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New Perspectives on
Narrative and Multimodality

Routledge Studies in Multimodality
EDITED BY KAY L. O’HALLORAN, National University of Singapore
1. New Perspectives on Narrative
and Multimodality
Edited by Ruth Page

New Perspectives on
Narrative and Multimodality
Edited by Ruth Page
New York London

First published 2010
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
New perspectives on narrative and multimodality / edited by Ruth Page.
p. cm.—(Routledge studies in multimodality ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Semiotics. 2. Discourse analysis, Narrative. I. Page, Ruth E., 1972–
P99.N48 2009
401'.41—dc22
2009014990
ISBN10: 0-415-99517-5 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-86943-5 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-99517-7 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-86943-7 (ebk)
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o purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Permissions xi
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction 1
RUTH PAGE
2 Multimodal Storytelling: Performance and Inscription
in the Narration of Art History 14
FIONA J. DOLOUGHAN
3 A Multimodal Approach to Mind Style: Semiotic Metaphor
vs. Multimodal Conceptual Metaphor 31
ROCÍO MONTORO
4 The Computer-Based Analysis of Narrative and
Multimodality 50
ANDREW SALWAY
5 Opera: Forever and Always Multimodal 65
MICHAEL HUTCHEON AND LINDA HUTCHEON
6 Word-Image/Utterance-Gesture: Case Studies in
Multimodal Storytelling 78
DAVID HERMAN
7 “I Contain Multitudes”: Narrative Multimodality and the Book
that Bleeds 99
ALISON GIBBONS

vi Contents
8 Multimodality and the Literary Text: Making Sense of Safran
Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 115
NINA NØRGAARD
9 Electronic Multimodal Narratives and Literary Form 127
MICHAEL TOOLAN
10 Gains and Losses? Writing it All Down:
Fanﬁ ction and Multimodality 142
BRONWEN THOMAS
11 Respiratory Narrative: Multimodality and Cybernetic
Corporeality in “Physio-Cybertext” 155
ASTRID ENSSLIN
12 Cruising Along: Time in Ankerson and Sapnar 166
JESSICA LACCETTI
13 Beyond Multimedia, Narrative, and Game: The
Contributions of Multimodality and Polymorphic Fictions 183
CHRISTY DENA
14 Keg Party Extreme and Conversation Party : Two Multimodal
Interactive Narratives Developed for the SMALLab 202
SARAH HATTON, MELISSA MCGURGAN, AND XIANG-JUN WANG
15 Coda/Prelude: Eighteen Questions for the Study of Narrative
and Multimodality 217
DAVID HERMAN AND RUTH PAGE
Contributors 221
Index 225

Figures and Tables
FIGURES
4.1 A local grammar fragment induced from corpora
of ﬁ lm scripts and audio description, from Vassiliou
(2006). 55
6.1 Monomodal narration used to evoke a single reference
world. 82
6.2 Monomodal narration used to evoke multiple reference
worlds. 82
6.3 Multimodal narration used to evoke a single reference
world. 82
6.4 Multimodal narration used to evoke multiple reference
worlds. 82
6.5 The Incredible Hulk, Volume 2, Issue 1, created
by Stan Lee, written by Gary Friedrich and Marie
Severin, inked by George Tuska, lettered by Artie
Simek, p. 7. New York: Marvel Comics Group
(Issue 102), April 1968. 85
6.6 Gesture use in off-site narration. 91
6.7 Gesture use in on-site narration. 91
6.8 Number of points used to create transpositions
between gesture spaces. 92
6.9 Number of points used to create laminations of gesture
spaces. 92
6.10 A continuum of place-making strategies in narrative. 94
7.1 “First Pain” and “Then Knowledge.” 103

viii Figures and Tables
7.2 “Trifold.” 106
7.3 Reemerging input spaces. 109
12.1 A zoomed-out scene from Cruising illustrating the
ﬁ lmic frames and the written narrative. 171
12.2 A zoomed-in scene from Cruising illustrating the
ﬁ lmic frames and the written narrative. 172
12.3 White rounded font from the written narrative. 173
12.4 The only image in Cruising in which the protagonists
appear. 174
12.5 An enlarged view of the driver. Ankerson and Sapnar,
Cruising. 176
12.6 Filmic sequence showing the black space punctuation
between each image. 177
13.1 Diagram illustrating the relations between principles,
modes, and media, as espoused by Kress and van
Leeuwen (2001). 195
14.1 Picture of a student using the green glowing ball to
interact with a 3-D trace system in SMALLab. 206
14.2 Participant navigates through a virtual space in
SMALLab’s Alphabet Soup scenario. 206
14.3 Image used in Keg Party Extreme. 208
14.4 Participant stands over the keg so to trigger the sounds
associated with that location. 210
14.5 Participants engaging in Conversation Party. 211
14.6 The image used in Conversation Party. 212
14.7 Picture of a ﬂ owchart about sound trigger and
probability system. 214
TABLES
1.1 Dimensions of the Multimodal Ensemble 7
2.1 Multimodal Transcription and Analysis. 22

Figures and Tables ix
4.1 Four Corpora of Text Surrogates for Film 53
6.1 Cassell and McNeill’s (1991) Taxonomy of Gestures 89
6.2 An Expanded Inventory of Pointing Gestures 90

Permissions
CHAPTER 6
Figure 6.5 is reproduced from The Incredible Hulk, Volume 2, Issue 1,
created by Stan Lee, written by Gary Friedrich and Marie Severin, inked
by George Tuska, lettered by Artie Simek, p. 7. New York: Marvel Comics
Group (Issue 102), April 1968. HULK: TM&©2008 Marvel Entertain-
ment, Inc., and its subsidiaries. Used with permission.
CHAPTER 7
Figures 7.1 and 7.2 are reproduced from VAS: An Opera in Flatland, by Steve
Tomasula, art and design by Stephen Farrell (2002), Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, pp. 9–10 and p. 58 respectively. Used with permission.
CHAPTER 12
Figures 12.1–12.6 are reproduced from Cruising by Ingrid Ankerson and
Megan Sapnar. Used with permission.

Acknowledgments
Many people made this volume possible, and I can only single out some
of the people who helped facilitate its production and completion. My
thanks go to the contributors for their patience and commitment to the
project. It has been a pleasure to work with scholars from across Europe,
Canada, the United States, and Australia. I am also grateful to Elizabeth
Levine and Erica Wetter at Routledge for their prompt and helpful editorial
advice. The collection of essays ﬁ rst began to take shape at the Narrative
and Multimodality Symposium (April 2007), hosted at Birmingham City
University. I am indebted to Birmingham City University for their support
that facilitated that event, and for the research leave that has enabled me
to bring the present collection to ﬁ nal completion. Special thanks go to
Michael Toolan and David Roberts for the conversations that gave rise to
the symposium in the ﬁ rst place; to David Herman for believing in the col-
lection and for providing ever-ready encouragement; to Louise Sylvester for
scholarly generosity more than reciprocated. Most of all, I thank my family
who have supported me in so many ways during the time this project has
taken shape—especially Gavin Page, whose practical help at the sympo-
sium will be remembered by all present for years to come, and who I am so
glad to be sharing the story of my life with.

1 Introduction
Ruth Page
THE MULTIMODAL NATURE OF STORYTELLING
From conversational anecdotes told in face-to-face contexts through to
ﬁ lm, digital storytelling, and beyond, narrative experiences employ a rich
range of semiotic resources. The multifaceted nature of storytelling is noth-
ing new, and is without doubt far more widespread, creative, and diverse
than these initial examples signal. Stories might be spoken or written, and
in their performance employ gesture, movement, facial expression, and
prosodic elements such as voice quality, pitch, pace, and rhythm. Other
narrative resources might include soundtracks, music, image, typeface, and
hyperlinks, none of which are exceptional for their presence in stories of
various kinds available at the outset of the twenty-ﬁ rst century. Put simply,
stories do not consist of words alone. However, the multiple and integrated
nature of semiotic resources used in storytelling is less simple to explain
than to assert, and is long overdue for systematic and close attention in
narrative theory. The dominant and interrelated trends that have shaped
contemporary narrative studies in the last three decades provide the back-
drop against which we can situate this now pressing need.
TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVE STUDIES
The interdisciplinary expansion of narratology across the humanities and
beyond means that the kinds of stories that now come under scrutiny extend
much further than the literary texts typically prominent in classical narra-
tology. Instead, audiovisual stories of various kinds (such as cinematic ﬁ lm
or televised serials); stories that foreground image (including tableaux and
cartoons of many kinds); and music (ranging from opera to hip-hop) have
all been found to be of interest for their narrative function and potential.
The stories that harness the rapid development of new technologies are part
of this semiotic expansion, and in themselves are often characterized by
multiple resources as they integrate words, image, sound, hyperlinks, and
animation (for example, as seen on Web-based homepages, or creatively

2 Ruth Page
exploited in digital ﬁ ction). The innovative nature and social impact of
recent technology developments mean that the question of digital media
and its role in narrative processing has come to center stage, prioritizing the
place of media in narrative studies more generally. The increasing diversity
of narrative texts, combined with an openness to embrace methodology
from other ﬁ elds of inquiry, means that a narratology derived from the
study of verbal resources alone can no longer be fully adequate to the task
of interrogating storytelling in its broadest sense.
Narratologists have long recognized the limitations of early studies in
the ﬁ eld. The contextualist rejection of structuralist abstraction led to an
increased interest in the situated and process-oriented nature of narrative.
The outcome of this was a shift away from earlier text-immanent analyses
towards an attempt to account for the nonlinguistic factors that might be
involved in the cover-all domain of “context.” Contextual sensitivity in nar-
rative studies has been manifest in various ways. Within the sociolinguistic
ﬁ elds inﬂ uenced by Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) groundbreaking work on
personal narratives, the shaping force of variables such as the narrative par-
ticipant’s gender, age, and ethnicity began to be given due attention. Like-
wise, discourse analysts debated the constraining and enabling nature of the
immediate situation in which the narrative was elicited, for example, evaluat-
ing stories told in interview settings (Lambrou 2005), meal times (Blum Kulka
1993), and peer group conversation (Georgakopoulou 1997). Critically, stud-
ies inﬂ uenced by sociolinguistics also sought to theorize the social function
of narrative, for example, as a means of managing interpersonal relations
or performing identity work. However, even in these more contextually ori-
ented studies, the spoken stories investigated were often transcribed in such
a way that paralinguistic features (including gaze or prosodic resources like
intonation) appeared as annotations embellishing the verbal record of telling
rather than being recognized as semiotic systems in their own right.
Literary studies of narrative have followed a similar move away from
abstract, quasi-scientiﬁ c formalist systems, but with a rather different focus.
At least in some quarters, literary narratologists rejected empirical analy-
sis of actual and immediate contexts of narration (Chatman 1990), instead
conceptualizing “context” in broader, culturally oriented terms. A wealth
of what might be termed “critical narratology” emerged, exposing connec-
tions between narrative and ideology. Again, the inﬂ uence of gender, race,
and ethnicity on storytelling is found in work that illustrates the move from
“poetics to politics” (Currie 1998, 4), seen through recouping the value of
previously marginalized writing. For example, feminist narratology sought
to take account of literary texts by women (Lanser 1986), while others have
used narratological tools to uncover postcolonial, and/or historicist perspec-
tives in literary and cinematic texts (see Aldama 2003).
Cognitive Narrative Analysis developed as a separate but allied strand
of contextualism in both literary and linguistic domains of study. Here
the contextual focus was trained on the user and the cognitive processes

Introduction 3
employed in making sense of narratives. As Herman (2003) points out,
Cognitive Narrative Analysis is inherently interdisciplinary (drawing on
neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and anthropology, for example) and
intermedial. Nonetheless, within narratology, analyses have tended to be
devoted to literary texts or to fabricated examples, again given in verbal
form (Herman 1997). In both cases, critical and cognitive trends in con-
textualist narratology rightly allude to the interactive nature of narrative
production and reception. Nonetheless, the nonlinguistic resources of the
contextual domain are extrapolated through discussion of given texts, and
more speciﬁ cally mediated through analysis of speciﬁ c verbal choices from
sample (often) literary texts to the neglect of other semiotic resources.
From the stance of the early twenty-ﬁ rst century, contemporary narra-
tive analysis has clearly come a long way from its structuralist beginnings
and focus on literary texts and analysis. Nonetheless, these origins have
left signiﬁ cant legacies for narrative theory that are problematic if we are
to take account of the full range of semiotic resources regularly found in
storytelling. Most prominent are the assumption of monomodality and the
privileging of verbal resources. Both in classical narratology and sociolin-
guistic accounts of narrative practice, the source material has predominately
focused on verbal resources, either realized in the form of literary texts or
written transcriptions of spoken data. Similarly, linguistics has functioned
as a dominant paradigm in the development of narrative theory. From the
initial use of Saussurean principles to distinguish between deep and surface
structures, through to grammatical metaphors used to explain plot struc-
ture (Longacre 1983) or actantial relations (Greimas 1983) and still current
in contemporary applications of systemic functional linguistics (Herman
2002) and corpus linguistics (Toolan 2008), tools from linguistics have been
used to build evidence for narrative patterns and in turn underpin narrative
concepts themselves. Both typical source data and conceptual bias in narra-
tology leads to a situation not just of media-blindness, (the assumption that
concepts derived from one format can be unproblematically transferred to
another) but also mode-blindness. By this I mean that we should not assume
that the dominance of the verbal mode thus far in narrative theorizing means
that it is fully adequate to explicate the contribution of other modes (be they
visual, verbal, kinaesthetic, or related to conventions such as dress codes).
Instead, we need to reconﬁ gure narrative theory and analysis in such a way
that verbal resources are understood as only one of many semiotic elements
integrated together in the process of storytelling.
MULTIMODAL THEORY: BACKGROUND
AND DEFINITIONS
The chapters in this collection mark a paradigm shift away from mode-
blindness. Instead, in various ways, the discussions develop and debate our

4 Ruth Page
understanding of narrative resources as multimodal phenomena. Although
communication has always exhibited multimodal qualities, it is since the
1990s that conceptualizing multimodality has enjoyed renewed critical inter-
est. Initially associated with the scholarly work of the New London Group,
multimodality is rooted in semiotics but interfaces particularly with dis-
course analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and socially oriented work in
Critical Discourse Analysis. As the preﬁ x “multi-” suggests, work that might
come under the heading of multimodality is a pluralistic enterprise, drawing
on different perspectives and data. Baldry and Thibault thus describe multi-
modality as “a multipurpose toolkit, not a single tool for a single purpose”
(2006, xv). The work in this volume is no exception to such pluralism, and
the authors employ different kinds of analyses, survey different kinds of nar-
ratives, and take different stances towards multimodality itself. However,
the diversity of multimodality is neither random nor ad hoc. Instead, multi-
modality is grounded in certain central claims, which I revisit now.
Above all else, multimodality insists on the multiple integration of semi-
otic resources in all communicative events. From this perspective, all texts
are multimodal (Kress 2000, 187; Baldry and Thibault 2006, 19). Mono-
modality in comparison is not an actual quality of texts but rather a way
of thinking about individual semiotic resources once abstracted from the
communicative ensembles in which they occur. Multimodality’s insistence
on the multiple resources used in communication is coupled with the demo-
cratic stance that all modes are equal. The extensive knowledge of verbal
resources (and relative neglect of other systems) in certain quarters is not
necessarily a result of the sole existence of language, but rather a continu-
ing aftereffect of the centrality of linguistics (Kress 2000, 193). The asser-
tion of modal democracy does not deny that when in use particular modes
from the ensemble can relate to one another in various ways (by comple-
menting or contrasting in the meanings they construct, or being arranged
in hierarchies), and that in any given text, one mode may dominate. But
even when one mode dominates, this does not mean that the other either
less prominent or less well-recognized semiotic resources are not in play.
Multimodality requires us to fundamentally rethink the position of verbal
resources within semiotic conﬁ gurations (here speciﬁ cally within narrative
theory) and to ask what the narrative system would look like if we exam-
ined other modes with equal priority.
If multimodality calls attention to the range of semiotic resources used
in communication, it also seeks to draw connections between them. In
some work this is expressed as a unifying tendency, where multimodality is
viewed as “common semiotic principles [that] operate in and across differ-
ent modes” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 2). Typically, if not ironically,
these semiotic principles thus far have borrowed and reworked concepts
from various subﬁ elds of linguistics (for example, grammars, framing,
modality, elaboration). The question of how far such metaphors are useful

Introduction 5
is contentious and not without debate (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 124–
25), and indeed the wider issue of whether it is possible or not to create
a single system of principles for all modes lies beyond the scope of this
volume. Instead, applying multimodal principles to narrative analysis must
negotiate the tensions between ﬁ nding transferable frames of reference that
enable comparisons to be made between different modal combinations and
avoiding the levels of abstraction that negate the inevitable inﬂ uence of
localized narrative contexts.
The process-oriented nature of multimodal analysis forces us to return
to the multifaceted nature of narrative context from a fresh perspective.
Drawing on the work of Malinowski (1935), multimodal theory distin-
guishes between context of situation (the localized situation in which
words are uttered) and context of culture. In narrative analysis, these two
contextual facets have often been subject to separation across disciplinary
divides. In narratological criticism of literary texts, discussion of context
appears closer to the broader cultural concerns (for example, as treated
in subﬁ elds such as feminist narratology). In sociolinguistic studies of
narrative, the factors involved in “context of situation” are more strongly
foregrounded through typical data (often narratives that occur in talk of
various kinds) and methodological preoccupations. Multimodal narra-
tive analysis reminds us that such separation is illusory and that not only
does all language operate within cultural systems, so narratives (whether
naturally or technologically produced) are received in local contexts by
actual audiences.
The principles of multimodality provide a signiﬁ cant means of expand-
ing the project of contemporary narratology. Like other recent narrative
studies that have indicated a turn to media (Ryan 2004), multimodality
brings into the frame a number of issues that have previously been over-
looked in the verbal hegemony of classical narratology, namely questions
of remediation (Bolter and Grusin 1999) and the narrative affordances of
speciﬁ c media. The distinct contribution of a multimodal analysis is to shift
the focus from media to modes, and to focus less on a comparison of spe-
ciﬁ c media but instead to reconceptualize all narrative communication as
multimodal. Clearly the enormity of fully examining the semiotic resources
used in narrative (in its broadest sense) falls far beyond a single framework,
and must by necessity be diverse, interdisciplinary, and integrative. On the
one hand, this opens up a wealth of possible connections between method-
ology, source material, and critical perspective. On the other, such diversity
is also open to terminological confusion and controversy. Central to the
debates and analyses that follow in this volume are the terms “medium”
and “mode,” which are notoriously slippery and ambiguous. In order to
anchor the chapters that follow within some kind of critical context, I move
now to sketch out some deﬁ nitions against which multimodal narrative
analysis might position itself.

6 Ruth Page
CRITICAL TERMINOLOGY
The modes described in multimodal analysis refer speciﬁ cally to semiotic
modes (as opposed to other, specialist uses of the term). Thus a mode is
understood here as a system of choices used to communicate meaning.
What might count as a mode is an open-ended set, ranging across a number
of systems including but not limited to language, image, color, typography,
music, voice quality, dress, gesture, spatial resources, perfume, and cuisine.
The status of a mode is relative and may vary according to its instantiation
within a given community. For example, the potential of particular scents
to carry meaning may be high for perfume creators but less so for other
individuals who are not trained to differentiate between them. Given the
ﬂ uid nature of modes, central questions are how, why, and to what extent
some modes become particularly privileged in certain contexts. The col-
lection of work in this volume concentrates on narrative as a signiﬁ cant
mode by which humans make sense of themselves and the world around
them. However, the principles of multimodality remind us that narrative is
only one mode amongst many, and a multimodal narrative analysis should
not be taken to reinforce narrative imperialism but rather might serve to
broaden our understanding of how and why narrative functions in relation
to other modes in different contexts.
Semiotic modes are realized materially through particular media.
Although closely intertwined with multimodality, the analysis of medium
is a separable and independent issue. As Kress and van Leeuwen put it,
“multimodality and multimediality are not quite the same thing” (2001,
67). In probing this issue further, it is worth distinguishing between the dif-
ferent uses of “medium.” Ryan (2004) rightly points out that two meanings
are current in theoretical discussions. First, medium refers to the physi-
cal materials used when conveying communication (e.g., print, airwaves,
radio). Second, it may also be deﬁ ned as a channel of communication. Both
meanings are important in multimodality, which recognizes the potential
of materiality for meaning-making. However, modes and medium cannot
be mapped univocally. As Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) argue, a given
semiotic mode can appear in different media. For example, language can
be spoken or written. Conversely, and fundamental to the project of multi-
modality, different modes can be realized in the same medium, as demon-
strated through the use of image and words in comics or illustrated stories.
As materiality may function as a source of difference and hence meaning,
multimodal narrative analysis treats media as one element operating within
the wider ensemble of semiotic modes used in storytelling. It is less con-
cerned with media-speciﬁ c affordances in isolation. Thus multimodal nar-
rative analysis can be focused on a single medium (print literature) or may
survey narratives from different media (audiovisual and written). However,
regardless of whether one or more media are involved, the focus remains on
the integration of semiotic resources, not the comparison of media alone.

Introduction 7
The relationship between materiality and multimodality draws attention
to the physical work involved in narrative processing, both in the use of
tools and technology, and also by the human body and its sensory organs.
Kress and van Leeuwen (2001, 66) argue that although semiotic modes are
grounded in physiological experience, they are not naturalistically equated
to sensory modes. The senses being addressed, the priority between sensory
tracks and the various affordances they yield within a storytelling context
thus contribute to but should not be taken as synonymous with semiotic
mode in its widest sense. Rather, recognizing that narrative is not just a
means of artistic expression but a fundamental human endowment (Her-
man 2007, 17) the role of sensory modes remains vital to a multimodal nar-
rative analysis. Storyworlds routinely depict sensory modality, indexically
evoked through verbal or visual resources, and, more generally, narrative
communication is itself embodied. Tellers and audiences interact variously
with the substance of their stories, whether that is through gesture and tone
of voice in conversational stories, or through the sensorimotor manipula-
tions of a page, keyboard, screen, or other material. Analyzing the holis-
tic contribution of sensory modes to storytelling raises important issues
for multimodal narrative analysis. It might ask why certain modes play
more signiﬁ cant roles in narrative production and reception than others
(for example, visual and auditory senses are usually more prominent than
olfactory senses). Likewise, attending to sensory modality demands an ade-
quately theorized account of how the human body interacts with narrative
materials of different kinds.
The analysis of semiotic modes can combine factors used in textual pre-
sentation (such as the choice to use words and/or a diagram), sensory per-
ception (the use or evocation of sight and touch, for example), and media of
transmission, all of which are situated within a given physical environment.
The semiotic resources combine in multiplex conﬁ gurations across these
parameters, demonstrating that multimodal narrative analysis is far more
than a text-based concern. Heuristically, the different dimensions of multi-
modality might be categorized schematically in the following ﬁ gure.
Table 1.1 Dimensions of the Multimodal Ensemble
Textual
resources
Platform of delivery Physical environment Sensory modalities
Words Digital screen Private (domestic) Sight
Image Printed page Public Hearing
Sound Cinema/TV screen Inside/Outside
rooms or buildings
Touch
Movement Face-to-face Light/dark Smell
Olfactory resourcesTelephone Objects/space Taste

8 Ruth Page
Of course in actuality, modal elements such as those listed are experi-
enced in synergy rather than separately, and in open-ended conﬁ gurations.
Sketching the range of factors included in multimodality is not intended to
be deﬁ nitive or exclusive, but to make plain that narratives are embodied
communicative events, experienced in particular environments. The nar-
rative participants may interact with a story using a variously synthesized
range of sensory modalities (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste). For exam-
ple, I might read a novel whilst holding it and turning the pages; watching
a ﬁ lm I both see the images on the screen and hear the sound track but I
will not touch the screen itself. Narratives may be delivered in different
media. Thus a written narrative might appear on pages or digital screens
of various kinds, an audiovisual narrative played out on a theater stage,
cinema, television, or computer screen, I can tell an oral story in a face-to-
face situation, or use a telephone, or Skype. The physical environment in
which a narrative is produced also deploys a range of semiotic resources
involved in meaning-making. A narrative may be experienced in private
or public spaces (an anecdote can be told over dinner or from a pulpit; a
ﬁ lm may be viewed in a cinema or at home on a television; an extract of a
narrative might be pinned to a notice board or pasted on a billboard). Such
public or private environments may variously use light or darkness, space,
heat, or movement in creative ways to generate narrative meaning. Clearly,
the contribution made by any one element of the semiotic ensemble may be
more or less prominent in the way a story is meaningful. The point here is
to bring to light the holistic manner in which narratives can be embedded
in different modal contexts.
Capturing the dynamic interplay of semiotic resources as they contribute
to narrative meaning requires some form of transcription as a ﬁ rst step in
the process of analysis and interpretation. Given that multimodal theory
requires us to rethink the preeminence of any single mode, it is vital that the
transcription makes plain not just the verbal content of a narrative, but the
wider ensemble of semiotic resources at work. In so doing, this may reveal
more clearly patterns of resources integration across different examples of
storytelling and help us identify points of commonality and contrast across
the narrative spectrum. Transcription must be at once systematic and rep-
licable, but ﬂ exible enough to embrace the rich diversity of all that multi-
modality encompasses.
This is no mean feat, and a deﬁ nitive, established system of multimodal
transcription is far from complete in the way that systems for representing
single modes have developed (say, for language, prosody, music). In part,
this may lie with the recent emergence of multimodality as a ﬁ eld of inter-
est, but the expansive and potentially inﬁ nite combinations of modes that
might be considered make a single framework of transcription less than
desirable. In the present collection of chapters, the contributors use a range
of techniques for describing the range of semiotic storytelling resources
including description, tabulation, and diagrams. Their focus and the level

Introduction 9
of delicacy involved in the transcription also varies, so that some contribu-
tors are interested in micro-level interplay between individual words and
gestures (Herman) and/or images (Montoro) or spaces (Hatton et al.) whilst
others are more concerned with discourse-level issues.
All attempts at transcription should be understood as heuristic and pres-
ent challenges to the unfolding project of multimodality. Whilst multimo-
dality relocates language as only one of many semiotic resources at work in
making meaning, verbal preeminence still largely characterizes transcrip-
tion practices. For the most part, it is nonverbal resources (image, sound,
movement, gesture) that are rendered in written verbal description rather
than the other way round (that is, words are not so often “translated” into
image or color). While transcription is multimodal (using words in combi-
nation with layout, font, graphics, and embedding image and links to mul-
timedia) it would seem that academic discourse has some way yet to go in
exploiting the multimodal potential of communication. As such, there are
inevitable losses entailed by “telling” nonverbal resources in words rather
than “showing” them directly. The translation of one mode into another
reveals the interpretive nature of transcription, for example, found in the
selection of elements from the semiotic context, how nonverbal resources
are to be represented, how the transcription itself might be laid out.
ABOUT THIS VOLUME
The complexity of transcription choices is further complicated by the diverse
range of multimodal narrative analysis. The chapters in this collection reﬂ ect
just a small part of the variety available, including analysis of print, digital,
and audiovisual texts (literature, comics, ﬁ lm, computer games, hyperﬁ ction)
alongside oral stories and staged productions such as opera. The focus on
a particular semiotic component of each narrative also varies considerably.
Some contributors focus more on the multimodal nature of the text (Gibbons,
Nørgaard, Toolan), while others focus more on matters related to production
(Thomas, Herman) or reception (Michael and Linda Hutcheon, Ensslin). Of
course, narrative interaction cannot separate out the issues of production and
reception, as these and other chapters in the volume demonstrate.
In keeping with the integrative spirit of multimodal theory, the chapters
are not categorized according to an isolated focus on a particular mode.
Instead, a range of sensory, textual, and environmental resources are con-
sidered for their semiotic potential. The analysis ranges across and between
visual elements (in Doloughan’s discussion of art history, Herman’s analy-
sis of comics, Gibbons’s chapter on contemporary graphic novels); sound,
whether that be in opera (Michael and Linda Hutcheon’s chapter) or used
in Interactive Narrative (Hatton et al.); textual resources such as typogra-
phy (discussed in relation to print texts by Nørgaard and hypertext ﬁ ction
by Laccetti); gesture (discussed in relation to ﬁ lm by Montoro and oral

10 Ruth Page
storytelling by Herman) and haptic resources, whether that be control of a
computer’s mouse (Laccetti) or a printed page (Gibbons).
A lt houg h each of t he chapters may be read i n isolation , t hey a re sequenced
so that the opening three (Doloughan, Montoro, Salway) contain discus-
sion of audiovisual resources. The chapters by Herman on oral stories and
Michael and Linda Hutcheon on opera move to texts that are performed in
particular contexts. Herman’s discussion of comics alongside Gibbons’s and
Nørgaard’s analyses of contemporary graphic novels provide perspectives
on the multimodality of print texts. The remaining six chapters all examine
multimodality in new media narratives of various kinds. Toolan, Ensslin,
and Laccetti discuss examples of hyperﬁ ction, although their stances to
this are very different. Thomas compares fanﬁ ction with the multimodality
of the TV series Lost . Hatton and her colleagues describe their construc-
tion of Interactive Narrative soundscapes whilst Dena introduces an evolv-
ing genre of narratives that cross boundaries between video game, online
format, and off-line merchandise.
Amongst the variety of subject matter, certain common threads reoc-
cur in the discussion of multimodal narratives found in the chapters in
this volume. These might be framed within the overarching sense that
storytelling is an experiential process. The exact nature of the particu-
lar relationship between the narrative participants (the teller, audience)
and the story itself will vary considerably according to the context and
the nature of the story being told. However, multimodal theory draws
attention to matters of production, not least of the human body. Michael
Toolan’s chapter argues that in the case of narrative, some modes appear
to be more easily reproduced by human speech than others. The cor-
poreality of narrative interaction is discussed in other chapters too,
especially in relation to the use of physical space. Hatton and her col-
leagues describe how movement through an artiﬁ cially conﬁ gured space
could more or less easily be used to create story-like scenarios. Linda
and Michael Hutcheon examine three contrasting uses of stage space to
reinterpret the multimodal resources of Wagnerian opera. Dena’s discus-
sion of polymorphic ﬁ ctions illustrates the ways in which physical space
can contribute to the ways in which narrative elements are interpreted.
Lastly, Herman’s study of gesture theorizes the relationship between
place, space and storyworlds.
Human bodies do not just experience stories in space, they also interact
with the materiality of narrative texts. The physical work done when inter-
acting with printed pages, digital screens, or computer technology comes
to the fore in a number of chapters. Both Nørgaard and Gibbons provide
examples of particular instances where the haptic play with print pages
can be used to create additional meaning in contemporary novels. But the
inﬂ uence of haptic modality is perhaps felt most strongly in the context
of new media narratives, where the reader must physically manipulate an

Introduction 11
element of digital apparatus (a mouse, keyboard, headset) in order to make
sense of the story being told. The inﬂ uence on the reader’s response can be
highly varied. Toolan recognizes the now well-documented problems that
emerge when the digital interface prohibits the reader’s immersion in the
text. In contrast, Ensslin uses the physio-cybertext of Pullinger and col-
leagues’ Breathing Wall to reconﬁ gure concepts of intentionality in reader
response. Yet a further perspective is provided by Laccetti’s reading of the
haptic demands of Ankerson and Sapner’s Cruising, where the navigation
of the multimodal hyperﬁ ction is interpreted from a feminist perspec-
tive. The process-oriented nature of multimodal theory is not limited to
the physicality of text, teller, or audience but is usefully complemented by
cognitive approaches. In this collection, Gibbons draws on ﬁ ndings from
neurolinguistics in her discussion of multimodal processing. Montoro and
Nørgaard also use multimodal theory in combination with conceptual met-
aphor to augment our understanding of particular narrative texts.
CODA / PRELUDE
Taken together, the chapters in this volume are but the starting point to
a program that brings mutual beneﬁ t to both multimodal and narrative
studies. Multimodality gains from a close study of the potential of the nar-
rative as an inﬂ uential mode of discourse that crosses cultures and media.
The perceived monomodality of existing narrative theory, and speciﬁ cally
the dominance of verbal resources, is challenged profoundly by multimo-
dality’s persistent investigation of the multiple semiotic tracks at work in
storytelling. This leads to a critical rethinking of narrative deﬁ nitions and
concepts, source data and analytical tools, so reenergizes the ﬁ eld. As such,
the central aims that underpin the project of multimodal narrative analysis
can be summarized as the desire to:
1. Explore the enabling and constraining properties of different combi-
nations of modes in narrative production or reception.
2. Ask how the relationship between narrative and multimodality is
inﬂ uenced by particular contexts.
3. Critique existing deﬁ nitions of narrative and construct alternatives
that take account of the multimodal nature of communication.
4. Expand the transmedial study of narrative to investigate the relation-
ship between medium and mode.
These aims are realized in various ways and in different measure in the
chapters that follow. However, the aims are by no means exhausted by the
studies represented here, nor can they cover in full the range of what mul-
timodal narrative analysis might come to embrace. At heart, multimodal

12 Ruth Page
narrative analysis is not just a pluralistic enterprise, but one that seeks to
open up dialogue between scholars working in different areas of study.
That dialogue can only be represented in part by the chapters in this vol-
ume. It seems ﬁ tting then, that the ﬁ nal contribution to the collection is
framed not as analysis or discussion but rather as a series of questions that
might stimulate further work that brings together scholarship not just from
narratologists and those working in multimodality but from the wider aca-
demic community too. It is my hope that both the chapters and the closing
list of questions in this volume will invite inquiry into narrative in all its
multimodal richness for many years to come.
REFERENCES:
Aldama, Frederick. 2003. Postethnic Narrative Criticism: Magicorealism in Ana
Castillo, Hanif Kureishi, Julie Dash, Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, and Salman Rush-
die. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Baldry, Anthony, and Paul Thibault. 2006. Multimodal Transcription and Text
Analysis: A Multimedia Toolkit and Coursebook. London: Equinox.
Blum-Kulka, S. 1993. “‘You Gotta Know How to Tell a Story’: Telling, Tales and
Tellers in American and Israeli Narrative Events at Dinner.” Language in Soci-
ety 22 (3): 361–402.
Bolter, Jay, and Richard Grusin. 1999. Remediation: Understanding New Media.
Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Chatman, Seymour. 1990. “What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratol-
ogy?” Poetics Today 11 (2): 309–28.
Currie, M. 1998. Postmodern Narrative Theory. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Georgakopoulou, A. 1997. Narrative Performances: A Study of Modern Greek
Storytelling. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Greimas, A. J. 1983. Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method . Trans.
Daniele McDowell, Ronald Schleifer, and Alan Velie. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Herman, D. 1997. “Scripts, Sequences and Stories. Elements of a Postclassical Nar-
ratology.” PMLA 112 (5): 1046–59.

. 2002. Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press.
. 2003. “Introduction.” In Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, ed.
David Herman, 1–32. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
. 2007. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed.
David Herman, 3–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kress, Gunther. 2000. “Multimodality.” In Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and
the Design of Social Futures, ed. B. Cope and M. Kalantzis, 182–202. London
and New York: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2001. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes
and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Hodder Arnold.
Labov, William, and J. Waletzky. 1967. “Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Per-
sonal Experience.” In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts: Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, ed. J.
Helm, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Introduction 13
Lambrou, Marina. 2005. “Story Patterns in Oral Narratives: A Variationist Cri-
tique of Labov and Waletzky’s Model of Narrative Schema.” PhD diss., Middle-
sex University.
Lanser, Susan. 1986. “Toward a Feminist Narratology.” Style 20 (3): 341–63.
Longacre, Robert. 1983. The Grammar of Discourse. New York and London: Ple-
num.
Malinowski, B. 1935. Coral Gardens and their Magic. London: Allen and Unwin.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2004. “Introduction.” In Narrative Across Media: The Lan-
guages of Storytelling, ed. Marie-Laure Ryan, 1–40. London and Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press.
Toolan, Michael. 2008. Narrative Progression in the Short Story: A Corpus Stylis-
tic Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

2 Multimodal Storytelling
Performance and Inscription in the
Narration of Art History
Fiona J. Doloughan
INTRODUCTION
According to Mitchell (1994), the linguistic turn has been followed by the
pictorial turn. Pointing to the prevalence of and concern with contempo-
rary visual culture, Mitchell nevertheless sees evidence of what he calls
“the general anxiety of linguistic philosophy about visual representation”
(1994, 12), by which he appears to be calling attention to the seeming para-
dox of ﬁ nding a language to talk about our experience of the visual that
does it justice and does not subordinate the pictorial to the linguistic. In his
view what is required is a “broad, interdisciplinary critique . . . one that
takes into account parallel efforts such as the long struggle of ﬁ lm studies
to come up with an adequate mediation of linguistic and imagistic models
for cinema and to situate the ﬁ lm medium in the larger context of visual
culture” (15). Art history, he believes, could well play a central role here, if
it rises to the challenge of offering “an account of its principal theoretical
object—visual representation—that will be usable by other disciplines in
the human sciences” (15).
Mitchell is acknowledging here the speciﬁ city of particular modes of rep-
resentation while at the same time inviting interdisciplinary inquiries into
how visual representation functions in contemporary Western society. His
challenge to articulate that understanding in a manner consistent with the
“complex interplay between visuality, apparatus, institutions, discourse,
bodies, and ﬁ gurality” (16) has its parallel in efforts to get to grips with the
dynamic interplay of modes and media as they are employed by producers
and consumers of multimodal texts today. As a theorist and proponent of
multimodality, Kress (2003) has pointed to consistent changes in the con-
temporary communicational landscape: “on the one hand, the broad move
from the now centuries-long dominance of writing to the dominance of the
image and, on the other hand, the move from the dominance of the medium
of the book to the dominance of the medium of the screen” (1).
To put it simply, recognition of the changing communicational land-
scape has led to attempts to identify the meaning-making potentials and
limitations of the various modes and media available to human agents and

Multimodal Storytelling 15
to render a more or less systematic account of how these resources are used
or can be used in speciﬁ c communicational and expressive contexts (Kress
and van Leeuwen 1996, 2001; Levine and Scollon 2004; O’Halloran 2004;
Royce and Bowcher 2007; Machin 2007). The very volume of work pro-
duced on multimodality in recent years is evidence of interest in the dynam-
ics of communication and the extent to which our engagement in the world
is effected by nonverbal means (e.g., gesture, gaze, positionality). Systems
of transcription and analysis, too, have responded to the demands of mul-
timodal communication by trying to capture the multidimensional nature
of text in layout and presentation (see, for example, Baldry 2004 and Lim
2007) in an effort to better represent the ways in which we make meanings
simultaneously on the basis of sometimes competing, sometimes comple-
mentary signals.
This chapter will attempt to bring together insights from narrative and
multimodality in order to look at the ways in which story is told multimod-
ally in the case of part of an episode of the television series on the power
of art narrated by Simon Schama. The episode in question relates the story
of the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) and his transformation
from court painter to Revolutionary propagandist. It will, however, do this
against the backdrop of Mitchell’s (1994) concern that “visual experience”
or “visual literacy” might not be fully explicable on the model of textual-
ity (16). For, as O’Toole (1994) points out, art history as a discipline has
its own preferred modes of storytelling and sets of discourses that tend to
privilege context, genealogy, and information about the material and bio-
graphical conditions under which the work was produced (cf. chap.5, 169–
82). To a certain extent, such a tendency is evident in Schama’s story of art.
However, in focusing on a particular painting and trying to “explain” its
power, Schama is of necessity engaging with the speciﬁ cs of an individual
work and evaluating it in the light both of the other works produced by the
artist and in relation to ideas about art, its contemporary relevance, and its
power to move and speak to its viewers.
For O’Toole (1994), the language and systematic mode of analysis
offered by semiotics allows the viewer to enter an ongoing conversation
about art that is not constrained by the voice of authority or regulated by
what he sees as the taken-for-granted discourses of art history. He encour-
ages engagement with the work itself (169) and a focus on the “experience
of the painting as we stand before it or study a reproduction of it” (171).
While this challenge is a useful reminder that viewing is an active process
demanding our input, what it fails to acknowledge is that viewing itself is
a highly mediated and situated cultural practice that, like other cultural
practices, depends on knowledge and an understanding of craft. Like writ-
ing, painting, and more speciﬁ cally in this case, an ability to “read” paint-
ings, it is a kind of cultural technology acquired over time. The existence
of individual paintings, while seemingly autonomous, may depend not only
on the prior works of the artist in question but also on the “inﬂ uence” of

16 Fiona J. Doloughan
other past and contemporaneous works. This is not to mythologize art but
to recognize that decoding signs is not always a transparent process but one
that depends partly on cultural and disciplinary knowledge.
Even the representational level, i.e., what a painting is about, can be
problematic without some knowledge of context and/or convention. The
painting that is central to the Schama episode I shall discuss, The Death
of Marat (1793), is a case in point. Asked to describe what they saw in
the painting, students from a variety of cultural and national backgrounds
(Poland, Turkmenistan, Hungary, and England), none of whom had a back-
ground in art history, variously described the central character as a tur-
baned man, a man with a towel on his head, a man who has committed
suicide in his bath. This is not to belittle a nonspecialist view but simply
to point out that what we see and the words we choose to describe what
we see cannot be taken for granted. Other functions, such as modality
and composition (O’Toole 1994), can of course be discussed as separate
analytical categories but the experience of viewing, as opposed to analysis,
is an initially holistic act and one that depends as much on knowledge and
prior experience as on what is actually “there.” For as Mitchell (1994, 13)
puts it: “we still do not know exactly what pictures are, what their relation
to language is, how they operate on observers and on the world, how their
history is to be understood, and what is to be done with or about them.”
The point I wish to ﬂ ag up here for further consideration is the extent
to which storytelling is a product not only of available resources and their
interaction and apprehension by reader, listener, and/or viewer across modes
and media, but also of narrative conventions that cannot be assumed to
hold across periods and cultures. In this sense, I would argue, discourses of
art underpin the manner in which we “see” a painting; the verbal impinges
upon and interacts with our construction of the visual, which we never
approach without presuppositions or assumptions, even if these are not
made explicit. In other words, what Lim (2007) calls the context plane
intersects with and may not be totally separable from the content plane.
Such a view of the interdependency of context and text, textual marks,
cues, and mental models owes much to recent developments in narrative
from a discourse comprehension perspective. Herman’s (2002) work on the
logic of stories has been instrumental in bringing together insights from
narratology and more recent work from linguistic and cognitive science
aimed at inquiring into the processes involved in complex meaning-mak-
ing. In other words, Herman’s work offers an attempt to bridge the gap
between text production and reception. Additionally, his reorientation of
narrative as not just a temporal but also a spatial mode lends plausibility
to the view that while the visual and the verbal cannot be conﬂ ated and
indeed may well have different affordances and constraints (Kress 2003,
1–6), storytelling involves the representation and construction of setting,
place, and trajectories both spatial and temporal, as well as actions, events,
states, processes, and goals. Conversely, the image, while it may initially be

Multimodal Storytelling 17
apprehended as a whole, can be viewed in relation to what O’Toole (1994,
10) calls different episodes, a term that implies not only a spatial but also,
potentially, a temporal dimension.
MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION:
“PERFORMANCE” AND “INSCRIPTION”
Taking Kitchener’s famous recruitment poster (1914) by way of example,
van Leeuwen (2004) points to the inadequacy of an analysis that assumes
that the message here is realized in two discrete acts: a speech act and what
he calls an “image act” (7). Rather he proposes seeing this communica-
tive act as multimodal wherein “image and text blend like instruments in
an orchestra” and where there is a “fusion of all the component semiotic
modalities” (7). He goes on to suggest that speech events be seen as “mul-
timodal microevents in which all the signs present combine to determine
its communicative intent” (8). Leaving to one side any problems relating
to the notion of communicative intent, the main point seems legitimate: in
considering only the transcript of a conversation or a stretch of written text
without reference to the whole context in which it took place or was pro-
duced (e.g., service encounters in contemporary supermarkets), the linguist
is factoring out dimensions of the communicative situation that impinge
upon the meanings being made. Thus van Leeuwen concludes:
Genres of speech and writing are in fact multimodal: speech genres com-
bine language and action in an integrated whole, while written genres
combine language, image and graphics in an integrated whole. Speech
genres should therefore be renamed “performed” genres and written
genres “inscribed” genres. Various combinations of performance and
inscription are of course possible. (2004, 8; italics in original)
Van Leeuwen’s notion of “performance” and “inscription” is produc-
tive in a number of ways. “Performance” brings to the fore the potential
kinetic and gestural dimensions of speech, whether naturally occurring or
scripted, as it is actualized in particular contexts. It also permits the pos-
sibility of “staging” speech in both a literal and a metaphoric sense and
draws attention to the performative aspects of language. The notion of
inscription points to the visual and graphic potentials of written language
and recognizes the semiotic value of choice of layout, font, typeset, etc., in
meaning-making. It accords a spatial dimension to text, including narrative
text. Indeed, van Leeuwen goes on to suggest that “[m]ultimodal analysis
must work with concepts and methods that are not speciﬁ c to language, or
indeed to any other mode, but can be applied cross-modally” (2004, 15).
His emphasis on the importance of visual communication is in the con-
text of what he sees as an overprivileging of language by linguists; by the

18 Fiona J. Doloughan
same token, he insists on the usefulness of linguistic analysis for students of
visual communication (18).
Many of the concepts developed in the study of grammar and text are
not speciﬁ c to language. In some cases, for instance narrative, this
has been known for a long time; in others (e.g. transitivity, modality,
cohesion) it is only just starting to be realized. (van Leeuwen 2004, 16;
italics in original)
This quotation returns us, in a sense, to narrative and to the recognition
of its inherent spatial qualities. As Herman (2002) puts it: “narrative can
also be thought of as systems of verbal or visual cues prompting their read-
ers to spatialize storyworlds into evolving conﬁ gurations of participants,
objects, and places” (263). However, it is important to draw out some dis-
tinctions here in relation to the differing contexts and purposes of the dis-
cussion. Van Leeuwen’s aim in this article appears to be a call to linguists
to take more seriously the visual components of communication and to
offer a rethinking of conventionalized boundaries between language and
communication. Herman’s (2002) book-length study, Story Logic , aims to
revalorize narrative “as a discourse genre and a cognitive style, as well as
a resource for literary writing” (1). At the same time, Herman wishes to
reassess “the relations between narrative theory and . . . linguistics and
cognitive science” (2), viewing both language theory and narrative theory
“as resources for—or modular components of—cognitive science” (5).
Regardless of differences in aims and focus, insofar as narrative theory
is interested in exploring the effects of different media on narrativity (Ryan
2003) as well as in revising deﬁ nitions of narrative to include recognition of
the importance of spatial relationships and the notion of paths in narrative
domains (Herman 2002), rather than just a series of temporally organized
(and causally motivated) events, the interests of narratologists and social semi-
oticians in relation to the interaction of modes and the production and compre-
hension of multimodal texts are converging. Ryan’s (2003) work on “Deﬁ ning
Narrative Media” provides a bridge in the sense that she produces a typology
of narrative media based on the premise that a medium is “narratively rel-
evant if it makes an impact” on at least one of three domains: that of plot, or
story; that of discourse, or narrative techniques: and that of narrative as per-
formance or narrative pragmatics (3–4). By narrative pragmatics, she means
to refer to the “uses of storytelling and the mode of participation of human
agents (authors, actors, readers) in the narrative event” (4). It will be useful
to bear in mind this reference to uses of storytelling and mode of participa-
tion alongside van Leeuwen’s (2004) notions of performance and inscription
in the discussion of Schama’s use of intersecting and complementary narra-
tives in Power of Art . Arguably, Herman’s (2002) notion of “autonomous
but interconnected modules of narrative structure—perceptual, emotive, and
thematic/conceptual” (277) will also be of relevance here.

Multimodal Storytelling 19
OVERVIEW
The program on which I shall focus is one of a series of eight presented by
Simon Schama in October and November 2006 on BBC2 on artists from
the sixteenth to the twentieth century. According to the introduction to the
series presented on the BBC Web site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powero-
fart/intro.shtml) and written by Simon Schama, the series aims to look at
“how some of the most transforming works got made by human hands.”
The series, Schama continues, “drops you . . . into those difﬁ cult places and
unforgiving dramas when artists managed, against the odds, to astound.”
Each program, by and large, seems to follow the same format: an artist’s
work is presented against the backdrop of the historical and social context
in which it was produced. However, as the previous references to “difﬁ cult
places” and “unforgiving dramas” suggest, there is also the story of indi-
vidual protagonists struggling to achieve “[a]rt that aims high . . . against
the odds.” And the power of art about which Schama is talking is “the
power [of the greatest art] to shake us into revelation and rip us from our
default mode of seeing” (my italics). This is art that “seems to have rewired
our senses,” leaving us with a different view of the world.
Such a view positions art and indeed the individuals who produce it
in particular ways: as something that comes out of an encounter with
“moments of commotion” and that is the result of a “craft of exhilarat-
ing trouble.” At one level the discourse reinforces popular notions of the
troubled artist whose life is in some sense valorized by the production of a
“masterpiece” towards which he is tending and that outlives him—interest-
ingly, all the artists in the series are men. Yet, in the programs more weight
is given to the historical and social context out of which the artists emerged
as well as to their family and personal situations and aspirations.
Episode four relates the story of Jacques-Louis David and his trajec-
tory from court painter to Revolutionary painter, a story set against the
backdrop of a depiction of events leading up to the French Revolution and
its aftermath. As the creator of images for the new France and a propagan-
dist for the architects of the Revolution, it fell to David to avenge Marat’s
death by painting him in such a way that he would not be forgotten. Later,
however, David’s close identiﬁ cation with the Terror and his reputation as
a “Tyrant of the Arts” led to his downfall and with the restoration of the
monarchy, he was forced to ﬂ ee France.
The story begins at the end with the death in 1845 of David who had
latterly been living in exile in Belgium. It then switches to an earlier period,
depicting by means of historical reconstruction Versailles in 1783 with
its pretensions to modernity signaled by the presence of hot air balloons.
Embedded within the unfolding and contextualizing historical narrative is
the personal or biographical narrative of David, which attempts through a
focus on salient and colorful details, such as his disﬁ gurement following a
sword ﬁ ght, to understand what made him the kind of artist he became.

20 Fiona J. Doloughan
David’s development as an artist is set against signiﬁ cant historical events
deemed to have inﬂ uenced or motivated him in some way.
The embedded narratives create a spatial dimension to the verbal text,
encouraging the viewer/listener to make connections between the differ-
ent lines of narrative. Alongside the scripted narrative, we view a series
of images in time, images that have been assembled and edited in such a
way that they impact upon the meanings we as viewers and listeners are
enabled to make. While the language of ﬁ lm is useful here in terms of help-
ing to identify the techniques used to produce meanings—wide-angle shots;
close-ups; and zooming in on particular images, as is the case with the
“forbidden” painting—what we are ultimately required to do as analysts
is to “translate” the viewing experience into (more or less technical) words
that articulate our understandings of both the what and the how , that is,
what it is we have seen/heard/understood and how those meanings have
been made.
While analytically we can separate out the visual mode from the verbal
mode as well as from the acoustic, in actual fact the meanings being con-
structed are the result of an interaction between and among the various
modes, modes whose presentation and articulation are realized through
a transmissive and spatiotemporal medium—television in the case of the
BBC2 series—with multiple channels. At the same time, the structure and
content of the program is mediated not just by the technologies available
for its production and transmission but also by the social and cultural con-
ventions governing its narrative construction and interpretation at a given
historical moment.
In addition, each individual program is the result of a process of pro-
duction involving a team of technicians, cameramen, editors, and produc-
ers who collaborate to produce the ﬁ nal product for the particular target
audience. Schama’s animation of the programs in addition to his role as
scriptwriter and, to an extent, designer of text, even though he may not
have realized every aspect of the design himself—this is, after all, Simon
Schama’s Power of Art—suggests a high degree of control if not of the
entire cultural and technologically mediated product, then certainly of the
discourse and narrative strategies used in its presentation.
MULTIMODAL TRANSCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
In an attempt to respect the dynamic quality of the interaction between
the various lines of narrative unfolding and intersecting in the prologue,
I have brought together the language of ﬁ lm, particularly that which
relates to storyboarding (see Readman 2003), with a more “descriptive”
but, in my view, necessarily interpretive, analysis of the sights and sounds
presented to the viewer in this segment. In this connection, there are a
number of related methodological and epistemological points that require

Multimodal Storytelling 21
some preliminary comment. One important point is captured by Mitchell’s
(1994) reference to “the resistance of the icon to the logos” (28), by which
he means that pictures cannot simply be translated into words without
potential loss of meaning. As he goes on to say, the “otherness or alterity
of image and text is not just a matter of analogous structure, as if images
just happened to be the ‘other’ to texts” (28). Thus when what one sees
is realized in words, the assumption of analogous transfer seems at best
problematic and at worst untenable.
A related point is a concern with categorization and the presumption of
a distinct separation between description and interpretation. For the very
act of separating what is experienced dynamically and holistically into dis-
crete, if interrelated, component parts involves a degree of reiﬁ cation and
stasis of what is otherwise in process. While measurements can be made
of duration of shot type and sound or dialogue, such measurements do not
in and of themselves tell the listener or viewer anything signiﬁ cant in the
absence of other kinds of information and insights of a more qualitative,
contextual, and interpretive nature. Clearly, conventions play a role here.
For example, a close-up of an image serves to highlight it and to focus our
attention on its details, parts, or attributes rather than, say, inscribing it in
a wider context. Sequencing of images is also crucial in making sense of a
narrative so that our understanding of it is a product of an editing process
as well as of the particular viewer’s ability to “pick up” and activate the
production cues.
COMMENTARY
While the table has attempted to simultaneously display a range of modali-
ties, there are a number of features of the scripted and the visual narra-
tives that bear comment both separately and in respect of their interaction.
Beginning with the voice-over that frames and provides a commentary on
the sequence of shots with which the viewer is presented, we note the highly
stylized and scripted nature of the narrative. This is a script designed to
hook the viewer/listener through effective use of narrative strategies. It is a
staged performance in which the animator and author of the scripted text is
conscious of cueing in the viewer/listener by means of design and delivery.
The story begins at the end with the funeral of the protagonist,
Jacques-Louis David, the script carefully crafted to elicit a series of
questions on the part of the viewer/listener, questions that will then
be addressed in the course of the program, which will take us back to
David’s beginnings, his apprenticeship, his rise to fame, and subsequent
fall from grace. From the perspective of emplotment, that is, the manner
in which the events of the story are sequenced and articulated so as to
suggest, if not explicitly provide, a rationale or motivation for them, this
is the classic stuff of narrative.

22 Fiona J. Doloughan
Table 2.1 Multimodal Transcription and Analysis
Shot
#
Type of
shot
and
duration
Image
description
Sound/
dialogue
Duration
of
sound/
dialogue
Features of
sound/
dialogue
Annotations
and remarks
on function
1CU
(6 secs.)
Close-up of statue (screen right)
with arm outstretched on top of
a building (town hall?) silhou-
etted against the sky
Music in background. First
woodwind instruments,
5 secs. Music in
minor key
Evocation through both colour/
lighting—blacks and dark
blues—and music of mournful
and lugubrious setting/set of
circumstances
2MS
(6 secs.)
Statue, still in silhouette, (screen
left) from further away reveal-
ing more details of surrounding
building
then brass3 secs. Music in
minor key
As above
3LS
(6 secs).
Statue still visible in background
but Flemish building on which it
sits occupies the foreground
S.1 A funeral cortège clatters its
way through the cobbled streets
of Brussels.
4 secs. Stress on
‘clatters’ and
‘cobbled
Movement from part to whole
4CU
(4 secs.)
Inside a lined cofﬁ n, close up of
black boots with silver buckles.
S.2 Inside the carriage is the
body of the most powerful
French painter there had ever
been—
4 secs. Stress on
‘most’ and
‘ever’
5MS
(7 secs.)
Cut to head and upper body of
man lying in repose in lined
cofﬁ n
(pause of 3 secs.) Jacques-Louis
David.
Music resumes
1 sec. Importance
of pause
before
articulation
of name
Creation of dramatic effect

Multimodal Storytelling 23
6Wipe Painting or part of a painting
comes into view. Three ﬁ gures,
all in Roman dress, on the right-
hand side, one on the left-hand
side clutching three swords
S.3 Following the carriage is a
solemn procession of art students
5 secs. Stress on ‘car-
riage’, ‘art’
Sense of movement and transi-
tion created by wipe and chang-
ing quality of light. Paintings
and/or episodes from paintings
stand for or take the place of
participants in the procession.
7Wipe A battle scene comes into view:
woman in centre of painting, in
the midst of a throng, a soldier
with a shield on her left
holding up placards with the
names of his paintings
5 secs. Pause after
‘paintings’
Rebellious quality of art?
8Wipe Battle scene replaced by third
image/episode – three distressed
women in a domestic setting,
clinging to and consoling one
another, looking off into the dis-
tance at some imminent danger
all but one which just happened
to be the greatest of them all
4 secs.Stress on
‘one’; ‘great-
est’
Message about the dire conse-
quences of war and conﬂ ict.
Pre-ﬁ guring of ‘terror’ caused
by painting?
9MS Another picture gradually comes
into view, as if emerging from
the mists of time. A man with a
beatiﬁ c countenance lies slumped
in his bath, a letter in his hand.
On the crate stand a quill, an ink-
stand and a piece of paper. The
man seems to have been inter-
rupted at the moment of death.
There is a blood stain on a white
sheet hanging over the bath and
the man’s head is shrouded in a
turban-like piece of cloth.
S.4 It was a picture which hadn’t
seen the light of day for 30 years.
No one, least of all the man who
painted it, dared show it.
Music resumes (6 secs.)
8 secs.Stress on ‘pic-
ture’, ‘day’
and ‘years’;
‘least’, ‘man’
and ‘dared’
Delayed view of prohibited
painting creating space of desire
and mimicking process of
sense-making of emergent visual
elements?
continued on next page

24 Fiona J. Doloughan
Table 2.1 continued Multimodal Transcription and Analysis
10Tilt up
to CU
of face
S.6 No wonder.
S.7 It was the most spell-binding
thing he had ever made (pause
of 4 secs.), a painting before
which people had once swooned,
a painting both beautiful and
repulsive
1 sec.
2 secs
Signiﬁ cance
of pause
Stress on
‘spell-bind-
ing’, ‘ever’
‘swooned’;
highlighting
of adjectives
‘beautiful’
and ‘repul-
sive’
Dramatic effect realized by
close-up of almost angelic
countenance of protagonist.
Picture as carrier of attributes
11Slow
zoom
into
paint-
ing
Camera gradually zooms into
painting seen ﬁ rst at a distance
in a gallery
S.8 But the picture was also a
guilty secret … the real reason
why David’s body was refused
burial in France.
S.9 So what was it about this
painting which made it both his
unforgettable masterpiece and
his unforgivable crime?
6 secs.
12 secs.
Emphasis on
‘picture’,
‘guilty’
‘secret’,
‘real’;
‘refused’;
‘was’, ‘unfor-
gettable’ and
‘unforgiv-
able’
Question used to provide context
for entering main narrative to
follow—focus on motivation.
Why this reaction to a painting?
12
Cut
Computer-generated graphics
of ﬂ owers and parts of ﬂ owers appear on screen in a kind of choreographed dance.
20 secs.
Conventional transition into
body of program. Petals and ﬂ owers associated with drops of blood via red colour symbolizing potential danger and revolutionary zeal of art?
Code: CU = Close-up; MS = Medium shot; LS = Long shot; Wipe = “A transition between two shots whereby the second gradually appears by pushing or ‘wiping’ off the ﬁ rst” (Readman,
2003: 73).; Tilt = “A camera movement along a vertical axis, with the camera body swivelling up or down on a stationary tripod” (Readman, 2003: 73).

Multimodal Storytelling 25
Speciﬁ cally, the scripted prologue functions to create a sense of mys-
tery around the funeral in Brussels of this most powerful of French
painters. The viewer/listener is invited to wonder why the funeral took
place outside France and why David’s most important painting should
be missing from the list on the placards of the art students following the
procession. The language used, in combination with the images, aims
to reconstruct the scene and to trigger in the viewer/listener a sense of
drama. The method of development of the scripted narrative serves to
underscore this sense of unfolding drama in a number of ways, which are
elaborated in what follows. Similarly, the choice of music in a minor key,
as it crescendoes and diminuendoes in line with the pauses in the scripted
narrative, helps to underscore the lugubriousness of the occasion. The
camera shots and the lighting too have a role to play in orchestrating the
creation of a particular mood and viewpoint. For example, the withhold-
ing and then gradual bringing into focus of the “proscribed” painting
serve to create suspense and to “ready” the viewer to take in the painting
that had created such a stir.
The funeral scene is narrated as if it were happening now—“A funeral
cortège clatters its way through the cobbled streets of Brussels.” The his-
toric present (e.g., “clatters”) is a feature of Schama’s mode of narration, as
is his preference for what might be termed the language of literary realism,
by which I mean to refer to the creation of a reality effect (cf. Barthes’s
l’effet de réel) through both description and accumulation of detail. In
addition, the use of marked word order and syntax serves to thematize the
circumstances and location of the drama (e.g., “inside the carriage”; “fol-
lowing the procession”) and to postpone or delay introduction of the main
actor—Jacques-Louis David. In the prologue, it is the paintings and their
attributes, particularly those of the “proscribed” painting (“both beautiful
and repulsive”; “the most spellbinding thing he had ever made”) that con-
stitute the real object of study. There appears to be a progressive staging in
the prologue whereby desire is created in the viewer to see the painting that
caused such a furore and that, for Schama, triggers such a contradictory
set of emotions. This staging is marked by pauses in the scripted narrative
designed for dramatic effect and by the emphasis given to particular words
through stress. The peculiar power of this particular work is re-created
through its alignment with “uniqueness,” “greatness,” and the intensity of
the emotions it inspires.
This is, after all, a history of art and an exploration of the power of
art, its allure and its dangers. Through the use of marked themes; the role
of adjectives and superlative expressions in pointing to the qualities and
attributes of things, which also serves to evaluate and classify them; the
conscious use of a stylized, literary language, including alliteration and
onomatopoeia (“cortège clatters . . . cobbled streets of Brussels”), and par-
allel structures (e.g., “his unforgettable masterpiece and his unforgivable
crime”) a message is conveyed about art and its effects, a message that is

26 Fiona J. Doloughan
delivered via the narrative vehicle. In other words, the (self-)consciously
crafted scripted narrative is designed, in conjunction with the sequence of
shots, to draw the reader into the story of a protagonist—Jacques-Louis
David—whose fortunes have risen and waned in his home country, and
the art that he produced and on which his reputation depended. It is a
story told through multiple modes: scripted narrative, images, both static
and moving, and music. It is in the interaction of these modes realized
through the medium of television broadcasting or DVD that the Gesamt-
kunstwerk is experienced.
For someone trained in literary and/or linguistic modes of analysis, it is
possible to analyze the way/s in which particular verbal effects are achieved
with a degree of conﬁ dence. However, when “translating” the manner in
which visual effects are created, a process that necessarily takes place in
words, the gaps between visual and verbal “language” become apparent.
As my attempt to gloss the visual shows, questions arise that relate to a
number of factors, such as the extent to which background knowledge
(e.g., of history and of art history) is needed to inform the analysis and/or
description; the degree to which specialist or technical language is required
(e.g., the language of ﬁ lm; the language of art and design) to designate the
changing images on screen; and the extent to which interpretive schemata
come into play. For example, the shots that show details of the painting The
Death of Marat come at a moment in the scripted narrative when we need
to understand something of the aesthetic effects and power of the painting.
For why would people swoon before it and why was it both beautiful and
repulsive? The close-up of the arm of Marat draped over the bath alongside
the details of the bloodstained sheets is interesting in this regard, since
there is a grainy, ﬂ ecked texture (like marble) that serves to aestheticize the
body part and transform the corpse into an aesthetic object.
In other words, at some level the concept of beauty is both discursively
and pictorially constructed. While the script “tells” us about the peculiar
impact of the painting and situates it for us, the picture itself “shows” us
what that “beauty” consists of and how it looks. Yet, at another level we
know that the history of art is full of competing notions of the “beautiful,”
the “great,” the “powerful,” and that visual culture, like literary culture,
is a product of the politics of taste as well as of the exercise of judgments
founded on specialist knowledge. As nonspecialist viewers, we rely on the
“expert” opinions of Schama, our guide through the history of art. What-
ever access we have to the paintings of Jacques-Louis David is mediated
through the narrative commentary of Simon Schama the art historian and
through our experience of the program’s mode/s of production. Individual
viewers may well “see” and “appreciate” the painting differently depend-
ing on prior knowledge and experience and on level of interest as well as
personal preferences; however, that vision and appreciation will be shaped
by the program’s staging and presentation of the “storyline” as it is real-
ized through the interaction of the various modes on which it draws. At the

Multimodal Storytelling 27
same time, were we as viewers to describe what we have seen and experi-
enced through the pictorial mode in words, we would come up against the
difﬁ culty in “matching” words to images.
With respect speciﬁ cally to this particular David painting, elsewhere in
the program while giving his own evaluation of it, Schama says:
If there’s ever a picture that would make you want to die for a cause,
it is Jacques-Louis David’s Death of Marat. That’s what makes it so
dangerous—hidden away from view for so many years. . . . I’m not
sure how I feel about this painting, except deeply conﬂ icted. You can’t
doubt that it’s a solid gold masterpiece, but that’s to separate it from the
appalling moment of its creation, the French Revolution. This is Jean-
Paul Marat, the most paranoid of the Revolution’s fanatics, exhaling
his very last breath. He’s been assassinated in his bath. But for David,
Marat isn’t a monster, he’s a saint. This is martyrdom, David’s mani-
festo of revolutionary virtue.
Again, it is interesting to consider the language of description and eval-
uation used in this context. Marat has been “assassinated in his bath,” yet
as Schama recognizes, this is “a painting that would make you want to die
for a cause,” it’s “a manifesto of revolutionary virtue,” and in it Marat has
been painted not as a “monster” but as a “saint.” In pointing to the dif-
ference between the painting as product and art as a historical, social, and
political process, Schama is making clear his interest in the shaping role
of context in the production and appreciation of a work of art and of his
own “deeply conﬂ icted” feelings about the painting. While recognizing its
value as a well-executed artifact—he calls it a “solid gold masterpiece”—
and its ability to transform a fanatic into a saint, he feels uncomfortable
with the conditions motivating its production, during the Reign of Ter-
ror in France. So the initial evaluation of the painting as both beautiful
and repulsive, set up within the frame of a story yet to be told, as in the
prologue, is ﬂ eshed out here in relation to the historical and contextual
variables relating to its production and, for a time, proscription. The fate
of both artist and painting provides the motivation for Schama’s account
and sits well within the structure of the series as a whole where the focus
is on the production of a particular work within the artist’s oeuvre as a
whole, a work presented as in some senses the high point of that artist’s
production or his deﬁ ning work.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Power of Art is an example of a multimodal art historical presentation for
an educated and potentially discriminating but not necessarily specialist
audience (as evidenced by its transmission on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on a Friday

28 Fiona J. Doloughan
evening) transmitted through the medium of television but available in
other complementary formats (e.g., an accompanying book to the series,
a DVD, a BBC Web site dedicated to aspects of the series with hyperlinks).
With respect to the eight episodes of the television series, they can be seen
to have a broadly similar narrative structure, that is, one that projects a
story logic upon the unfolding narrative such that the artist-protagonist
whose work is both the product of and a departure from the prevailing
cultural and artistic norms of the society that produced him, emerges as a
kind of hero or antihero (cf. Schama’s evaluation of David as “a monster”
but also “a fantastic propagandist”).
But this is not just the story of individual artists struggling to over-
come the obstacles placed in their way on the road to genius or to com-
pensate for defects of character through their artistic production. It is
the story of art itself and of the power of art to affect the viewer with
“[v]isions of beauty or a rush of intense pleasure” or to produce “shock,
pain, desire, even revulsion.” The discourse about art is part of the story
of art, just as the unfolding story is narrated from a particular perspec-
tive. Schama’s choice of language in relation both to the description of
particular scenes and paintings, as well as his depiction of historical
events and individual actions in the light of their projected contexts and
possible causes and their apparent consequences, appears to be moti-
vated by a sense of drama and a need to make connections between the
various narrative levels and modes. Indeed, the inclusion of historical
reconstructions serves to emphasize this performative aspect. Structur-
ally, too, the embedding of a personal or biographical narrative within
an unfolding historical narrative dramatizes the relationship between
individual life story and the larger historical and social forces that act
upon it, shaping and transforming it.
Certainly, narratological tools and terminology can be seen to provide
a ﬁ rm basis for understanding how stories function and how storyworlds
are projected. Likewise, work done in the area of multimodality and mul-
timodal discourse analysis is helpful in providing insights into the affor-
dances and constraints of different modes and their possible effects in
interaction. However, it seems to me that in spite of the volume of recent
work in multimodal discourse analysis, much of which has signiﬁ cantly
advanced understanding of processes of meaning-making across modes
and media and served to develop specialized tools and technologies for
enhanced multimodal analysis, work remains to be done in recognizing
the discrepancies and potential incompatibilities of different meaning-
making systems.
Moreover, the materiality of the marks on the page and the images
on the screen while serving to cue particular interpretations of a text do
not guarantee them, given the mediating role of culture and context. In
this respect, the integrative multisemiotic model proposed by Lim (2007,
198) reﬂ ects a desire for systematicity and explanatory adequacy while

Multimodal Storytelling 29
seeking to “build in” recognition of the role of both context of situation
and context of culture. Similarly, my own attempts at producing a sys-
tem of transcription and analysis for a multimodal narrative text have
pointed to the problems of integrating, rather than representing, visual
and verbal modes of storytelling and have served to support Mitchell’s
(1994) contention that the text–image difference “does not rest in a mas-
ter-code” (30) but “between the speaking and the seeing Subject, the
ideologist and the iconoclast” (30). What he refers to as “the temptation
to science” (30; italics in original) may well be the search for ever-more
precise methods of analysis that try to “objectify” what is in actuality an
intersubjective interpretive process afforded and/or constrained, depend-
ing on your perspective, by culture, convention, and choice. Schama’s
Power of Art is as much a vehicle for narrative performance and inscrip-
tion as it is a product of art historical discourses and literary tropes,
realized in and by the affordances of his chosen medium—television—in
the era of the celebrity academic.
REFERENCES
Baldry, A. 2004. “Phase and Transition Type and Instance: Patterns in Media
Texts as Seen through a Multimodal Concordancer.” In Multimodal Discourse
Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives, ed. K. O’Halloran, 83–108. Lon-
don and New York: Continuum.
Herman, D. 2002. Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative . Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press.
Kress, G. 2003. Literacy in the New Media Age . London and New York: Rout-
ledge.
Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual
Design. London: Routledge.

. 2001. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary
Communication. London: Arnold.
Levine, P., and R. Scollon, eds. 2004. Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Dis-
course Analysis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Lim, V. 2007. “The Visual Semantics Stratum: Making Meaning in Sequen-
tial Images.” In New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse ,
ed. T. Royce and W. Bowcher, 195–213. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Machin, D. 2007. Introduction to Multimodal Analysis . London: Hodder
Arnold.
Mitchell, W. 1994. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representations.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
O’Halloran, K. 2004. Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Per-
spectives. London and New York: Continuum.
O’Toole, M. 1994. The Language of Displayed Art . London: Leicester University
Press.
Readman, M. 2003. Teaching Scriptwriting, Screenplays and Storyboards for Film
and TV Production. London: British Film Institute.
Royce, T., and W. Bowcher, eds. 2007. New Directions in the Analysis of Multi-
modal Discourse. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

30 Fiona J. Doloughan
Ryan, M.-L. 2003. “On Deﬁ ning Narrative Media.” Image and Narrative , Online
Magazine of the Visual Narrative, no. 6. http://www.imageandnarrative.be/
mediumtheory/marielaureryan.htm.
Schama, S. 2006. Power of Art. http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/.
van Leeuwen, T. 2004. “Ten Reasons Why Linguists Should Pay Attention to
Visual Communication.” In Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse
Analysis, ed. P. Levine and R. Scollon, 7–19. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.

3 A Multimodal Approach to
Mind Style
Semiotic Metaphor vs. Multimodal
Conceptual Metaphor
Rocío Montoro
INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores the multimodal realizations of mind style both in
novels and their ﬁ lmic adaptations. Mind style is generally understood as
the way in which the psychological and cognitive makeup of written ﬁ c-
tional narrative entities is projected. Here I aim to demonstrate that looking
at mind style indicators in a multimodal environment, as opposed to the
more traditional monomodal focus on novelistic forms, can result in fur-
ther insights into the nature of the concept itself.
Investigating mind style has also been commonly associated with those
narratives in which narrator and/or characters display certain unconven-
tional psychological traits. Naturally, any delimitation of what constitutes
psychological “unconventionality” is, by deﬁ nition, controversial; still
most analyses of mind style realizations coincide in their choice of psycho-
logically unconventional narrators and/or characters because of the mark-
edly salient linguistic features that these narrative elements display. The
multimodal focus of this chapter looks into how the salience of linguistic
mind style indicators is transposed by exploiting the semiotic resources that
typically characterize the ﬁ lmic mode. For the purposes of this chapter I am
restricting my understanding of “unconventionality” to the type of social
and psychological behavior that typiﬁ es the violent, cruel, and sadistic con-
duct of psychopaths and murderers, for which Bret Easton Ellis’s Ameri-
can Psycho (1991) and its 2000 ﬁ lmic adaptation by Mary Harron will be
studied. Speciﬁ cally, I examine how conceptual metaphors, semiotic meta-
phors, and multimodal conceptual metaphors are exploited in both modes
to create such a marked manifestation of an idiosyncratic mind style.
MIND STYLE
The term mind style was originally coined by Fowler in 1977 who, years
later, formulated it again as follows:

32 Rocío Montoro
I have called it mind-style: the world-view of an author, or a narrator,
or a character, constituted by the ideational structure of the text. From
now on I shall prefer this term to the cumbersome ‘point of view on the
ideological plane’ which I borrowed from Uspensky [ . . . ] I will illus-
trate ideational structuring involving three different types of linguis-
tic features: vocabulary, transitivity, and certain syntactic structures.
(Fowler [1986] 1996, 214)
This initial work has been subsequently reconsidered by many others (Black
1993; Bockting 1994; Leech and Short 1981; Margolin 2003; Semino
and Swindlehurst 1996; and Semino 2002, 2007) who have progressively
expanded on the linguistic signs that function as mind style indicators. So
where, for instance, Fowler concentrates on the discussion of vocabulary
(namely under- and overlexicalization), transitivity, and certain syntactic
structures, Bockting (1994) singles out what she calls “attributive style”
and Black (1993), Semino and Swindlehurst (1996), and Semino (2002,
2007) all highlight the signiﬁ cance of metaphorical patterns. Looking at
how these linguistic markers typically characterizing the language mode
can be translated in the ﬁ lmic mode into an array of different semiotic
resources underscores the existence of superordinate principles seemingly
determining the actual meaning-making potential of such resources. As
Kress and van Leeuwen point out:
We move away from the idea that the different modes in multimodal
texts have strictly bounded and framed specialist tasks [ . . . ] Instead
we move towards a view of multimodality in which common principles
operate in and across different modes. (2001, 2)
Such commonality of principles across different semiotic modes allowing
them to encode and project different meanings is of particular relevance in
the analysis of semiotic and multimodal conceptual metaphors as explained
in the following. But before considering how these shared principles come to
actually function, a further aspect of mind style regularly discussed by most
of the scholars in the ﬁ eld needs mentioning. These aforementioned research-
ers of mind style generally condition the creation of a particular mind style to
the recurrence of those markers that project it over the whole text. It would
follow, then, that the cumulative effect of repeating a particular linguistic
indicator is equally echoed in cinematic formats, albeit due to the presence
of semiotic resources different from the purely written. So Bockting’s assess-
ment of which recurrent indicators can encode meaning as “the whole ﬁ eld
of linguistics: phonology, morphology, lexis, syntax and pragmatics, as well
as various para- and non-verbal signs” (Bockting 1994, 160) would appear to
be much more thoroughly formulated in multimodal literature as follows:
Meaning is made in many different ways, always, in the many dif-
ferent modes and media which are co-present in a communicational

A Multimodal Approach to Mind Style 33
ensemble. This entails that a past (and still existent) common sense to
the effect that meaning resides in language alone—or, in other versions
of this, that language is the central means of representing and commu-
nicating even though there are ‘extra-linguistic’, ‘para-linguistic’ things
going on as well—is simply no longer tenable, that it never really was,
and certainly is not now. (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 111)
It seems, thus, that previous considerations of mind style have focused
their attention on the primacy of verbal markers in, mainly, monomodal
environments, despite their acknowledgment of the role that “para- and
non-verbal signs” (Bockting 1994, 160) can equally play. It is to this obvi-
ous gap in, and lack of attention to, the analysis of nonlinguistic mind style
projectors that I now turn.
METAPHORICAL PATTERNS: SEMIOTIC METAPHOR
AND MULTIMODAL CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR
The study of metaphors has long been used in textual approaches to lan-
guage for a variety of different purposes, mind style projection being just
one of them. Looking at the function and role of metaphors in a not purely
verbal environment (that is, not monomodally realized as textual resource)
has received nowhere as much attention. Two notable exceptions to the lack
of relative studies on the ﬁ eld are O’Halloran’s concept of semiotic meta-
phors (O’Halloran 1999a, 1999b, 2003, 2004, 2005) and Forceville’s work
on the multimodal manifestations of conceptual metaphors (1996, 2002a,
2002b, 2006, 2007), which, despite emerging from two distinct theoretical
positions, share an interest in the nonverbal manifestations of metaphors.
O’Halloran’s work is ﬁ rmly rooted in a systemic-functional tradition of
multimodal analysis whereby the meaning-encoding process is investigated
according to the meta-functions originally identiﬁ ed by Halliday (1985).
Following systemic-functional principles, then, semiotic metaphors are
deﬁ ned as follows:
In a manner similar to grammatical metaphor, semiotic metaphor may
involve a shift in the function and the grammatical class of an ele-
ment, or the introduction of new functional elements. However, this
process does not take place intra-semiotically as for grammatical meta-
phor in language, rather it takes place inter-semiotically when a func-
tional element is reconstructed using another semiotic code. With such
reconstrual, we see a semantic shift in the function of that element.
(O’Halloran 2003, 357)
Semiotic metaphors, consequently, are capable of encoding meaning by
mapping semantic content from one speciﬁ c semiotic code onto another.
Lim (2004) illustrates the working of such semiotic metaphors in the way

34 Rocío Montoro
jewelry advertisers exploit the symbolic meaning of diamonds (for the par-
ticular photograph discussed here see Lim [2004, 242], originally taken
from www.hearts-on-ﬁ re.com):
An example of Semiotic Metaphor is shown in [ . . . ] (t)he visual image
of the diamond [ . . . ] juxtaposed with the linguistic clause ‘because he
loves me’. This association of the visual image of a diamond with the
linguistic clause implies the gift of a diamond is an Expression of love
[ . . . ] Indeed, it could be argued that diamonds [ . . . ] are in themselves
always semiotic metaphors. (2004, 241)
This transference of meaning from one semiotic medium (visual) onto another
(linguistic) ﬁ rmly encapsulates the way mind style is projected in the cinematic
mode. Not only visual but sound resources of various kinds are successfully
exploited in the ﬁ lmic version of American Psycho in an attempt to create
the same unconventional psychological proﬁ le of the original written version.
Before undertaking the explanation of how such transference of meaning is
actually effected, we need to look at the second successful way in which mul-
timodal realizations of metaphors have been theoretically postulated, mainly
in the work of Forceville (1996, 2002a, 2002b, 2006, 2007), who states:
Since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors we Live By
(1980), conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has dominated metaphor
studies. While one of the central tenets of that monograph is that meta-
phors are primarily a phenomenon of thought, not of language, con-
ceptual metaphors have until recently been studied almost exclusively
via verbal expressions [ . . . ] One result of this focus is that relatively
little attention is paid in CMT to the form and appearance a metaphor
can assume. (2007, 19)
Forceville’s characterization of multimodal conceptual metaphors stems
from cognitivist positions. Far from considering them as language tropes,
conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) highlights the essentially cognitive
nature of these forms as thought phenomena that, eventually, become
linguistically realized in words. Forceville, nonetheless, is successful
in highlighting a signiﬁ cant ﬂ aw in the original formulation advocated
by Lakoff and Johnson who, although rightly described metaphors as
thought rather than language forms, signiﬁ cantly missed out on acknowl-
edging any other surface realization apart from the verbal. Forceville,
amongst other few (Carroll 1996, 1998; Cienki 1998; Kennedy 1982,
1993; McNeill 1992, 2000; Whittock 1990), has subsequently demon-
strated that the cognitive construal of metaphors identiﬁ ed by Lakoff
and Johnson can be concretized in multiple ways, many of which bring
into play a variety of semiotic resources. Such a ﬁ nding has led him to
isolate two main surface variations for conceptual metaphors, which he
terms monomodal and multimodal:

A Multimodal Approach to Mind Style 35
A multimodal metaphor is here deﬁ ned as a metaphor whose target
and source are not, or not exclusively, rendered in the same mode [ . . . ]
Monomodal metaphors will here be deﬁ ned as metaphors whose two
terms are predominantly or exclusively rendered in the same mode.
(Forceville 2007, 21, 24)
This author’s categorization of which modes
1
he is describing has, in fact,
been reworked from one publication to another. Whereas in his 2007 article
he identiﬁ es ﬁ ve different “modes” (“written language,” “spoken language,”
“visuals,” “music,” and “sound”), he had previously isolated nine: “picto-
rial signs,” “written signs,” “spoken signs,” “gestures,” “sounds,” “music,”
“smells,” “tastes,” and “touch” (Forceville 2006, 383). For the purposes
of this chapter, I am dispensing with smells, tastes, and touch as they are
not endowed with a primary role in either the novel or ﬁ lm, although that
does not automatically entail that they should never be borne in mind in
other multimodal analyses. Forceville’s more recent reformulation into ﬁ ve
“modes” (written, spoken language, visuals, music, and sound), however,
does seem to comprise the resources primarily exploited in the projection of
mind style in the written and cinematic formats respectively, which is why
this chapter primarily uses the latter taxonomy.
Most interestingly, though, Forceville’s earlier deﬁ nition also underscores
the necessarily distinct semiotic nature of the modes used as target and
source domains in the multimodal realizations of conceptual metaphors.
Metaphorical expressions rendered in just the one medium (Forceville’s
“mode”) would essentially qualify as monomodal, which seems reminis-
cent of the position defended by O’Halloran in relation to semiotic meta-
phors. Multimodal metaphors in the cognitive tradition, consequently,
would appear to share O’Halloran’s notion of inter-semiosis whereby the
semantic shift or transference of meaning from one code to another is what
more clearly justiﬁ es a multimodal label. Failing such transference, the mul-
timodal tag appears harder to justify. Nevertheless, ﬁ lmic adaptations of
written narratives seem to present the metaphor scholar with an interesting
challenge. On the one hand, we are analyzing two distinctive formats typi-
cally characterized by their use of the printed word in the case of written
narratives, and a combination of verbal resources with visuals, music, and
sound in ﬁ lms. Strictly speaking, the metaphors identiﬁ ed in the written
medium of the novelistic form should be classiﬁ ed as mainly monomodal
for both the target and source domains are delivered in the same form,
that is, through language. The ﬁ lmic adaptation, on the other hand, clearly
combines various semiotic resources, so a multimodal analysis is not so
controversial if, I would suggest, still contingent on the preexisting written
narrative from which it would be derived. This derivation from and reliance
on a prior mode, the written, would seem to suggest that screen adaptations
bank highly on the successful transposition of metaphors from one mode to
another, for which the use of various semiotic resources is to be expected.
Therefore, it seems proﬁ table to approach the analysis of mind style in two

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Betty
Leicester's Christmas

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Title: Betty Leicester's Christmas
Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
Illustrator: Anna Whelan Betts
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY
LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS ***

BETTY LEICESTER'S
CHRISTMAS

BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1894 AND 1899, BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
To
M. E. G.

IN SOLEMN MAJESTY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
In solemn majesty (page 62) Frontispiece
"I was so glad to come" 20
A tall boy had joined them 42
Betty, Edith, and Warford 50

BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS

I
There was once a story-book girl named Betty Leicester, who lived in
a small square book bound in scarlet and white. I, who know her
better than any one else does, and who know my way about
Tideshead, the story-book town, as well as she did, and who have
not only made many a visit to her Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary in
their charming old country-house, but have even seen the house in
London where she spent the winter: I, who confess to loving Betty a
good deal, wish to write a little more about her in this Christmas
story. The truth is, that ever since I wrote the first story I have been
seeing girls who reminded me of Betty Leicester of Tideshead. Either
they were about the same age or the same height, or they skipped
gayly by me in a little gown like hers, or I saw a pleased look or a
puzzled look in their eyes which seemed to bring Betty, my own
story-book girl, right before me.
Now, if anybody has read the book, this preface will be much more
interesting than if anybody has not. Yet, if I say to all new
acquaintances that Betty was just in the middle of her sixteenth
year, and quite in the middle of girlhood; that she hated some things
as much as she could, and liked other things with all her heart, and
did not feel pleased when older people kept saying don't! perhaps
these new acquaintances will take the risk of being friends. Certain
things had become easy just as Betty was leaving Tideshead in New
England, where she had been spending the summer with her old
aunts, so that, having got used to all the Tideshead liberties and
restrictions, she thought she was leaving the easiest place in the
world; but when she got back to London with her father, somehow
or other life was very difficult indeed.

She used to wish for London and for her cronies, the Duncans, when
she was first in Tideshead; but when she was in England again she
found that, being a little nearer to the awful responsibilities of a
grown person, she was not only a new Betty, but London—great,
busy, roaring, delightful London—was a new London altogether. To
say that she felt lonely, and cried one night because she wished to
go back to Tideshead and be a village person again, and was
homesick for her four-posted bed with the mandarins parading on
the curtains, is only to tell the honest truth.
In Tideshead that summer Betty Leicester learned two things which
she could not understand quite well enough to believe at first, but
which always seem more and more sensible to one as time goes on.
The first is that you must be careful what you wish for, because if
you wish hard enough you are pretty sure to get it; and the second
is, that no two persons can be placed anywhere where one will not
be host and the other guest. One will be in a position to give and to
help and to show; the other must be the one who depends and
receives.
Now, this subject may not seem any clearer to you at first than it did
to Betty; but life suddenly became a great deal more interesting, and
she felt herself a great deal more important to the rest of the world
when she got a little light from these rules. For everybody knows
that two of the hardest things in the world are to know what to do
and how to behave; to know what one's own duty is in the world
and how to get on with other people. What to be and how to behave
—these are the questions that every girl has to face; and if
somebody answers, "Be good and be polite," it is such a general
kind of answer that one throws it away and feels uncomfortable.
I do not remember that I happened to say anywhere in the story
that there was a pretty fashion in Tideshead, as summer went on, of
calling our friend "Sister Betty." Whether it came from her lamenting
that she had no sister, and being kindly adopted by certain friends,
or whether there was something in her friendly, affectionate way of
treating people, one cannot tell.

II
Betty Leicester, in a new winter gown which had just been sent
home from Liberty's, with all desirable qualities of color, and a fine
expanse of smocking at the yoke, and some sprigs of embroidery for
ornament in proper places, was yet an unhappy Betty. In spite of
being not only fine, but snug and warm as one always feels when
cold weather first comes and one gets into a winter dress,
everything seemed disappointing. The weather was shivery and
dark, the street into which she was looking was narrow and gloomy,
and there was a moment when Betty thought wistfully of Tideshead
as if there were no December there, and only the high, clear
September sky that she had left. Somehow, all out-of-door life
appeared to have come to an end, and she felt as if she were shut
into a dark and wintry prison. Not long before this she had come
from Whitby, the charming red-roofed Yorkshire fishing-town that
forever climbs the hill to its gray abbey. There were flocks of young
people at Whitby that autumn, and Betty had lived out of doors in
pleasant company to her heart's content, and tramped about the
moors and along the cliffs with gay parties, and played golf and
cricket, and helped to plan some great excitement or lively excursion
for almost every day. There is a funny, dancing-step sort of walk, set
to the tune of "Humpty-Dumpty," which seems to belong with the
Whitby walking-sticks which everybody carries; you lock arms in
lines across the road, and keep step to the gay chant of the dismal
nursery lines, and the faster you go, especially when you are tired,
the more it seems to rest you (or that's what some people think) in
the long walks home. Whitby was almost as good as Tideshead, to
which lovely town Betty now compared every other, even London
itself.
Betty and her father had not yet gone to housekeeping by
themselves (which made them very happy later on), but they were

living in some familiar old Clarges Street lodgings convenient to the
Green Park, where Betty could go for a consoling scamper with a
new dog called "Toby" because he looked so exactly like the beloved
Toby on the cover of "Punch." Betty had spent a whole morning's
work upon a proper belled ruff for Toby, who gravely sat up and
wore it as if he were conscious of literary responsibilities.
Papa had gone to the British Museum that rainy morning, and was
not likely to reappear before the close of day. For a wonder, he was
going to dine at home that night. Something very interesting to the
scientific world had happened to him during his summer visit to
Alaska, and it seemed as if every one of his scientific friends had
also made some discovery, or something had happened to each one,
which made many talks and dinners and club meetings delightfully
important. But most of the London people were in the country; for in
England they stay in the hot town until July or August, while all
Americans scatter among green fields or seashore places; and then
spend the gloomy months of the year in their country houses, when
we fly back to the shelter and music and pictures and
companionship of town life. This all depends upon the meeting of
parliament and other great reasons; but even Betty Leicester felt
quite left out and lonely in town that dark day. Her best friends, the
Duncans, were at their great house in Warwickshire. She was going
to stay with them for a month, but not just yet; while her father was
soon going to pay a short visit to a very great lady indeed at Danesly
Castle, just this side the Border.
This "very great lady indeed" was perfectly charming to our friend; a
smile or a bow from her was just then more than anything else to
Betty. We all know how perfectly delightful it is to love some one so
much that we keep dreaming of her a little all the time, and what
happiness it gives when the least thing one has to do with her is a
perfectly golden joy. Betty loved Mrs. Duncan fondly and constantly,
and she loved Aunt Barbara with a spark of true enchantment and
eager desire to please; but for this new friend, for Lady Mary
Danesly (who was Mrs. Duncan's cousin), there was something quite

different in her heart. As she stood by the window in Clarges Street
she was thinking of this lovely friend, and wishing for once that she
herself was older, so that perhaps she might have been asked to
come with papa for a week's visit at Christmas. But Lady Mary would
be busy enough with her great house-party of distinguished people.
Once she had been so delightful as to say that Betty must some day
come to Danesly with her father, but of course this could not be the
time. Miss Day, Betty's old governess, who now lived with her
mother in one of the suburbs of London, was always ready to come
to spend a week or two if Betty were to be left alone, and it was
pleasanter every year to try to make Miss Day have a good time as
well as to have one one's self; but, somehow, a feeling of having
outgrown Miss Day was hard to bear. They had not much to talk
about except the past, and what they used to do; and when
friendship comes to this alone, it may be dear, but is never the best
sort.
The fog was blowing out of the street, and the window against
which Betty leaned was suddenly flecked with raindrops. A telegraph
boy came round the corner as if the gust of wind had brought him,
and ran toward the steps; presently the maid brought in a telegram
to Betty, who hastened to open it, as she was always commissioned
to do in her father's absence. To her surprise it was meant for
herself. She looked at the envelope to make sure. It was from Lady
Mary.
Can you come to me with your father next week, dear? I wish
for you very much.
"There's no answer—at least there's no answer now," said Betty,
quite trembling with excitement and pleasure; "I must see papa first,
but I can't think that he will say no. He meant to come home for
Christmas day with me, and now we can both stay on." She hopped
about, dancing and skipping, after the door was shut. What a thing
it is to have one's wishes come true before one's eyes! And then she
asked to have a hansom cab called and for the company of Pagot,

who was her maid now; a very nice woman whom Mrs. Duncan had
recommended, in as much as Betty was older and had thoughts of
going to housekeeping. Pagot's sister also was engaged as
housemaid, and, strange as it may appear, our Tideshead Betty was
to become the mistress of a cook and butler. Pagot herself looked
sedate and responsible, but she dearly liked a little change and was
finding the day dull. So they started off together toward the British
Museum in all the rain, with the shutter of the cab put down and the
horse trotting along the shining streets as if he liked it.

III
Mr. Leicester was in the Department of North American Prehistoric
Remains, and had a jar of earth before him which he was examining
with closest interest. "Here's a bit of charred bone," he was saying
eagerly to a wise-looking old gentleman, "and here's a funeral bead
—just as I expected. This proves my theory of the sacrificial—Why,
Betty, what's the matter?" and he looked startled for a moment. "A
telegram?"
"It was so very important, you see, papa," said Betty.
"I thought it was bad news from Tideshead," said Mr. Leicester,
looking up at her with a smile after he had read it. "Well, my dear,
that's very nice, and very important too," he added, with a fine
twinkle in his eyes. "I shall be going out for a bit of luncheon
presently, and I'll send the answer with great pleasure."
Betty's cheeks were brighter than ever, as if a rosy cloud of joy were
shining through. "Now that I'm here, I'll look at the arrowheads;
mayn't I, papa?" she asked, with great self-possession. "I should like
to see if I can find one like mine—I mean my best white one that I
found on the river-bank last summer."
Papa nodded, and turned to his jar again. "You may let Pagot go
home at one o'clock," he said, "and come back to find me here, and
we'll go and have luncheon together. I was thinking of coming home
early to get you. We've a house to look at, and it's dull weather for
what I wish to do here at the museum. Clear sunshine is the only
possible light for this sort of work," he added, turning to the old
gentleman, who nodded; and Betty nodded sagely, and skipped
away with Pagot, to search among the arrowheads.

She found many white quartz arrowpoints and spearheads like her
own treasure. Pagot thought them very dull, and was made rather
uncomfortable by the Indian medicine-masks and war-bonnets and
evil-looking war-clubs, and openly called it a waste of time for any
one to have taken trouble to get all that heathen rubbish together.
Such savages and their horrid ways were best forgotten by decent
folks, if Pagot might be so bold as to say so. But presently it was
luncheon time; and the good soul cheerfully departed, while Betty
joined her father, and waited for him as still as a mouse for half an
hour, while he and the scientific old gentleman reluctantly said their
last words and separated. She had listened to a good deal of their
talk about altar fires, and the ceremonies that could be certainly
traced in a handful of earth from the site of a temple in the mounds
of a buried city; but all her thoughts were of Lady Mary and the
pleasures of the next week. She looked again at the telegram, which
was much nicer than most telegrams. It was so nice of Lady Mary to
have said dear in it—just as if she were talking; people did not often
say dear in a message. "Perhaps some of her guests can't come; but
then, everybody likes to be asked to Danesly," Betty thought. "And I
wonder if I shall dine at table with the guests; I never have. At any
rate, I shall see Lady Mary often and be with papa. It is perfectly
lovely! I can give her the Indian basket I brought her, now, before
the sweet grass is all dry."
It was a great delight to be asked to the holiday party; many a
grown person would be thankful to take Betty's place. For was not
Lady Mary a very great lady indeed, and one of the most charming
women in England?—a famous hostess and assembler of really
delightful people?
"I am going to Danesly on the seventeenth," said Betty to herself,
with satisfaction.

IV
Betty and her father had taken a long journey from London. They
had been nearly all day in the train, after a breakfast by candle-light;
and it was quite dark, except for the light of the full moon in a misty
sky, as they drove up the long avenue at Danesly. Pagot was in great
spirits; she was to go everywhere with Betty now, being used to the
care of young ladies, and more being expected of this young lady
than in the past. Pagot had been at Danesly before with the
Duncans, and had many friends in the household.
Mr. Leicester was walking across the fields by a path he well knew
from the little station, with a friend and fellow guest whom they had
met at Durham. This path was much shorter than the road, so that
papa was sure of reaching the house first; but Betty felt a little
lonely, being tired, and shy of meeting a great bright houseful of
people quite by herself, in case papa should loiter. But suddenly the
carriage stopped, and the footman jumped down and opened the
door. "My lady is walking down to meet you, miss," he said; "she's
just ahead of us, coming down the avenue." And Betty flew like a
pigeon to meet her dear friend. The carriage drove on and left them
together under the great trees, walking along together over the
beautiful tracery of shadows. Suddenly Lady Mary felt the warmth of
Betty's love for her and her speechless happiness as she had not felt
it before, and she stopped, looking so tall and charming, and put her
two arms round Betty, and hugged her to her heart.
"My dear little girl!" she said for the second time; and then they
walked on, and still Betty could not say anything for sheer joy. "Now
I'm going to tell you something quite in confidence," said the
hostess of the great house, which showed its dim towers and
scattered lights beyond the leafless trees. "I had been wishing to
have you come to me, but I should not have thought this the best

time for a visit; later on, when the days will be longer, I shall be able
to have much more time to myself. But an American friend of mine,
Mr. Banfield, who is a friend of your papa's, I believe, wrote to ask if
he might bring his young daughter, whom he had taken from school
in New York for a holiday. It seemed a difficult problem for the first
moment," and Lady Mary gave a funny little laugh. "I did not know
quite what to do with her just now, as I should with a grown person.
And then I remembered that I might ask you to help me, Betty dear.
You know that the Duncans always go for a Christmas visit to their
grandmother in Devon."
"I was so glad to come," said Betty warmly; "it was nicer than
anything else."

"I WAS SO GLAD TO COME"
"I am a little afraid of young American girls, you understand," said
Lady Mary gayly; and then, taking a solemn tone: "Yes, you needn't
laugh, Miss Betty! But you know all about what they like, don't you?
and so I am sure we can make a bit of pleasure together, and we'll
be fellow hostesses, won't we? We must find some time every day
for a little talking over of things quite by ourselves. I've put you next
your father's rooms, and to-morrow Miss Banfield will be near by,
and you're to dine in my little morning-room to-night. I'm so glad
good old Pagot is with you; she knows the house perfectly well. I

hope you will soon feel at home. Why, this is almost like having a girl
of my very own," said Lady Mary wistfully, as they began to go up
the great steps and into the hall, where the butler and other
splendid personages of the household stood waiting. Lady Mary was
a tall, slender figure in black, with a beautiful head; and she carried
herself with great spirit and grace. She had wrapped some black lace
about her head and shoulders, and held it gathered with one hand
at her throat.
"I must fly to the drawing-room now, and then go to dress for
dinner; so good-night, darling," said this dear lady, whom Betty had
always longed to be nearer to and to know better. "To-morrow you
must tell me all about your summer in New England," she said,
looking over her shoulder as she went one way and Betty another,
with Pagot and a footman who carried the small luggage from the
carriage. How good and kind she had been to come to meet a young
stranger who might feel lonely, and as if there were no place for her
in the great strange house in the first minute of her arrival. And
Betty Leicester quite longed to see Miss Banfield and to help her to a
thousand pleasures at once for Lady Mary's sake.

V
Somebody has said that there are only a very few kinds of people in
the world, but that they are put into all sorts of places and
conditions. The minute Betty Leicester looked at Edith Banfield next
day she saw that she was a little like Mary Beck, her own friend and
Tideshead neighbor. The first thought was one of pleasure, and the
second was a fear that the new "Becky" would not have a good time
at Danesly. It was the morning after Betty's own arrival. That first
evening she had her dinner alone, and afterward was reading and
resting after her journey in Lady Mary's own little sitting-room, which
was next her own room. When Pagot came up from her own hasty
supper and "crack" with her friends to look after Betty, and to
unpack, she had great tales to tell of the large and noble company
assembled at Danesly House. "They're dining in the great banquet
hall itself," she said with pride. "Lady Mary looks a queen at the
head of the table, with the French prince beside her and the great
Earl of Seacliff at the other side," said Pagot proudly. "I took a look
from the old musicians' gallery, miss, as I came along, and it was a
fine sight, indeed. Lady Mary's own maid, as I have known well
these many years, was telling me the names of the strangers." Pagot
was very proud of her own knowledge of fine people.
Betty asked if it was far to the gallery; and, finding that it was quite
near the part of the house where they were, she went out with
Pagot along the corridors with their long rows of doors, and into the
musicians' gallery, where they found themselves at a delightful point
of view. Danesly Castle had been built at different times; the
banquet-hall itself was very old and stately, with a high, carved roof.
There were beautiful old hangings and banners where the walls and
roof met, and lower down were spread great tapestries. There was a
huge fire blazing in the deep fireplace at the end, and screens before
it; the long table twinkled with candle-light, and the gay company

sat about it. Betty looked first for papa, and saw him sitting beside
Lady Dimdale, who was a great friend of his; then she looked for
Lady Mary, who was at the head between the two gentlemen of
whom Pagot had spoken. She was still dressed in black lace, but
with many diamonds sparkling at her throat, and she looked as
sweet and quiet and self-possessed as if there were no great
entertainment at all. The men-servants in their handsome livery
moved quickly to and fro, as if they were actors in a play. The
people at the table were talking and laughing, and the whole scene
was so pleasant, so gay and friendly, that Betty wished, for almost
the first time, that she were grown up and dining late, to hear all the
delightful talk. She and Pagot were like swallows high under the
eaves of the great room. Papa looked really boyish, so many of the
men were older than he. There were twenty at table; and Pagot
said, as Betty counted them, that many others were expected the
next day. You could imagine the great festivals of an older time as
you looked down from the gallery. In the gallery itself there were
quaint little heavy wooden stools for the musicians: the harpers and
fiddlers and pipers who had played for so many generations of gay
dancers, for whom the same lights had flickered, and over whose
heads the old hangings had waved. You felt as if you were looking
down at the past. Betty and Pagot closed the narrow door of the
gallery softly behind them, and our friend went back to her own
bedroom, where there was a nice fire, and nearly fell asleep before
it, while Pagot was getting the last things unpacked and ready for
the night.

VI
The next day at about nine o'clock Lady Mary came through her
morning-room and tapped at the door. Betty was just ready and very
glad to say good-morning. The sun was shining, and she had been
leaning out upon the great stone window-sill looking down the long
slopes of the country into the wintry mists. Lady Mary looked out
too, and took a long breath of the fresh, keen air. "It's a good day
for hunting," she said, "and for walking. I'm going down to
breakfast, because I have planned for an idle day. I thought we
might go down together if you were ready."
Betty's heart was filled with gratitude; it was so very kind of her
hostess to remember that it would be difficult for the only girl in the
house party to come alone to breakfast for the first time. They went
along the corridor and down the great staircase, past the portraits
and the marble busts and figures on the landings. There were two or
three ladies in the great hall at the foot, with an air of being very
early, and some gentlemen who were going fox hunting; and after
Betty had spoken with Lady Dimdale, whom she knew, they
sauntered into the breakfast-room, where they found some other
people; and papa and Betty had a word together and then sat down
side by side to their muffins and their eggs and toast and
marmalade. It was not a bit like a Tideshead company breakfast.
Everybody jumped up if he wished for a plate, or for more jam, or
some cold game, which was on the sideboard with many other
things. The company of servants had disappeared, and it was all as
unceremonious as if the breakfasters were lunching out of doors.
There was not a long tableful like that of the night before; many of
the guests were taking their tea and coffee in their own rooms.
By the time breakfast was done, Betty had begun to forget herself as
if she were quite at home. She stole an affectionate glance now and

then at Lady Mary, and had fine bits of talk with her father, who had
spent a charming evening and now told Betty something about it,
and how glad he was to have her see their fellow guests. When he
went hurrying away to join the hunt, Betty was sure that she knew
exactly what to do with herself. It would take her a long time to see
the huge old house and the picture gallery, where there were some
very famous paintings, and the library, about which papa was always
so enthusiastic. Lady Mary was to her more interesting than anybody
else, and she wished especially to do something for Lady Mary. Aunt
Barbara had helped her niece very much one day in Tideshead when
she talked about her own experience in making visits and going
much into company. "The best thing you can do," she said, "is to do
everything you can to help your hostess. Don't wait to see what is
going to be done for you, but try to help entertain your fellow guests
and to make the moment pleasant, and you will be sure to enjoy
yourself and to find your hostess wishing you to come again. Always
do the things that will help your hostess." Our friend thought of this
sage advice now, but it was at a moment when every one else was
busy talking, and they were all going on to the great library except
two or three late breakfasters who were still at the table. Aunt
Barbara had also said that when there was nothing else to do, your
plain duty was to entertain yourself; and, having a natural gift for
this, Betty wandered off into a corner and found a new "Punch" and
some of the American magazines on a little table close by the
window-seat. After a while she happened to hear some one ask:
"What time is Mr. Banfield coming?"
"By the eleven o'clock train," said Lady Mary. "I am just watching for
the carriage that is to fetch him. Look; you can see it first between
the two oaks there to the left. It is an awkward time to get to a
strange house, poor man; but they were in the South and took a
night train that is very slow. Mr. Banfield's daughter is with him, and
my dear friend Betty, who knows what American girls like best, is
kindly going to help me entertain her."

"Oh, really!" said one of the ladies, looking up and smiling as if she
had been wondering just what Betty was for, all alone in the grown-
up house party. "Really, that's very nice. But I might have seen that
you are Mr. Leicester's daughter. It was very stupid of me, my dear;
you're quite like him—oh, quite!"
"I have seen you with the Duncans, have I not?" asked some one
else, with great interest. "Why, fancy!" said this friendly person, who
was named the Honorable Miss Northumberland, a small, eager little
lady in spite of her solemn great name,—"fancy! you must be an
American too. I should have thought you quite an English girl."
"Oh, no, indeed," said Betty. "Indeed, I'm quite American, except for
living in England a very great deal." She was ready to go on and say
much more, but she had been taught to say as little about herself as
she possibly could, since general society cares little for knowledge
that is given it too easily, especially about strangers and one's self!
"There's the carriage now," said Lady Mary, as she went away to
welcome the guests. "Poor souls! they will like to get to their rooms
as soon as possible," she said hospitably; but although the elder
ladies did not stir, Betty deeply considered the situation, and then,
with a happy impulse, hurried after her hostess. It was a long way
about, through two or three rooms and the great hall to the
entrance; but Betty overtook Lady Mary just as she reached the
great door, going forward in the most hospitable, charming way to
meet the new-comers. She did not seem to have seen Betty at all.
The famous lawyer, Mr. Banfield, came quickly up the steps, and
after him, more slowly, came his daughter, whom he seemed quite
to forget.
A footman was trying to take her wraps and traveling-bag, but she
clung fast to them, and looked up apprehensively toward Lady Mary.
Betty was very sympathetic, and was sure that it was a trying
moment, and she ran down to meet Miss Banfield, and happened to
be so fortunate as to catch her just as she was tripping over her

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