Hiding in Plain Sight: The Narratee in Grizzly Man

In Gerald Prince’s text, he laments the invisibility of the narratee, wondering why this particular narrative figure remains questionably unexplored. Per his definition, though the concept itself might be considered abstract, the reality of his observation is undeniable, making for fascinating consideration. Prince’s understanding of the narratee, or the porous multi-faced sometimes-character between the narrator and the reader, welds a staggering about of narrative influence as he writes, “The narratee can, thus, exercise an entire series of functions in a narrative: he constitutes a relay between the narrator and the reader, he helps establishes the narrative framework, he serves to characterize the narrator, he emphasizes certain themes, he contributes to the development of the plot, [and] he becomes fit Busiessthe spokesman for the moral of work” (23.) But how can an oft-invisible fictive character accomplish so much without even appearing in a work? For Prince, it’s usually in the way the story itself is written.

To start, a narratee is not the intended reader, or the audience who is buying the story to entertain or educate themselves. Usually they come in between such planes, as the medium for whom a story is being told to, or instead, serves as the audience that is being indirectly addressed. Prince most clearly illustrates this through his continuous example of the storyteller Scheherazade in A Thousand and One Nights, explaining that as the narrator, it is the narratee within her tale who holds the most power, as without his influence (and/or interest), she will be executed and thus her tales, and the stories within the book come to an end. But against the reader of a story (who Prince argues would understand the author’s intent and interpretation against other stories and styles of the same type), the perfect narratee (referred to often as a zero-degree narratee) has no such thoughts. A narratee knows instead, the language employed by the narrator without explanation, and understands causality through reasoning, while keeping a sure memory or one that allows a relatively straight forward telling of a story with minimal issues.

Curiously however, Prince also suggests that zero degree narratees come as almost blank slates to a story. They have no previous understanding of a text before the story told to them, and won’t theorize narratives through tropes or codes as “without the assistance of the narrator, without his explanations and information supplied by him, the narratee is able neither to interpret the value of an action nor grasp its repercussions” (10-11.) Consider for example, the narratees for Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, which change depending on who is doing the talking and where. Looking specifically at the tapes showcased where nature enthusiast Timothy Treadwell is speaking to the camera, we know it’s in relation to an audience. Later, toward the end we see him specifically addressing the supporters through his nonprofit organization Grizzly People, who would be unaware of Treadwell’s upbringing, his drug addiction, or of the reaction of his work to others in the field of animal study, who seemed through the film, to consider his work highly inappropriate. He addresses the watchers of his documentary (not to be confused with Herzog’s) as though they are people who are equally as curious and fiercely passionate about his love of bears as he is, and who will effectively take all the pain, love, joy, and frustration he will give them.

Similarly, like Prince mentions in the article, Treadwell often employs language for his narratees in his documentary by including them as “we” in his work. Sometimes he’ll be out giving updates on his summer rounds through the wildlife sanctuaries and talk about the work he did by himself as the solitary guardian of the bears as it were, but other times particularly when he’s vulnerable or emotional, he’ll switch to referring to the collective group as part of the network that made his work possible; but this of course is not what Herzog refers to when he’s showcasing Treadwell’s historical videos. Instead as an indirect narratee, Herzog’s audience acts as the primary narratee as he moves through Treadwell’s timeline with pseudo-questions in an effort to entice the watcher to learn more about Treadwell. But Treadwell’s fluctuation between the personal and the professional give his narrator persona a fluid unreliable quality, and Prince also talks about how rapport between narrators and narratees create a significant distance that can change the course of a story.

Watching Grizzly Man from Herzog’s documentary apart from Treadwell’s, creates a cooler detachment to the subject matter Treadwell works on passionately; but I would imagine, being one of Timothy’s supporters, watching the videos as a weekly update, would create a different atmosphere altogether. In many ways, that’s what makes him so unstable as a narrator. With nature documentaries, the typical audience has an expectation of polished professionalism and practiced oratory which we enjoy and have come to rely on. In effect, this seems to give nature an even more dramatic, theatrical quality more geared toward entertainment than a confessional expose. But Treadwell’s narratorial distance shifts dramatically throughout the film, giving the story much of its interest and dramatic irony as Herzog explains who he was and how he came to meet his demise. For instance, when he slips into rants about his sex life, or when a fox steals his treasured baseball cap, or when he unloads expletives against the National Park Service, we can see the side of Treadwell that came before his love of documentary peaking through, as such things are aren’t typically expected of a wildlife host. But it was part of his charm, and ultimately his undoing.

Ultimately, these varying distances between both Herzog and Treadwell are what create a set of narrative windows within the film. Herzog works with a certain kind of understanding, as an investigative journalist while simultaneously showcasing a homemade documentary about the bears, and the result is a combination of various lenses all highlighting different audiences. Likewise, Prince’s article demands that we step back and take into account who a story is being told to, before it reaches out beyond the page, which offers a wholly different kind of understanding of the text. As one of the key parts of a story, narratees operate as a primary function dictating how a story is told, and this difference is something both Herzog and Prince are acutely aware of.

 

 

 

 

 

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