A Critical Glimpse on the Narrative Techniques of Jhumpa Lahiri ‘s Namesake and Amitav Gosh’s Shadow Lines

Narratology, which was first founded by Tzevan Todorov, is described (by him) as the theory of narrative structures in Phelan (2008). Some authors have used a definition that is essentially the same for the term “narratology”. These definitions provide us a general understanding that narratology is the study of the formal elements of a narrative. For example, Prince (1982) described as the study of the form and functioning of narrative. However, Schmid (2010) expressed that there is a criticism that cautions authors against restricting
narratology to purely analytical work because doing so would produce objective descriptions that would be
devoid of any room for creative interpretation.
This perspective suggests that narratology should expand its boundaries. It implies that narratology may be more
informative if its scope is expanded. The age of post-classical narratology reflects this. Narratology investigates
what all narratives have in common and the factors that make them distinctive from one another (Prince, 1982).
Prince has identified a sensitive area in the definition of narratology, namely the notion that narratology is not
concerned with “the history of particular novels or tales, with their meaning, or with their aesthetic value, but
rather with the traits which distinguish narrative from other signifying systems and with the modalities of these
traits” (Prince, 1982, p. 5). It is evident from this and other definitions that narratology does deal with the abstract
levels of a particular narrative or the interpretative aspect of narratives; rather, it examines the structure and
fundamental qualities of narratives, which ultimately define what a narrative is and what sets it apart from other
forms.