Set sådan lidt fra oven. - Om det unaturlige i narratologien og i J.P. Jacobsens "Et Skud i Taagen"

Resumé

AS VIEWED SOMEWHAT FROM ABOVE | First; the relationship between the two positions of natural and unnatural narratology is discussed. It is pointed out that even if they appear to live together in relative harmony and supplement each other in productive ways, they may have to disagree more fundamentally with each other if they are to formulate their respective conceptions of language. Subsequently, an exemplary reading of J.P. Jacobsen’s short story “Et skud i Taagen” is undertaken.
First, the question of genre is discussed, since the story appears to be a ghost story that does not really want to be such a story in a traditional sense. Todorov’s idea that the fantastic in literature originates from rhetorical figures becomes the point of departure for a further reading of the story. It is demonstrated that the literalization of a now forgotten idiom, the becoming fictional reality of a simile, and metonymy, is what conjures up the ghost in the narrative. The unnatural or supernatural is thus a product of language in the strictest sense possible. Furthermore, another rhetorical or literary phenomenon, namely free indirect speech, is used with devious effects by Jacobsen, since it is evoked to produce a couple of perspectives or points of view that are simply
impossible. The literary language of the story can thus not only conjure up the unnatural or supernatural, it can also blind the reader to the sheer impossibility of what is written on the page.