Focalization: An Investigation into the Narratology of Moniru Ravanipur’s “Kanizu”

Abstract

According to the French Structuralist Gerard Genette, the term “point of view" is not an all-comprehensive one for the discussion of narration because, in his view, there is often a difference between the person who tells about an event and the person who sees it. He has, thus, proposed the term “focalization" to make a distinction between the two components of narration. Later critics also proposed new aspects and dimensions to Genette's term and made it a key issue in Structuralist criticism. In this article, drawing on Genette's and other critics' views, we have tried to analyze how, through the interaction of different components of focalization, meaning is shaped. The study shows that “Kanizu" includes narrative complexities that are often ignored in traditional criticism.