User:Andre castro/2/annot/eco bond

Umberto Eco 'The Narrative Structure of Ian Fleming'

Eco, Umberto (1982) The Narrative Structure of Ian Fleming. In Waites, B., Bennett, T. and Martin, G. (ed.) Popular Culture: Past and Present. Kent: The Open University. p.242-262

In The Narrative Structure of Ian Fleming Umberto Eco takes on a macro-observation at Ian Fleming James Bond novels. Eco instigates the "machine, which was to function without deviation of fortune in the novels that followed [Casino Loyal]", and why it " lies at the basis of the success of the '007 saga'" (p.244). Eco tries to dissect the formula which has brough sucess to Fleming's Bond stories. In order to do so Eco organizes his investigation according to:

Binary oppositions of the characters and values. In this list there are characters' dichotomies, but also values conflicts.

In terms of characters we see:
a) Bond- M; b) Bond - Villain; c) Villain - Woman; d) Woman - Bond;
and in relation to values:
e) Free World - Soviet Union; g) Duty - Sacrifice; j) Chance - Planning; k) Luxury - Discomfort; to a name a few.

Eco uses this conflicting pairs, to isolate each relation in order to further understand it, as in the case of the relation Bond - M, which is described as consisting in dominated-dominant, order-improvisation, love-hate conflict. In the case of the characters' dichotomies they seem to uphold sub-series of underlying dichotomies, such as the above mentioned, or as in Bond - Villain: beauty - monstrosity, virile - asexual or homosexual.

This analysis according to dual pairs inherits from Greimas structural analysis methods

The novel as a play situations, having its plot as a 'game'

(235-259) Eco compares the Bond's saga to a game in which in which the rules as to how the previously mentioned couples combine are established. However these rules are unchangeable from novel to novel, they are simply predefined. The stories develop according to predefined and unchangeable set of rules, that begins with: A)M moves and gives a task to Bond B)The Villain moves and appears to Bond C)Bond gives the first check to the Villain or the Villain gives the first check to Bond a follow until letter I ...

This scheme is invariable, in that all of its elements are present in every story. However the order of the events can change, and repeated events can also take place. As a consequence the plot of the entire collection of Bond novels can be quickly outlined, as Eco does in a couple of lines. His question is how can an inventive fiction-writer function within the limitations of such predetermined plot. Eco answers by stating that repetition is a characteristic of detective stories. Repetition of the same scheme allows the reader to recognize something he knows and has grown found of. Eco see the detective story as producing redundancy. While "pretending to arouse the reader, in fact it reconfirms him a sort of imaginative laziness, and creates escape not by narrating the unknown but the already known"(p.258). Going back to the game analogy Eco describes the reader's pleasure as finding himself in a game, where both elements and rules are known, and often also the outcome, Bond always win against the tyranny of the Villain and the Soviet Union.

"The novels of Fleming exploit in a exemplary measure that element of foregone play which is typical of the escape machine geared for the entertainment of the masses. Perfect in their mechanism, such machines represent the narrative structure which works upon obvious material and does not aspire to describe ideological details. It is true that such structures inevitably indicate ideological positions, but these ideological positions do not derive so much from the structural contents as from the method of constructing the contents into the narrative" (p.259)

material is obvious and does aspire to describe ideological details

the ideology derive, not from the structural contents, 
the ideology derives from the method of constructing - What is the method of constructing? Is it the writers strategies?

Characters as Archetypes

To the attacks to Fleming, accusing him of being a conservative writer, Eco responds by referring that in order to build an effective narrative apparatus Fleming resorts to "secure and universal principals and puts into play archetypal elements" (p.260), a strategy, Eco affirms, that has been proven to result in traditional tales. He goes on comparing the characters of the Bond novels to those of traditional tales: M is the King, Bond the Cavalier, etc. Fleming is conservative as the fables are conservatives. "[I]t is the static inherent dogmatic conservatism of fairy-tales and myths, which transmit an elementary wisdom, constructed and communicated by a simple play of light and shade, and they transmit it by indestructible images which do not permit critical distinction"(p.261)

useful for thesis

• analysis through opposites
• the stock characters
• the escape of a known story
• the dogmatic conservative of fairy-tales - a play of light and shade that do not permit a critical distinction