Beyond Narratology

can accomplish with the traditional analysis of narrative and novels. As a method to
study storytelling, narratology has flourished in the twentieth century and has been
the dominant way to study narrative. In this paper, I focus on Gerard Genette as the
progenitor of narratology, along with Peter Brooks’s more recent attempt at re-directing
narratology. Using these important examples, which focus on the novel as the prime
example of narrative, I claim that narratology fails to account for many instances of
narrative that we encounter today – especially novels – and that narratology fails at
its own basic goal. is is shown palpably in a small but telling example from David
Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. rough this reading, I demonstrate that narrative
theory and the study of the novel has not changed since its inception several decades
ago. is is not necessarily for bad reasons, but the field should consider if for the 21st
century the field needs to reconsider the theoretical bases it is founded on, perhaps by
studying novels like Infinite Jest in a different way.