience is not made completely clear however, given the language style used in the story I can conclude that it's not a formal audience. I would guess that the narrator is telling the events of the story to friends or acquaintances that have lent an ear of interest to the comical events that transpired in her day to day journeys. She maintained a casual style; referring to places and things that are familiar to a broad audience of people who are familiar with various aspects of media. For example she mentions, "Popeye's spicy fried chicken and biscuits", "Ghostbusters", "Bill Murray", and "Kuwait". With this in mind, her general audience would be a little older, from 20's and up, depending on how media conscious they are (to be familiar with a popular eating place all the way to Bill Murray and other public affair issues). The narrator spoke very causally, referring to various places and objects that would be familiar to a general audience of consumers. She mentions her consumption of Dr. Pepper and Popeye's, and also that she bought some Reese's and a Kit Kat—and she doesn't mention that they are candy or soda, so obviously she assumes that her audience is familiar with these things. She creates a very relaxed and informal mood, as if talking to a friend that she's comfortable with—as she even mentions how a guy that annoys her disrupts her bowels when she hears his voice. This shows a level of comfort between the narrator and the audience to randomly discuss bodily functions.

                  This led me to examine what the narrator was speaking about. The overall theme of the selection was recalling the events on a day in the life of a bounty hunter. They are sort of like detectives in a way, therefore they spend much time driving around, eating fast food, and being prepared to think on their feet at all hours of the day and night. The general ideas are what exactly is involved or done to catch a felon. She recalls waiting in front of suspect's houses in hopes to catch a clue to the case. All of the events unfold as more information is discovered. The plot of the story is definitely contingent because anything can happen at any moment (emphasizing the absurdity of life and parody regular mundane events), and not necessarily based on preceded events. This adds to the spontaneity of the stories to have random events occur. With this in mind, I truly believe that the narrator is speaking for the mere purpose to entertain, retelling humorous series of events. The narrator is simply sharing an experience; but the occurrences that happen can be so ridiculous at times that it actually makes me feel better about my own life.

                  Observing the piece through the modal analysis lens, I identified the speaker and audience modes. There is a dramatic speaker mode since Stephanie Plum is a defined character who refers to herself as "I"—and also retells what a character said ("'Yo', Ranger said"). However, the audience mode is epic because the narrator speaks to a general audience that is outside of the story realm (external to the piece of literature); yet the characters still speak to each other. In examining my selection through modal analysis I had to acknowledge the narrator as a character and not Janet Evanovich (the author) as the speaker. It kept me in the story realm, knowing that it wasn't the author's voice telling the events, but rather a created narrator. Also through this analysis I was able to somewhat understood what sorts of people, places, and things that the writer was familiar with, given the issues the narrator discussed. From this, I was able to understand the level of comfort assumed by narrator in what she disclosed to her audience.

                  I chose my selection because I deeply admire Janet Evanovich's witty writing style. She uses people, places and things that are familiar to me which makes it much easier for me to get lost in the story realm because I can relate. The performance analogues chosen for my selection, I felt, would put the audience in the story realm, not leaving them just looking into it. I wanted them to be in the car with me eating the chicken, and looking through the windshield at the house with all the lights on and the curtains drawn. I wanted to make the realm feel so real that whatever the narrator's character felt and saw, the audience did also. This has a more lasting effect, because as an audience member, it makes you wonder, "Geez...what would I do if I was driving through that decrepit neighborhood?" This made me think about how intertextuality affected my performance analogues. Considering the neighborhoods that I grew up near and around in childhood back home in Los Angeles helped in the way I had interpreted the text. There are some places about half and hour away from my house in Downtown L.A. where there are streets like the ones Stephanie Plum was hesitant to drive down. When she talked about the Buick she drove and how it looked so ridiculous that a drive by on it was highly unlikely—I could see at least a dozen cars near my neighborhood that favored hers. She mentioned Popeye's chicken and biscuits with a side of cole slaw and immediately placed me back in L.A. where Popeye's food is like a staple food in my neighborhood. It's so familiar to me that I could venture a guess that the meal she spoke of was I believe, a number 4 on the drive through menu under the combos. Experiences, events and familiar places from my own life helped me to create the story realm so much easier because I knew exactly what she was referring to in so many instances. I didn't have to venture too many guesses as to how the narrator felt in describing the food or places because I've actually seen them myself—so those were actually the times in the story where some of my own personal emotions added depth and color to those asserted by the narrator.

                  This selection was chosen from Janet Evanovich's second book out of her collection of eleven or so. Of course most of the events of the stories are written for the purpose of entertaining the readers or audience. But there are always moments of truth where the narrator asks the audience to evaluate their own feelings—and dare them to place themselves in her position. In dissecting a piece of literature through a Dramatistic and modal analysis a selection is viewed much more thoroughly than if it were simply read through. I was forced to examine the behind the scenes aspects of the work, which ultimately led to a deeper appreciation of the literature as a whole.