Graphic Devices: Narration and Navigation

Abstract

�� ��� Readings of narrative texts rarely include attention to the graphic devices that structure presentation in print or electronic formats. These devices are rendered largely invisible by habits of reading. But, I would suggest, these graphic elements do more than structure the conditions in which narration is produced. By their hierarchy, arrangement, organization, and other features they contribute to the production of the narrative in substantive ways. In my usage, the term graphic includes all aspects of layout and composition by which elements are organized on a surface, though “surface” is a deceptive term for describing the temporal and spatial complexity of books, comics, and other textual instruments. In an electronic environment, this complexity goes even further‐‐since the screen surface is clearly an illusion concealing a complicated model of narrative possibilities under a fully-rendered visual interface. Navigation, the other term in play here, refers to the active manipulation of features on the level of discourse and presentation. Though many of my examples are drawn from illustrated books or other dramatically visual materials, I would argue that graphic devices play an active role in all instances of textual presentation, not only those in which images or pictorial elements are present. My goal here is to demonstrate that these graphic devices can be read as an integral part of narrative texts. Demonstrating that the graphic devices that appear to constrain discourse functions also contribute to the chronological experience of events (within

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