A Narratological Approach To The Fallen Series

UNIVERSITATEA „PETRU MAIOR”

DIN TÎRGU – MUREȘ

FACULTATEA DE ȘTIINȚE ȘI LITERE

Programul de studiu: LIMBA ȘI LITERATURA ROMÂNĂ – LIMBA ȘI LITERATURA ENGLEZĂ / FR

LUCRARE DE LICENȚĂ

A Narratological Approach to the Fallen Series by Lauren Kate

Coordonator științific:

Lect.univ.dr. Corina Lirca

Absolvent:

Roxana – Andreea Baciu

2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 5

CHAPTER1. Fallen by Lauren Kate – a popular twenty-first century fiction series 6

1.1. Lauren Kate’s literary biography 8

1.2. The structure of the series 9

1.3. Sources of inspiration 12

1.4. Critical reception – Book reviews of the Fallen series by Lauren Kate 18

CHAPTER2. The mimetic in Fallen by Lauren Kate – a narratological approach 20

2.1. The concepts and terminology of the narratological approach to literature 20

2.2. Narration in Fallen by Lauren Kate 23

2.2.1. Voice 23

2.2.2. Focalization (mood) 26

2.2.3. Narrative situations 27

2.3. Action, story analysis, tellability 29

2.4. Tense, time and narrative modes 36

2.4.1. Narrative tenses 36

2.4.2. Time analysis 37

2.4.3. Narrative modes 40

2.5. Setting and fictional space 42

2.6. Characters and characterization techniques 43

2.7. Discourses: speech, thought and consciousness 52

Conclusion 57

Bibliography 58

Introduction

I have a dark romantic nature and I was raised by my mother to be an orthodox. As a child I enjoyed going to church and imagine all God’s angels there with me. I chose the Fallen series by Lauren Kate because I found this very interesting mixture between love and religion and all the angelic and demonic deeds that happen behind our back. I appreciated that even though Lauren depicts a parallel world, a world that one has to choose to believe in, she still manages to make her character and events look real. It is the narrative technique that makes it believable that such a special universe should exist and that angels and demons should live among us. It is a religious belief and cultural background that one can look a little further and search for the religious context of some of the characters, places and events.

In order to understand the context and the connections between religion and Lauren’s books I dedicated my first chapter to her and her series. As a consequence, I structured the first chapter in four subchapters. First and foremost, I wrote about Lauren and her biography and got to really appreciate the way she ‘writes love’. Then I made a short presentation of the series. The most extensive part of chapter one, the third subchapter, contains my research on Lauren’s sources of inspiration. It has been a real pleasure to discover that so many religions touch the subject of fallen angels. Last but not least I researched the critical reception of the series.

At my coordinator’s suggestion I took the path of narrative approach in my second chapter. At first I tried to outline a number of narratological terms, theories and concepts I tripped on in high school and university, as well as some new ones, and then I analyzed the series of Fallen in view of this theoretical system. Hence, I wrote about narration (voice, focalization and narrative situations); action, story analysis, tellability; narrative tenses, time analysis and narrative modes; setting and fictional space; characters and characterization; and discourses (speech, thought and consciousness), in one word, about the techniques of Fallen series. It was challenging, but – very rewarding to find that a writer’s narrative choices are so closely connected to reader’s perception, understanding and … of the text.

CHAPTER 1

FALLEN BY LAUREN KATE – A POPULAR TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FICTION SERIES

What is so popular about this series of fallen angels? The answer is that it consists of a number of five texts that can be labeled dystopian novels and it follows a long tradition of novels which started in eighteenth century with Gulliver Travels by Jonathan Swifts and continued to this day with novels like: Nineteen eighty-four by George Orwell, Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle, Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence, A Dusk of Demons by John Christopher, The Immortals by Tracy Hickman, The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguo, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Insurgent by Veronica Roth, Teardrop by Lauren Kate.

Here are several dictionary definitions of ‘dystopia’:

“(the idea of) a society in which people do not work well with each other and are not happy” (Cambridge Dictionaries Online)

“An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one – the opposite of utopia.” (Oxford Dictionaries Online)

“an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be” (Collins Dictionaries Online)

“an imaginary place where people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online)

“an imaginary place or situation in which everything in society is extremely bad” (Macmillan Dictionary Online).

The truth of the matter is that the Fallen series is a particular type of dystopian text as it depicts a twenty-first century world populated by fallen angels, demons, announcers (strange cold shadows which reveal past lives) and Outcasts living among humans, fighting epical battles.

This series is not about an awful world ruled by misery or based upon a political concern, but it depicts a sacred secret world within our world. Our world is just as we know it, with daily problems connected to friends, clothes, relationships, families, money, diseases etc. Although the story refers to a possible ‘end of days’ angels, nephilims – half angels-half humans, and humans are committed to fight a biblical battle that can alter the end.

Our protagonist, Lucinda Price, is not granted to live more than seventeen years each life due to a curse connected to her forbidden romance with an angel, Daniel. Though, in her final life she managed to survive her seventeenth birthday and Daniel’s kiss did not kill her. She seems to be destined to break the curse and save the world.

In the series these two worlds interact and we get to read about a cursed love between a mortal, Lucinda Price and a fallen angel, Daniel Grigori. They bear an ancient curse that make Daniel fall in love with Luce every seventeen years and kills her every seventeen years with a kiss but she reincarnates every time to repeat the cycle. But this life of Luce is different. She can see and manipulate the Announcers, finds out about the curse and her past lives and is kissed by Daniel without being killed. Caught up in an ancient war with many fallen angels who want her dead, Luce is now searching for answers and has little help in the process.

In chapter eighteen of the first book a dear friend of Luce dies. Penny is killed by Miss Sophia, one of the Elders of Zhsmaelim. Luce, then thinking of herself to be a normal girl is very hurt. She witnesses the murder of her ‘pillar of strength’ (408). She also acknowledges the existence of angels and demons. The battle from the cemetery at Sword and Cross is a futile battle because no one wins. This situation is repeated in another battle in Luce’s backyard at her house in the second book. These situations are unbelievable and somewhat magical. Lauren managed to blend many magical elements in order to create a whole new world.

Beside the love story between Luce and Daniel, in the novella collection Fallen in love, we find out about other character’s love stories like Miles and Shelby’s, Roland’s and Arriane’s. It is impressive the story of the fascinating and mysterious demon Cam whom Lauren dedicated a book entitled Unforgiven.

Also what make this series to stand out is crossing borders in time and space. For example in Fallen the action takes place at Sword & Cross in Savannah, Georgia, in Torment the action is moved to Shoreline School in North California, in Passion the characters travel through time and space from Moscow 1941, Milan 1918, Helston, England 1854, Prussia 1758, Versailles, France 1723 till Yin, China 1046 BCE, Jerusalem, Israel 1000 BCE, Egypt and return to Savannah 2009, in Rapture the action cross the borders of Italy, France, Austria and Egypt and in Fallen In Love the actions take place on Valentine’s Day in medieval England.

All these characteristics make the series real and surreal at the same time. Because of the reality that is depicted in the books the readers are more susceptible in believing that these stories might have happened and due to the different religious background of the readers many of them cross referenced the events with biblical works.

1.1. LAUREN KATE’S LITERARY BIOGRAPHY

Lauren Kate is a young American fiction writer. She was born in Dayton, Ohio on March 21, 1981, and moved to Dallas, Texas when she was two. She grew up there and moved to Atlanta, Georgia when she was 18 to go to Ermony University (not far from Savannah where Fallen is set). Since then she has lived in New York, Paris, a farm in Northern California and Los Angeles – where she currently lives. She is married to the musical artist Jason Morphew and is the mother of Matilda and Venice.

Among her favorite writers are F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Don DeLilo (Underworld), Lois Lowry (Number the Stars), Judy Blume (Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret.) and Suzanne Collins (Divergent, Insurgent).

She worked as an editor and states that it was really helpful in writing her books.

She always wrote about romance and found her inspiration in observing the human interaction in everyday life. Her favorite love stories are the ones of forbidden love. Her advice for young writers is to finish their books. She also received this piece of advice from an older friend who is a writer. Her literary work consists of:

Fallen series: Fallen – December 9, 2009; Torment – September 28, 2010; Passion – June 14, 2011; Fallen in love – January 24, 2012; Rapture – June 12, 2012, Unforgiven – November, 2015.

Teardrop series: Teardrop – October 22, 2012; Last Day of Love Prequel Novella – December 10, 2013; Waterfall – October 28,2014

Standalone novel: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove – November 12, 2009

1.2. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SERIES

Fallen series has six publishes books: five novels and a collection of novellas (Fallen in Love).

Fallen is the first book out of five and it is an introduction to the story of Lucinda Price and Daniel Grigori. The novel was first published in US on December 8 2009 and in UK in December 17 2009 by Random House Children’s Book. The story is divided in twenty chapters and the length of the book is 452 pages.

Luce is presented as a new student at a reformatory school named Sword & Cross. Here she meets all kinds of problem teenagers, but also Daniel Grigori. He is an enigmatic charming guy/angel which at first treats Luce awfully (for her own good) but by the end he tells her the truth about them and their forbidden love.

Torment, the sequel of Fallen, was published in US on September 28 2010, by Random House Children’s Book. The novel is composed in 452 pages and contains a prologue and an epilogue and eighteen chapters picturing the countdown of eighteen days.

Luce was taken to Shoreline, a special school with special students, all descendents of angels. There she learns about the strange dangerous shadows and about their ability to show past lives and events. At the

end of the book Luce enters one shadow and Daniel goes after her to save her.

Passion, a 420-page novel, was first published in US on June 14, 2011 by Random House Children’s Book. It contains a prologue and an epilogue and twenty chapters. The fight of Luce and Daniel in breaking the curse continues, and Satan enters the stage. While Luce is travelling through the announcers to see her past life, Satan, who only needs one more soul to become more powerful than God, fails in the attempt to convince Daniel to give his soul to him.

Fallen in love is a collection of novellas about love depicting six characters of the previous novels. Here the author chose to depict four types of love stories in four parts: Love where you at least expect it: The Valentine of Shelby and Miles, Love Lessons: The Valentine of Roland, Burning Love: The Valentine of Arriane and Endless Love: The Valentine of Daniel and Lucinda. It ends with an epilogue: The Guardians. The book was published in US on January 24, 2012 by Random House Children’s Book and has 201 pages.

Rapture the last published novel of the series was released on June 12, 2012 by Random House Children’s book and has 448 pages. Here Luce finds out that she was an angel too and Lucifer was her first love and she was his. She is the reason why the fall began anyway. But now she loves Daniel and together chose to reincarnate in mortals to live their love and then die. In their final life they meet at Emerald College and this time Daniel is the one to say that Luce looks familiar.

Unforgiven is a 368-page novel that depicts Cam’s love story with Lilith whose soul was trapped in Hell by Lucifer. She is Cam’s true love. He broke her heart, he sided with Lucifer and she killed herself. Now she is doomed to live in many personal Hells. Cam tries to save her soul by making a bet with Lucifer.

1.3. SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

In an interview accorded to Mayra Calvani posted on February 17, 2010 in blogcritics.org,

Lauren Kate was asked the question: “What was your inspiration for Fallen?”

Here is what she answered:

The Book of Genesis (“In the Beginning”), followed by the Book of Exodus, is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The line that inspired Lauren is from Genesis 6:1-4: King James version (KJV):

6.1And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4There were Giants in the earth in those days: and also after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Jewish Publication Society (JPS):

6.1And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.

3And Hashem said: ‘My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for that he also is flesh; therefore, shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.

4The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Another reference of Sons of God and Nephilims or Giants is in Numbers 13:33:

“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, [which come] of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” (KJV)

“And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who came of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” (JPS)

There are many interpretations of the Bible in each religion, but I chose the two I thought best for my research. Due to the fact that in Torment we have to deal with “N-E-P-H-I-L-I-M. That means anything with angel in its DNA. Mortals, immortals, transeternals.” (p.51) I suppose that Lauren was inspired by the Jewish Publication Society version.

Digging more into the subject of fallen angels I was pleased to find out that every religion has a story about them. Here is the summary of each one:

In the Slavonic Books of Enoch, The first Enoch is focused on the fall of the Watchers. They were supposed to watch over the humans, but soon began to feel a strong sexually desire for human women.

1 Enoch 7:2: ‘And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children’. And they had sexual intercourse with them.

1 Enoch 7: 10-15:

10Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.

11And the women conceiving brought forth giants,

12Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them;

13When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them;

14And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.

15Then the earth reproved the unrighteous.

In the 1 Enoch 8:1-9, the consequences of the fall and other names of fallen Watchers are unveiled:

8.1Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered.

2Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways.

3Amazarak taught all the sorcerers, and dividers of roots:

4Armers taught the solution of sorcery;

5Barkayal taught the observers of the stars, 

6Akibeel taught signs;

7Tamiel taught astronomy;

8And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon,

9And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven.

It seems surreal that angels have thought men all these evil things, but as we find proof in the Book of Enoch we should ask ourselves why did they destroyed the earth. It is common knowledge or a popular myth, that the fabrication of mirrors is associated with Satan.

The Second Book addresses the Watchers (Gk. egrêgoroi) who were in the fifth heaven where the fall took place and the third Book of Enoch pays attention to the Watchers who didn’t fall. Some apocryphal works, including 1 Enoch 10.4: “Then explain to him the consummation which is about to take place; for all the earth shall perish; the waters of a deluge shall come over the whole earth, and all things which are in it shall be destroyed”, connect this transgression with the Great Deluge.

The ‘Sons of God’ of The Old Testament’s Genesis 6:1-4 were identified by some sects of Judaism with fallen angels, in the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament.

Lester L. Grabbe calls the story of the sexual intercourse of angels with women ‘an old myth in Judaism’.

Later Jewish thought understood these “Sons of God” to be divine beings. Indeed, during the intertestamental period, as we shall see later, this interbreeding of divine beings with human women was often identified as the first fall of the angels. According to this tradition this “Sons of God” were angels who were charged with caring for humans (they were sometimes called “the Watchers”). But like the God of Persia in Daniel 10, they forsook their duties and abused their divine authority. Their progeny were thus giants hybrid, evil beings who furthered the corruption of the earth. (God at War: 138)

In Christianity, it is believed that the leader of the fallen angels is Satan. He is mentioned in The New Testament, 36 times in 33 verses, and the Book of Revelation in 12:9 and 20:2-3 mentions Satan as:

12:9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

20:2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years

20:3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season

In Luke 10:18 Jesus says: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” While The New Testament does mention Satan falling from heaven, it never says that he was an angel, only that he disguised as one, in Second Corinthians 11:14: “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light”. Still, the concept of fallen angels does appear in the New Testament; both Peter 2:4 (“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;”)and Jude 1:6(“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. ”) preach about the angels who have sinned and were cast down to hell till the Judgment Day.

Undoubtedly, Christian tradition sees Satan as the image of the morning star in Isaiah 14:12 (“How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!”). The modern evangelical commentary on Isaiah does not see Isaiah 14 as revealing information about the fall of Satan.

Religious views about fallen angels

Judaism

The first concept found in Judaism is that of fallen angels and it is applied in particular to Azazel and Satan. Nevertheless, from the Middle Ages certain Jewish scholars, both rationalist and traditionalist, considered evil as simply the absence of good and rejected belief in rebel or fallen angels.

Christianity

The concept of fallen angels was adopted by Christians, for the most part, based on their interpretations of the Book of Revelation chapter 12.

In Catholicism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about ‘the fall of the angels’ as a radical and immutable rejection of God and His Reign, and not in spatial terms. These angels created as good beings, freely chose evil. Their sin was unforgivable because of their choice and not because of any deficiency in the Infinite Divine Mercy.

The Orthodox speaks of a Cherubim that took with him one third of the angels and throw them down to Earth. The devil was called “Satan”, a Hebrew word for “enemy”, which parallels with the Greek word “diabolis” meaning “divider”. The word “demon’ is also Greek and means “the fallen angel”.

Since the fall of men, there is a terrible inner conflict between the angels of light and the angels of darkness. The angels of light were sent by God to help the humans even from the era of the Old Testament. We see the Archangel Gabriel in Charge of Israel when they left Egypt, Archangel Raphael holding in Tobit, Archangel Michael sent to help Joshua the son of Nun, and arguing with the devil for the body of Moses.

Even though the devil is always trying to make humans sin, he doesn’t know he is doing God’s will. He became an instrument of God’s trial to men.

Islam

The angels are mentioned in the Quran usually in the plural and referring to obedient angels, as in Islam angles cannot disobey God. It also states that Satan was a jinn (“in ​Arab and ​Muslim ​traditional ​stories, a ​magical ​spirit who may ​appear in the ​form of a ​human or an ​animal and can take ​control of a ​person” – Cambridge dictionary online) and he is mentioned with the angels in verses: 2:34, 7:11, 15:29, 17:61; 18:50; 20:116, 38:71 prior to his fall. Satan rebelled and was banished on Earth, and according the verse 80-85:38, he vowed to create mischief on Earth after being given respite by God until de Day of judgment. In Islamic terminology, jinn like humans, have free will, so they have the capacity to choose whether to obey God or disobey Him.

1.4 CRITICAL RECEPTION – Book reviews of the Fallen series by Lauren Kate

Over the years, since the publication of the first book in the series, literary reviewers have expressed various views on Kate’s literary achievements. Here are several representative reviews, I chose to comment.

First I read Lee’s review on fantasybook.com. He was struck by the beauty of Lauren’s depiction of angels, their wings with different patterns and the way they moved. I was impressed by the same thing when I first read the novels. Those wings had indeed something magical:

Roland’ wings unfurled with a sound like a great flock of birds taking flight. The lamping in the kitchen highlighted their dark gold and black marbling as he squeezed out the door after Cam. Molly and Arriane were right behind him, butting into each other, Arriane pressing her glowing iridescent wings ahead of Molly’s cloudy bronze one, sending off what looked like little electric sparks as they hustled out the door. Next was Gabbe, whose fluffy white wings spread open as gracefully as butterfly’s, but with such speed they sent a rush of floral-scented wind through the kitchen.

Daniel […] closed his eyes, inhaled, and let his massive white wings unfurl. […] they shimmered and glowed and looked altogether too beautiful. Luce reached out and touched them with both hands. Warm and satin smooth on the outside, but inside full of power. (Torment: 421-422)

I agree with Lee’s statement that fallen angels and forbidden love are a winning formula.

I enjoyed Patty’s critique of Luce in her review on fantasybook.com. She saw her just as she was: a seventeen-year old girl who behaved like an adolescent. This character, which seems alive, is able to connect with other adolescent-readers and this will guarantee the series success. Another important thing Patty pointed out was the Gothic setting from Sword & Cross School. This helps the story shroud with mystery and thrill.

Annie Eaton, editor at RHCB (Random House Children’s Book) comments for the Guardian that no teenage girl will be able to resist Daniel. I mean that in the first two books one can be attracted only by his mystery, because his behavior towards Luce is over protective. At the opposite pole one can fall for Cam, the demon. He is the opposite of Daniel in every way. Cam is sweet bad boy for whom one might fall in love but the type of love he provides might be short and passionate.

Publishers weekly from Barnes and Nobles reviewing Torment considered the novel having ‘equal parts romance and thriller’. I think that the substitution of the Gothic School, Swords & Cross, with the forest of the Shoreline School is a welcomed change, which amplifies the mystery shrouded on the love story.

Erica Alexander who reviewed Torment for VOYA magazine was left with the impression that Luce’s story was ‘somewhat whiny and gullible’. Sometimes I felt this too, but it also helped me to imagine a character that lived, that had contradictory opinions and inner struggles, just like most of us do have.

Cheryl Clark’s review for Torment also appeared in VOYA magazine. She found Luce more independent and Daniel authoritarian. It is true that at some point I wanted to ‘tell’ Luce to keep her trust in Daniel’s love because every time they met there were arguments and questions left unanswered. This awkward side of the story kept me in suspense while reading the novel.

Jeanine Stickle pointed a good idea about Torment in her review for Children’s Literature. She noticed that this novel is more about Luce finding herself and about her friendship with Shelby and Miles. This book stands for a bridge connecting Fallen and Passion.

Jo from onceuponabookcase.co.uk praised Lauren’s research and plot of Passion. She admired the authoress for managing to depict all Luce’s past personalities, offering at the same time history lessons about different time ages and other cultures, narrated through Bill’s voice. Her forte remains her depicting love.

Heather Kinard, reviewer for Children’s Literature, considers Rapture more a romantic novel than a religious history one about the rebellion of Lucifer and the fall on the angels. Luce will have to choose if it’s Daniel whom she really loves, and in nine days they have to defeat Lucifer from erasing the history until the moment of the fall. This last book is full of suspense.

CHAPTER 2

THE MIMETIC IN FALLEN BY LAUREN KATE – A NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACH

2.1. THE CONCEPTS AND TERMINOLOGY OF THE NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACH TO LITERATURE

In this section I will briefly explain the major narratological concepts I will use in my paper to analyze the mimetic in Fallen by Lauren Kate. Other details regarding theoretical narrative aspects will be explained in the next subchapters at critical points of my analysis of the narrative technique of Fallen series. Most of the concepts I found in Manfred Jahn’s Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative published for the English Department by the University of Cologne in 2005.

Narration (voice) refers to ‘who speaks in the text’, hence the narrator. The narrators can be categorized in two main types based on the relationship that they develop with the story: heterodiegetic (third-person narration) and homodiegetic (first-person narration).

Focalization (mood) refers to the one ‘who sees’ in a text. According to Gerald Prince, focalization is “the perspective in terms of which the narrated situations and events are presented” (Jahn N3.2.). Omniscient narrators offer a nonfocalized narrative or a narrative with zero focalization due to the fact that the perspective varies and is sometime unlocatable. When such a position is locatable in one character or another and involves restrictions (of perceptions and concepts) the narrative is said to have internal focalization.

The category of narrative situation was modeled by Stanzel basing three oppositions: the opposition person: “identity vs. non-identity of the realms of existence of the narrator and the fictional character (first- and third-person reference)”; the opposition perspective: “internal vs. external perspective” and the opposition mode: “teller-character vs. reflector-character”. He argues that there are three narrative situations with the respective dominance of one part of the three oppositions. Hence, the first-person narrative situation is characterized by the “identity of the realm where the narrator and his point of view are located with the realm in which the characters are at home”, the authorial narrative situation has external perspective dominance and the figural narrative situation has the mode of the reflector that dominates.

According to Manfred Jahn, action refers to ‘the sum of events constituting a story-line on a narrative’s level of fiction’. He distinguished the events in the ‘primary story line’ from the ‘external’ events categorized in pre-history (the events took place before the primary story line begins) and after-history (the events take place after the primary story line ends).

Story analysis examines the chronological scale and coherence of the story (chronological sequence of events). There is no rule that demands from the narrator to depict the events in linear chronological order; hence, the story can bounce back and forth in time.

According to Livia Polanyi, tellability stimulates culturally, socially and personally interest. She emphasizes that tellability refers to ‘what is worth telling, to whom and under what circumstances’.

Manfred Jahn distinguished two major narrative tenses: the narrative past and the narrative present and argues that ‘a text’s use of tenses relates to and depends on the current point in time of the narrator’s speech act’ and ‘the tense used in a character’s discourse depends on the current point in time in the story’s action’.

Time analysis has three main categories: order, duration and frequency. The order studies the chronological aspect of the time depicted in texts, duration measures the time of a text by splitting it in ‘story time’ and ‘discourse time’ and frequency relates the number of time an event took place in the story to the number of times it is narrated in the text.

Narrative modes are methods that the writer uses in order to depict a story’s episodes. According to Gerald Prince, the extent of narratorial meditation characterizes the two modes of presentation: ‘showing’ (mimesis) and ‘telling’ (digesis). In the first mode there is little or no narratorial meditation, overtness or presence. In the latter mode the narrator is in overt control of action presentation, characterization and point-of-view arrangement.

Setting and fictional space was a category that for a long time was subordinate to the time category because according to Lessing the literature is a ‘temporal’ art as opposed to ‘spatial’ arts like painting and sculpture. After Bakhtin drew attention to the relation between time and space, theorists have developed their theories regarding the matter. Thus narrative or literary space is generally the environment that physically exist and where characters move or live in and actions take place and the setting of a literary work refers to the actions’ environment viewed from socio-historico-geographical point of view.

Characterization is the literary device that investigates a subject (character) through his or her eyes or the one of the others and that establishes physical attributes and psychological traits of the subject. This process can be made either direct/explicit (where a narrator or other characters tell the reader how a character is like) or indirect/implicit (where the author lets the reader to see how a character is by depicting his or her thoughts, actions, words etc.).

According to Monika Fludernik the various ways of representing speech range from the summarized and concise version of what characters say in ‘(direct) speech’ report to ‘indirect speech’ and ‘free indirect discourse’. Regarding this matter Dolezel distinguished between the narrator’s discourse (summary) and the character’s discourse. The representation of speech and the representation of thought are very tightly bond due to the fact that a part of speech is the verbalization of thought, so the latter have the same categories of the former one: ‘direct thought’, ‘free indirect thought’ and ‘indirect thought’.

Stream of consciousness is a term coined by the American psychologist William James that denotes the different state of mental process and its level of awareness. In literature the term is used generally for the textual depiction of mental processes trying to capture every single phase, no matter how random, irregular and incoherent, of the mental development of a character.

2.2. NARRATION IN FALLEN BY LAUREN KATE

First and foremost, we have to clearly understand what the process of narration involves. Hence, according to dictionaries ‘narrative’ means:

‘A story or a description of a series of events or a particular way of explaining and understanding the events’ (Cambridge dictionary online)

‘A spoken or written account of connected events; a story; the narrated part of a literary work, as distinct from dialogue; the practice or art of telling stories; a representation of a particular situation or process in such a way as to reflect or conform to an overarching set of aims or values.’ (Oxford dictionary online)

‘The representation in art of an event or story.’ (Merriam-Webster dictionary online)

‘A story or an account of something that has happened.’ (Macmillan dictionary online)

According to Manfred Jahn, narrative means: ‘a form of communication which presents a sequence of events caused and experienced by characters’ (N1.2.).

2.2.1. Voice

When referring to verbs, their voice is either active or passive. Generally speaking, the voice represents the relation of the verb’s subject and the action expressed by the verb. Narratologically speaking the voice of the text is the voice which narrates it.

‘The voice of the narrative discourse’ (Genette1980:186) is the narrator. ‘He or she is the agent who establish communicative contact with an addressee (the ‘narratee’), who manages the exposition (Jahn N3.1.1.) and decides the point of view and the order of the events of the story.

But how can we refer to the narrator? How can we establish who is the narrator?

There are two types of narrators: homodiegetic narrator and heterodiegetic narrator. The first one is referring to himself or herself in first-person pronoun which means that he or she narrates a story or an event of personal experience. The latter is the one who narrates other’s stories and can or cannot be part of the stories himself. It is not a rule that a story must have only one voice, hence one narrator.

Chapter one of Fallen begins with the presentation of Luce: “Luce barged into the fluorescent-lit lobby of the Sword & Cross School ten minutes later than she should have. A barrel-chested attendant with ruddy cheeks and a clipboard clamped under an iron bicep was already giving orders – which meant Luce was already behind”. (Fallen: 9)

From this first paragraph we can see that Luce is referred to in third person. It seems like someone is watching Luce entering in a lobby but at the same time that someone (the narrator) gives further explanations for us to understand what is Luce’s position (‘ten minutes later than she should have’ or ‘she was already behind’). Not far from this we have two other voices. When Luce has to give her cell phone away she reads two text messages. The narrator helps us by telling that one was from Callie (Luce’s teenager friend) and the other was from her parents. This way, when we read them in the book we can assign them voices. Throughout the novel there are some exchanges of written signed notes that make us assign them different voices because the narrator provides us information about the ones who wrote them. There is also some information from the characters’ files which are neutral in matter of voice because they are written in formal language. Only in Torment we have a different narrator, Bill the gargoyle who turns out to be Lucifer. He narrates historical events while travelling with Luce in her past lives.

Now, we can say that the narrator of the Fallen series is a heterodiegetic narrator and is not one of the characters even though it switches roles with some of them. To establish the narrator’s voice, we have to apply ‘Lanser’s rule’ which says that ‘in the absence of any text internal clues as to the narrator’s sex, use the pronoun appropriate to the author’s sex’ (Jahn N3.1.3.). So we will refer to the narrator as ‘she’. Hence we have a woman narrating Lucinda’s story.

The presence of the narrator signaled in the text can be interpreted as ‘overt’ or ‘covert’. We talk about an overt narrator when he or she refers to him or herself using first-person pronoun, when he or she intrude in the text making commentaries. The latter case is met when the narrator uses the eyes of an internal focalizer to see the action of the story. Hence, according to this theory, in Fallen series there is a covert heterodiegetic narrator that uses Lucinda perspective to narrate the action. But she is not the only internal focalizer that appears in the text.

Manfred Jahn, in N3.1.9, mentions Bakhtin’s theory according to which there are ‘two basic voice effects that can characterize a narrative text’. Monologism is the effect created when all voices sound more or less the same creating a ‘monologic’ text and dialogism, which is the effect created when a text contains a diversity of authorial, narratorial, and characterial voices creating significant contrasts and tensions. Dialogism leads to a polyphonic or dialogic text and it is also the characteristic most suitable for the series.

There are two concepts mentioned by theorists and interpreters related to dialogic text: heteroglossia, ‘a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially a novel’ (Merriam-Webster dictionary online) and alterity, ‘the theme or effect of otherness or strangeness’ (Jahn N3.1.10.), for example a slang used by a specifically group of adolescences.

Heteroglossia is preeminent in Fallen series, especially in the third book, Passion. This is the book of Lucinda’s past lives, her quest travelling through different cultures and ages. This aspect has been exemplary studied by Lauren who managed to transcend successfully borders of time and space. In terms of language she adapted very well each particularity of the eras. For example, in Chapter Six: Helston, England June 18, 1854, Lauren Kate was extraordinary in depicting a 19th Century language particularities and an époque culture:

Dear Mr. Grigori,

Since we happened upon each other in the dressmaker’s the other day, I cannot get you out of my mind. Will you meet me in the gazebo this evening at nine o’clock? I’ll be waiting.

Yours eternally,

Lucinda Biscoe (142)

This note was written by Lucinda’s past self. As everyone believes, she had a ‘decent’ death in this era. In each life Luce emerged she was named differently and behaved and talked according to each era, but she also found out she knew many languages. In Moscow, Russia she was Luschka, in Milan, Italy she was Lucia, in Tahiti she was Lulu, in Versaille, France she was princess Lys, in Mesoamerica she was Ix Cuat, in China she was Lu Xin and in Egipt she was Layla. In this book the internal focalizer (Lucinda) is switched in some of the chapters with Daniel’s point of view. This way we acknowledge his eternal pain. In one chapter he tries to kill himself, even though he knows angels cannot suicide, and in another chapter he takes a long sleep next to Lucinda’s tomb. At the end of the book Bill’s point of view is expressed, although vaguely. Bill turns out to be Lucifer, The Morning Star and he has a plan to destroy six millennia of history.

2.1.2. Focalization (mood)

If referring to verbs, mood expresses verbs’ categories. A verb can express a fact (indicative), a command (imperative), a possibility (interrogative) or a wish (subjunctive). ‘Metaphorically, Genette lets mood capture “degrees of affirmation” and “different points of view from which […] the action is looked at” (1980 [1972]: 161)’. (qtd Jahn N3.2.)

If in the first part we asked ‘Who speaks?’, now we should ask ‘Who sees?’

According to Manfred Jahn, ‘functionally, focalization is a means of selecting and restricting narrative information, of seeing events and states of affairs from somebody’s point of view, or foregrounding the focalizing agent, and of creating an empathetical or ironical view on the focalizer’. (N3.2.2.)

In Fallen series we distinguish a certain pattern of focalization called ‘variable focalization’. This means that different episodes of the story are depicted through the eyes of two or more focalizers. As already mentioned, the story is seen through the eyes of Lucinda Price, Daniel Grigori and Lucifer, but also through the eyes of Miles and Shelby, Arriane and Roland in the novella collection Fallen in love.

Through Luce’s eyes we witness the faith of an adolescent girl who has secrets to discover and dilemmas to struggle with. The outstanding problem she has to surmount is discovering her with little or no help. We see an inner battle in which good/love must win. We perceive her feelings and experiences she has at Sword & Cross School, Shoreline School, through her past lives, in Heaven and eventually in her last mortal life.

Daniel gives us a perspective of love and loss, an eternal curse and the faith of angels. Mostly through him we experience angels’ lives. He is the pure incarnation of love. He chose it at the Roll Call, and will choose it all over again no matter what the consequences are. In fact, he gives up his angelic being in order to be born as a mortal and live his great love, without the assurance that in his mortal life he will meet Luce.

Bill is giving us history lessons and further explanations about the events of the past. He is the guide trough Luce’s quest. He is in search of the only soul that matters in order to decline the balance of good and evil which will make his power be greater than the Throne’s (God’s). He almost manages to do that when Luce thinks of killing her soul.

2.2.3. Narrative situation

The term of narrative situation is used by both Genette and Stanzel ‘to refer to a more complex arrangements and patterns of narrative features’. (Jahn N3.3.) On one hand, Genette uses in his system subtypes of voice (narration) and mood (focalization) in considering different combinations. On the other hand, Stanzel’s interest in prototypical (‘ideal-typical’) configurations arranged on a ‘typological circle’ give more interpretive implications.

Stanzel uses in his system complex frameworks that aim at underlining typical patterns of narrative features, counting characteristics of relationship (involvement), reliability, distance, knowledge, pragmatics, voice and focalization.

My focus regards the figural narrative story. It is the story that is seen through the eyes of a character. This supposes a highly covert narrator. Frequently, a figural text is distorting or restraining the view of events. Due to the covert narrator, figural stories usually begin with little or no exposition but with an attempt to describe an unmediated view on a character’s mind. This is the case of Fallen series.

There are other four important elements of figural narrative which I must pay attention to.

The first one is the usage of a referentless pronoun which identifies the text’s internal focalizer and often indicates the covertness of the narrator:

He held the paper at arm’s length to assess his progress. It was hard, working without her in front of him, but then, he never could sketch in her presence. Since he had arrived from London – no, since he had first seen her – he’d had to be careful always to keep her at distance. (Prologue of Fallen: 1-2)

The second one, similarly to the first, is a ‘familiarizing article’ which presents new information for the reader in the form of given information:

He [referentless pronoun identifying the reflector] stood and turned, the [familiarizing article] sketches left behind on the [familiarizing article] leather chair. And there she [referentless article] was, pressed against the [familiarizing article] ruby velvet curtain in her plain white dressing gown. (Fallen: 3)

The third element is called ‘slice of life story/novel’. It appears when a brief episode of a character’s live is restricted in the time novel to a day, an hour or a moment. In Torment, for example, Lauren uses this technique to count down eighteen days of Luce’s life.

The fourth and last element, ‘the mirror trick’ is probably the only way in depiction physical traits of the reflector maintaining covert narratorial description:

[…] the glimpse Luce caught of herself in the full-length mirror behind the door.

She quickly looked away, knowing all too well what she’d find in the reflection. Her face looking pinched and tired. Her hazel eyes flecked with stress. Her hair like her family’s hysterical toy poodle’s fur after a rain storm. (Fallen: 67)

Beside typical models of narrative situations there are also ‘violations of standard schemes’, called by Genette ‘alterations’. (Jahn N3.3.15.)

An alteration is a momentarily shift in the mode of presentation that surpass the border of standard expectations associated with the current narrative situation. One of the main types of alteration makes our case. Called paralipsis, this alteration consists in an ‘infraction caused by omitting crucial information; saying too little; distortive censoring a character’s thought, or generally pretending to be restricted to ordinary human limitations’. (Jahn N3.3.15.)

2.3. ACTION, STORY ANALYSIS, TELLABILITY

Literary speaking, ‘action’ refers to ‘the sum of events constituting a story-line on a narrative’s level of fiction’. (Jahn N4.1.)

Often, there is a primary story line with distinct elements from other events, called ‘external’. The external events take place before or after the actual story providing the so-called ‘pre-history’ and ‘after-history’. In Fallen series case we have the prologues, epilogues and bonus chapters of the books. As primary story line we have the mysterious destiny of Lucinda Price of saving the history from being erased by the means of true and pure love.

Action units usually group into ‘episodes’. An episode is a group of action units consisting of three parts: an exposition, a complication and a resolution. Hence a story can be described both as a sequence of action units and as a sequence of episodes.’ (Jahn N4.4)

Freytag’s famous ‘triangle’ of narrative trajectory fits perfectly with the definition of episodes.

Barth gave a sufficient explanation of this scheme in Lost in the Funhouse: 99:

AB represents the exposition, B the introduction of the conflict, BC the ‘rising action’, C the climax, or turn of the action, CD the denouement, or resolution of the conflict. While there is no reason regarding this pattern as an absolute necessity, like many other conventions it became conventional because great numbers of people over many years learned by trial and error that it was effective […].

Regarding my analysis, I can say that AB is Daniel’s reluctance in meeting Luce – they talk for the first time after 178 pages – and a general presentation of the heroine Lucinda Price. B is signaled by Luce’s search for discovery, BC represents Luce’s acknowledgement, C is the second Roll Call in front of the Throne/God – interesting that God is depicted as a woman, and CD stands for a last mortal life for the lovers to live their story.

E. M. Foster in Aspects of novel was the one to determine the difference between ‘story’ and ‘plot’. There are three action-related aspects that one should distinguish: ‘the sequence of events as ordered in the discourse; the action as it happened in its actual chronological sequence (this is the story); and the story’s casual structure (this is the plot)’ (Jahn N4.7).

If the story is the chronological sequence of events, then story analysis examines the chronological scale and coherence of the action sequence. It is not a rule to have to present a story in the linear chronological order; it can bounce back and forth in time. The merit of the story is that makes us wonder ‘What happens next?’. I have to admit that when I read the novels I asked myself this question many times. Lauren Kate excelled in making the story catch your attention so that you cannot move on until you find out what happens next. Her open endings for the first three books left me wondering how the next novel would be like.

The plot being the logic and cause of the story’s structure makes us wonder ‘Why does this happened?’. The plot is based on the principle of cause and effect. Fallen series is full of this because someone did that other things happened. I can say that there is a mosaic plot in which the casual coherence is not immediately obvious: we do not know immediately why Daniel is pushing Luce away but we come to find out that their love is her cause of death.

The first book begins with an opening chapter entitled In the Beginning set in Helston, England 1854 were two unknown characters meet in a room. They are in love. Their love is being threatened by some strange shadows. It is implied that the shadows took her. He knew what was coming but she did not. She just disappeared. This actually was one of Luce’s deaths. Her death was an effect of an older cause, unknown yet. Chapter One, Perfect Strangers introduce us to Luce, a teenager sent to the reforming school Sword & Cross. She was sent there because she was seeing strange shadows and she was blamed to have started the fire that killed Trevor. He died right after he kissed her. She believed that it was her fault and that the shadows had something to do with. Throughout the novel she meets some friends and some enemies. She meets three angels, Daniel, Arriane and Gabrielle ‘Gabe’, three demons Cameron ‘Cam’, Roland and Molly, three mortals, Mr. Cole (a teacher), Pennyweather ‘Penn’ and Todd and the most powerful of the Twenty-Four Elders of Zhsmaelim, Miss Sophia.

Todd sacrificed and died in a fire to save Luce and Miss Sophia murdered Penn while a war between angels was fought in the cemetery. In this life Luce was not baptized and so it has a chance to break the eternal curse that makes her die when she gets too close to the truth. She cannot be helped very much by the others so she has to find out most of things for herself.

But after she found out that Daniel was an angel she somewhat refused to believe it was true. He told her then about their past lives:

“And yet you know in your heart it’s true.” He clasped his knees and looked her deeply in the eye. “You knew it when I followed you to the top of Corcovado in Rio, when you wanted to see the statue up close. You knew it when I carried you two sweaty miles to the River Jordan after you got sick outside Jerusalem. I told you not to eat all those dates. You knew it when you were my nurse in that Italian hospital during the First World War, and before that when I hid in your cellar during the tsar’s purge of St. Petersburg. When I scaled the turret of your castle in Scotland during the Reformation, and danced you around and around at the king’s coronation ball at Versailles. You were the only woman dressed in black. […] You turn up everywhere, always, and sooner or later you sense all the things I’ve just told you. (Fallen: 357)

The book ends with an epilogue from which we came to know about an eighteen days’ truce that Daniel made with Cam in order to protect Luce and leaves us wondering what is next. Lauren also gave us the prologue from Torment in which the length of the truce is explained:

It was a longstanding celestial tradition for a truce to last eighteen days. In Heaven, eighteen was the luckiest, most life-affirming number, the number by which all groups and categories were broken down. In some mortal languages, eighteen had come to mean life – though in this case, for Luce, it could just as easily mean death. (Torment Prologue)

Torment begins with the prologue above mentioned. Luce was hunted not only by the Twenty-Four Elders of Zhsmaelim but also by the Outcasts: „a sect of spineless, waffling angels, shunned by both Heaven and Hell„ (7). Daniel put her to a flight to California where she was going to be safe at Shoreline School.

The first chapter starts with the countdown of the eighteen-days truce. It is basically one-day car drive to the Shoreline School in Fort Bragg – a real city on the coast of California. She was supposed to stay there a few weeks as it she did not know about the length of the truce. She tried to find out more about the past but Daniel refused to give her detail being afraid she would ‘spontaneously combust’.

In Torment Luce meets Shelby, her roommate at Shoreline. She is a nephilim, the daughter of angel Semihazah (a Watcher) and a mortal woman. She also meets Miles, another nephilim who falls in love with her – but he ends up with Shelby in Fallen in Love. Dawn and Jasmine are two girls that claim to know Luce’s story. Dawn’s mother told her bed time stories about Luce and Daniel’s love story. She meets Francesca, an angel and Steven, a demon, a pair of teachers from Shoreline. And we ‘meet’ Luce’s best friend from home, Callie and Luce’s parents, Henry and Doreen Price.

In the last chapter we learn that Lucinda Price, as her name says, is the price that Outcasts need to pay in order to reenter in Heaven. After the great battle between Outcasts and allied angels and demons from Luce’s backyard on Thanksgiving Day, she stepped into an announcer and disappeared in history searching for some answers. This leaves us again wondering on what happens next. Lauren kindly gave us a bonus chapter about Daniel’s first sighting of Luce at Sword & Cross. This left me without breathing. His feelings and states and thoughts about everyone and everything are just pure sincerity and deepness.

The prologue of Passion describes a meeting invoked by an unnamed man with great power. By means of invitation the ‘guests’ were Sophia, Lyrica and Vivina, three out of the Twenty-Four Elders – the ones that still believe in their cause, Phillip, the head of the Outcasts and a nameless Outcast girl. Cam was invited too but he did not show up. The man whom everyone feared ordered them to stay back because he was going after Luce. He will impersonate Bill the gargoyle who claims to have the answers Luce needed. He will be like a guide in Luce’s quest in finding the truth. He turns out to be Lucifer.

The first Chapter moves us to Moscow in 1941 in WW II. Here is where Luce begins her journey. She believes that only the curse bonds her and Daniel but she learns that their love is true. She travels back in time till the Heaven’s Gate where the fall took place. The book is divided between what Luce learns about the past and what Daniel remembers to have experienced in past. He follows her trough the announcers but is always a step behind her. The great plan of Lucifer is discovered – he plans to erase six or seven millennia of history and restart from when the fall took place. He needs one more soul to be more powerful than Heaven and he hopes to break Daniel’s heart by deceiving Luce into killing her soul and so Daniel could make his choice and side with him.

The ending of the novel recount us the choices in Heaven before the fall. Some angels chose Heaven and some chose Lucifer, but some didn’t get to choose – Daniel chose love and so he was cursed by Lucifer and the Throne agreed with this punishment. Now there were the present Daniel and his past self. The present Daniel asked the Throne for mercy which was granted to him:

If one day her soul comes into being without the weight of sacrament having chosen a side for her, then she shall be free to grow and choose for herself, to reenact this moment. To escape the ordained punishment. And in so doing, to put the final rest to this love that you claim supersedes the rights of Heaven and family; her choice then will be your redemption or the final seal of your punishment. That is all that can be done. (Torment: 406)

It seems that everything comes to pieces. With this escape window Luce and only she can break the curse. In this lifetime she was not baptized so she can choose for herself.

The epilogue depicts their returning to the present, Georgia 2009 and the reunion of the allies, angels, demons and nephilims. Lauren also gave a very brief description of what Luce has been through:

After Daniel had first told her about their past lives, after the ugly battle in the cemetery, after Miss Sophia had morphed into something evil and Penn had been killed and all the angels had told Luce that her life was suddenly in danger, she has slept here, alone, for three delirious days. (Passion: 414)

The ending again is an open one that makes us wonder if they will succeed in the greatest battle of all. The tricky thing is that nobody remembers where the fall took place. The Outcasts will help them in their war.

Rapture opens with a prologue. Daniel tries to remember where they fell. Unfortunately, in his mind come ‘the haunting words of Lucinda’s curse’ – they were cursed by Lucifer:

She will die… She will never pass out of adolescence – will die again and again and again at precisely the moment when she remembers your choice.

You will never truly be together. (p. 2)

Chapter one gives us a better understanding of the book that Daniel wrote ‘several hundred year ago’, entitled The Watchers: Myth in Medieval Europe. It looks like the book contains the key in finding the place where the angels had landed after they fell. In order to find the place, they need to gather ‘relics created after our Fall, physical records of our history that mankind found and kept as treasures, gifts – they think – from a god they don’t understand.’ (p. 26) Then they have to take the things to Mount Sinai because “the channels between the Throne and the Earth are closest there” (26). They have only nine days to solve the puzzle and save the history. Nine mortal days took the angels to fall ‘through multiple dimensions and trillions of miles’. (p.27) They split up in order to find faster the relics: Daniel and Luce went to Venice, Roland, Annabelle and Arriane went to Vienna and Molly, Cam and Gabbe went to Avalon.

A new character is introduced in this novel: Paulina ‘Dee’ Serenity Bisenger, a transeternal that proves to be the second relic The Desideratum, the desired one. Even though she is Sophia’s sister she helps them.

In their adventures she discovered more and more of who she was. She was an angel, the angel for which Lucifer invented love, the angel which became Lucifer’s Evening Light:

Of all the pairs the Throne endorsed

None rose to burn as bright

As Lucifer, the Morning Star,

And Lucinda, his Evening Light (382)

She was the reason why the fall began anyway. But she was miserable with Lucifer and she fell for the kind Daniel. Their love was pure. She spread her wings:

They were luminous, buoyant, impossibly light, made of the finest, most reflective empyrean matter. From tip to tip, her wingspan was maybe thirty feet, but they felt vast, endless. She felt no more pain. When her fingers curled around the base of them behind her shoulders, they were several inches thick and plush. They were silver, yet not silver, like the surface of a mirror. They were inconceivable; they were inevitable. (366)

She was the only one that could make Lucifer understand that he will never have her soul. She begged him to stop and when he did not want to hear more the Throne stopped the fall. Lauren’s feminism enters in stage and tells us that the Throne / God / the Creator is a woman:

They stretched, glittering like pulled sugar, into a head, a torso, leg

arms.

Hands.

A nose.

A mouth.

Until the light became a person.

A woman.

The Throne in human form. […] She was staggeringly beautiful, her hair spun silver and gold. Her eyes, blue like a crystal ocean, exuded the

power to see everything, everywhere. (412-413)

God said the pair has had enough suffering. She will grant them to live their love on one condition: “There is a price. You may have each other, but you may have nothing else. If you choose once and for all, you must give up your angelic natures. You will be born again, made anew as mortals” (420). They chose their love even though no one guaranteed they will meet in their last mortal life.

The book ends seventeen years later somehow like the beginning of Fallen. The last chapter, Perfect Strangers depicts a seventeen-year old Luce during her accommodation time at Emerald College. There she meets Daniel who has the feeling he has met her before. The open ending is given by the line: “You just – you look so familiar. I could have sworn we’ve met somewhere before” (443). But there is the epilogue which tells us that an older Miles and his wife Shelby who was pregnant, and three angels, Roland, Arriane and Annabelle were watching the first time Luce and Daniel met. “Luce and Daniel fell in love for the first – and the last – time” (448). The novel about Cam, Unforgiven, is somehow predictable as Shelby does not get an answer when she asks the others if anyone heard from him.

First developed in conversational storytelling analysis, tellability is the concept referring to what makes a story worth telling. It is a notion applied strictly to the concept of story, cleared above, since it refers to it.

Tellability is a must of the stories. They need to demonstrate that they have a point. Worst that can happen to an author is that his or her story to be perceived as pointless. Of course, the point is given by the cultural context of the narrative event. A story achieves tellability when it reaches the moment in which from the ordinary and predictable bursts the unexpected and unusual. According to Livia Polanyi, tellability stimulates culturally, socially and personally interest. She emphasizes that ‘stories whether fictional or non-fictional, formal or oft-told, or spontaneously generated, can have as their point only culturally salient material generally agreed upon by members of the producer’s culture to be self-evidently important and true’(Hühn: 450). In connection with tellability she raises the basic question ‘What is worth telling, to whom and under what circumstances?’

Applied to the Fallen series, the answer would be: is worth telling the story of fallen angels to either people interested in religion or in love or to both, under a marvelous cosmic love story.

2.4. TENSE, TIME AND NARRATIVE MODES

2.4.1. Narrative tenses

The major narrative tenses are narrative past and narrative present. According to Manfred Jahn, “normally, a text’s use of tenses relates to and depends on the current point in time of the narrator’s speech act. Naturally, the tense used in a character’s discourse depends on the current point in time in the story’s action” (N5.1.1.).

“Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape. The look in them was feline, half determined and half tentative – all trouble. Yes, they were just right, those eyes” (Fallen: 1). “Back inside, Luce ducked into the girls’ room just as the door was swinging open” (Fallen: 57). “But she was confused by what Francesca had said” (Torment: 49). ‘Steven had said that sometimes the Announcers distorted what was real” (Torment: 348). “It was very dark, but her eyes began to adjust” (Passion, p.84). “Daniel was lost. The Scale had been a nuisance to him ever since the War in Heaven, but at least their motives were transparent” (Passion: 358). “Callie scrambled from under the covers, dashed around the bed, and flung herself into Luce’s arms” (Rapture: 17). “The Nephilim had not seen the angels in more than a dozen years” (Rapture: 446). The full verbs of the sentences are either in past tense or in past progressive/continuous or past perfect or past perfect progressive hence the narrative tense of Fallen series is narrative past. We can also consider Fallen series as being ‘retrospective narration’. This type of narration ‘produces a past-tense narrative whose events and action units have all happened in the past’ (Jahn N5.1.4.).

2.4.2. Time analysis

The first question related to time is ‘When?’ which indicates the order or chronology of the story. As in Fallen series the story follows an unnatural sequence of events, we deal with anachrony.

Anachrony refers to ‘a deviation from strict chronology in a story’ (Jahn, N5.2.1). There are two main types: flashbacks and flashforwards. Flashbacks, also called retrospection or analepsis, refer to events that took place before the current NOW of the story. Like the prologue of Fallen in which the events took place in 1854, 155 years before the beginning of the story in 2009. Flashforwards, also called anticipation or prolepsis, present a future event that might happen. They can be external if involve ‘an event happening after the end of the primary story line’, objective or certain anticipation when present ‘an event that actually occur’, subjective or uncertain anticipation when ‘is just a character’s vision of a likely future event.’ (Jahn N5.2.1.)

Here is a brief classification of anachrony:

‘Objective anachrony’ if the presented events consist in facts and ‘subjective anachronies’ if they are ‘a character’s visions of the future or memories of the past’. (Jahn, N5.2.1)

‘Repetitive anachronies’ if the events recall already narrated situations and ‘completive anachronies’ if the events presented are omitted from the primary story line.

‘External anachronies’ relate to events that happened before or after the primary story line and ‘internal anachronies’ fall within the primary story line.

“The conversation she’d had with Arriane in the Vegas IHOP came back to her again: In the end, it was going to come down to one powerful angel choosing a side. When that happened, the scale would finally tip.” (Rapture: 418) [repetitive anachrony, subjective and internal flashback and flashforward]

“Millennia ago, it had taken angels nine mortal days to fall from Heaven down to Earth. [external flashback] Since Lucifer’s second fall would follow the same trajectory, Luce, Daniel, and the others had just nine days to stop him.” (Rapture: 9) [objective, completive and internal flashforward].

The second question related to time is ‘How long?’ and refers to ‘duration’. In order to determine a length in time we have to distinguish first between ‘story time’ and ‘discourse time’. Discourse time is the total time an average reader needs to read the whole text. Number of words, lines, or pages of a text can determine the length of the discourse time. Fallen series has a discourse time of 2341 (two thousand three hundred forty-one) pages (and estimated 65 hours of reading), but it has a story time of six or seven millennia.

“The Nephilim had not seen the angels in more than a dozen years. Though Roland, Arriane, and Annabelle bore no physical signs of this passage of time, the Nephilim had aged.” (Rapture: 446) [the discourse time of two lines contains the story time of seventeen years]

Related to this connection / distinction between discourse time and story time are some others connections that are worth mentioning: isochrony, speed-up (acceleration), slowdown (deceleration), ellipsis (cut or omission) and pause. Isochrony refers to a narrative instance when discourse time is approximately equal with the story time. Such situations are dialogues and detailed action presentations. Speed-up or acceleration happens when the story time is much larger than the episode’s discourse time. This technique is used mostly in ‘summary’ mode of presentation. The opposite of this method is the slowdown or deceleration. Although slowdown exists theoretically, it is rarely used. Ellipsis (cut or omission) occurs when the story time passes even though it is not represented in the text. Genette distinguished two types of ellipsis: definite where time’s passing is noted by the phrases ‘two weeks’ or ‘four years’ and indefinite where time’s passing is expressed through structures like ‘many years’ or ‘long years’. The ellipsis is a literary device that somewhat cover the story in mystery. In the Fallen there are many examples of ellipsis, such as in Torment Luce has to stay at Shoreline School a ‘few weeks’ even though we, the readers, know that the truce is of eighteen days and in Passion Luce and the others are travelling through millennia of history. Pause is the method used in description or comment narrative modes when the discourse time passes but the story time stops and no action takes place. Fallen series is full of descriptive passages that lets the reader ‘to breathe’:

“There was a decent-sized window that slid open to leave in some less stifling night air. And past the steel bars, the view of the moonlight commons was actually sort of interesting, if she didn’t think too hard about the graveyard that lay beyond it.” (Fallen: 66)

“Luce sat up in bed and looked around. The room was a little cramped, but it was nicely appointed, with light-colored hardwood floors; a working fireplace; a microwave; to deep, wide desks; and built-in book-shelves that doubled as a ladder to what Luce now realized it was the top bunk.” (Torment: 40)

“Up ahead were mourners, black-clad and somber, pressed so tightly together for warmth that they looked like a single mass of grief. Except for one person who stood behind the group and off to one side. He hung his bare blond head.” (Passion: 175)

“The sun was bright and the air smelled like lavender and river water. The bridge was made of big white stones, held up by long arches underneath. There was a small stone chapel with a single tower attached along one side near the entrance of the bridge. It held a sign that read CHAPELLE DE SAINT NICHOLAS.” (Rapture: 236)

“Not a day went by, these thousand years, that Roland did not regret the way he had ended things with Rosalind. He has designed his life around that regret: walls and walls and walls, each one with its own impenetrable façade.” (Fallen in love: 75)

“Before the Fall, angels’ wings were made of empyreal light, all of them perfect, one pair indistinguishable from the next. In the era since, their wings have become expressive of their personalities, their mistakes and impulses. The fallen angels who had given their allegiance to Lucifer bore golden wings. Those who had returned to the fold of Heaven bore the Throne’s hint of silver throughout their fibers.” (Unforgiven: 6)

The third question related to time is ‘How often’ and indicates frequency. This time characteristic points out ‘a narrator’s strategies of summative or repetitive telling’ (Jahn N5.2.4.) Basically, frequency relates the number of time an event took place in the story to the number of times it is narrated in the text. Jahn distinguishes three main types of frequency: singulative, repetitive and iterative telling. Singulative telling occurs when the narrator recounts once what happened once. Repetitive telling refers to the narrator is recounting several times a singular event and iterative telling occurs when the narrator recounts once what happened many times. According to some other scholars there might be a forth type of frequency called multiple telling and it refers to ‘a repeated event narrated the same number of time it occurs’.

Lauren Kate uses these devices in her series. She recounts once in her collection of novella Fallen in love three love stories somewhat isolated by the rest of the books. Also in Rapture there are some episodes mentioned only once. Repetitive telling is used by Lauren to help us recall in a certain book some key facts from the other books. In Rapture Luce remembers Penny’s death (she died in Fallen) and her travelling from Passion. Also in Passion Lauren tells us briefly that Cam loved a girl named Lilith and he has become dark after losing her. The subject will be expanded in Unforgiven. The third type of frequency it is clearly depicted in the recounting of Luce and Daniel’s love story.

2.4.3. Narrative modes

Narrative modes are methods that the writer uses in order to depict a story’s episodes. These methods derive from the relationships in time, especially duration and frequency. An important step in recognizing and apply these techniques is to distinguish between two modes of presentation: ‘showing’ (mimesis) and ‘telling’ (digesis). In order to explain these two modes of presentation I will use the reader’s point of view, which also makes my case. The showing or mimesis puts the reader in the role of a witness of the narrative events, and telling or digesis keep the reader in its place as he or she ‘reads’ the events from an overt-controlling narrator point of view.

“These globes…,” Cam said slowly. “They represent all the different Hells you’ve trapped her in.”

“And every time she dies in one of them,” Lucifer said, she ends back here, where she is reminded anew of your betrayal.” (Unforgiven: 31) [showing mode]

“The next of her day was long and dreary, but at least she got a break from Cam. She didn’t see him at lunch or in the hallways or in any of her other classes.” (Unforgiven: ) [showing mode]

Beside ‘scene’ and ‘summary’ which are the major narrative modes there are ‘description’ and ‘comment’ which are secondary or supportive. The latter two are called supportive because a story cannot be narrated only by using them alone.

According to Jahn ‘scene’ or ‘scenic presentation’ is “a showing mode which presents a continuous stream of detailed action events” (N5.3.1.). Its characteristic in time-duration category is isochrony, meaning that the story time and discourse time are approximately equal. The cases in which isochrony occurs are usually the dialogues or detailed action presentation. ‘Summary’, the other main narrative mode, is based on telling mode and sums-up, in a speed-up way, a sequence of events based on theme or order.

“At midnight, it would be Tuesday, December 1. Five days had passed since she’d returned from the Announcers, which meant they were past the mid-point of the nine-day period over which the angels fell to Earth. Lucifer and all their earlier selves were more than halfway through the Fall.” (Rapture: 240)

‘Description’ is the supportive telling mode the narrator uses to introduce a character or to depict a setting. Usually the verbs used in descriptive sentences are the so-called ‘stative’ verbs like ‘be’, ‘have’, ‘need’, ‘understand’, ‘recognize’, ‘remember’, ‘wish’ etc. These phrases use also many adjectives.

“Because he was mad at her or she was mad at him. Because her body had just been through so much, in and out of Announcers, across state lines, into the recent past and right back here. Because her heart and her head were tangled up and confused, and being close tto Daniel mucked everything up even more.” (Torment: 323)

“He could not remember what came next, could only dimly recall how the great light had flickered, and the harshest cold had swept over the Meadow, and the trees in the Orchard had tumbled into one another, causing waves of furious disturbance that were felt throughout the cosmos, tsunamis of cloudsoil that blinded the angels and crushed their glory.” (Rapture: 3)

Also a supportive telling mode, ‘comment’ refers to the narrator’s explanation or judgments toward characters or events. This technique comes as a ‘pause’ in the narration. As Fallen series has a covert heterodiegetic narrator this situation is not found in it.

2.5. SETTING AND FICTIONAL SPACE

Lessing argued that literature belonged to temporal arts in opposition with the special arts like painting and sculpture. Many scholars followed this theory and so the literary space was seen as inferior to the literary time and chronology. Bakhtin was the first to draw attention to the tight relationship between time and space in literature. Stanzel claimed that the space cannot be fully depicted in literature. He argued that it is impossible and probably very boring to describe a room with its entire interior to the ‘smallest visible detail’. There are many opinions about space in literature. Some scholars use the literal concept and others the metaphorical one. Many spatial concepts established in literary and cognitive theory are considered to be metaphorically because they do not refer to the physical existence of space.

Narrative / literary space is generally the environment that physically exist and where characters move or live in and actions take place. But according to Marie-Laure Ryan in her article entitled Space the narrative space is divided in other smaller categories: spatial frames, setting, story space, narrative (or story) world and narrative universe.

Spatial frames are isolated locations that can change where events take place. A text can have multiple contained spatial frames hierarchically systematized (ex. a room is part of a house which is also part of a town etc.). Examples of spatial frames in Fallen series are Luce’s rooms at Sword & Cross and at Shoreline, her parents’ house from Dover, the graveyard from Sword & Cross, the church in Moscow, the hospital in Milan, the beach in Tahiti etc.

Setting refers to the actions’ environment viewed from socio-historico-geographical point of view. Compared to spatial frames the setting is somewhat a more stable category which belongs to the whole text. For instance, the setting of Fallen series is 21st-century America. Story space contains not only all the spatial frames but also all the locations relevant for the plot, even though they do not serve as scene for the actions. In the series the story space includes beside the already mentioned spatial frames also Heaven and Hell.

Narrative (or story) world is based on the reader’s imagination and cultural knowledge that can mentally connect two or more story spaces. If in a story, there are both real and fictive locations the narrative world overlaps to the real geographical one. That’s what makes the case of Fallen series. Luce travels beside continents’ border and we know, without reading form the book, that for example America and Europe are separated by the Atlantic. As well we can imagine if we have enough cultural knowledge Luce’s travelling in Passion from Dover (America) to Moscow (Russia), Helston (England), Milan (Italy) etc.

The narrative universe is “the world (in spatio-temporal sense of the term) presented as actual by the text, plus all the counterfactual worlds constructed by characters as beliefs, wishes, fears, speculations, hypothetical thinking, dreams and fantasies” (Space,2.1.) textually activated. For example, the world Luce imagines where she and Daniel can be free to love each other cannot be included in the narrative universe because it is never mentioned in the text.

Based to the parallel ‘discourse time and story time’, Chatman differentiated the ‘discourse space’ from the ‘story space’. Hence, the discourse space, may or may not be revealed by the narrator as it refers to the “narrator’s current spatial environment”. (Jahn, N6.3.) This situation is specific for postmodern literature where the narrator tells directly the reader that he or she was in a certain place when he or she wrote the story. For example, in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye the narrator tells us he wrote the story when he was in a psychiatric ward. For Fallen series we do not have any information regarding the discourse space. The story space is the “spatial environment or setting of any of the story’s action episodes; or more globally, the ensemble or range of these environments” (Jahn N6.3.). Lauren created a vast story space in the Fallen series. She comprised in her story space not only the real world but also the imaginary one, such as Heaven and Hell.

2.6. CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION TECHNIQUES

The traits of fictional characters are investigated in the characterization and the most interpretive question is Who (subject) that is characterized by Whom (object) as being What (having which properties).

The three most important basic parameters in characterization analysis are: the narratorial vs. figural characterization (which implies the identity of characterizing subject: narrator or character?); explicit vs. implicit characterization (knowing whether the personality traits are attributed in words or are implied by someone`s behavior); self-characterization (auto-characterization) vs. altero-characterization (first or third person characterization).

The characterizing subject, in figural characterization is a character. The character can speak about himself\herself or about the other characters in an explicit level of characterization. A character can be reliable or credible in his\her judgment only when they depend on pragmatic circumstances.

Auto-characterization is often subjective due to the fact that the character might use ‘image-saving strategies’ and that he or she may be highly critical in perceiving his or her image. Altero-characterization (or the characterization of and through the other) is mainly influenced by the position of the other but also by the technique used by the narrator. Hence, in a dialogue the characterization might be evasive and even more when the person characterized is present in contrast with the interior monologue where one can ‘speak his mind’.

A verbal statement is attributed by an explicit characterization and implies a trait or property to a character that can be both auto-characterized and altero-characterized. Normally an explicit characterization shows descriptive statements that are identified, categorized, individualized, and evaluated by a person. When we speak about characterizing judgments we speak about internal, external and habitual traits. Even though an ‘explicit’ characterization is a verbal characterization, the expressions that are used can be pretty vague, witty, or even evasive (as in “he is not a person you'd want to associate with”).

An implicit characterization (usually unintentional) consists in an auto-characterization in which somebody’s behavior or appearance has a characteristic trait. One is characterized by behaving or speaking in a certain way. A nonverbal behavior (a person’s actions) may show us that, somebody is, for example, a fine basketball player or a good speaker, meanwhile a verbal behavior (a character’s way of speaking or what a character says in a certain situation) may show us if one has an educational background (jargon, slang, dialect), or one’s hierarchy (sociolect), or if one is truthful, evasive, ill-mannered, etc. Clothes are also important in describing one’s physical appearance, also their environment. Usually when we speak about explicit characterizations we speak also about auto-characterizations because sometimes an implicit auto-characterization happens in the same time as an explicit auto-characterization.

A key issue in an interpretation is always the implicit self-characterization of a narrator. “Is the narrator omniscient? competent? opinionated? self-conscious? well-read? ironic? reliable?” (Jahn, N7.6.)

A reliable narrator is a narrator “whose rendering of the story and commentary on it the reader is supposed to take as an authoritative account of the fictional truth" (Jahn N7.6.), but then an unreliable narrator is a narrator “whose rendering of the story and/or commentary on it the reader has reasons to suspect. […] The main sources of unreliability are the narrator's limited knowledge, his personal involvement, and his problematic value-scheme” (idem). Furthermore, the majority of first-person narrators are unreliable.

According to some theorists there is a distinction between 'mimetic (un)reliability' and 'evaluative' or 'normative (un)reliability': “a narrator may be quite trustworthy in reporting events but not competent in interpreting them, or may confuse certain facts but have a good understanding of their implications” (Lanser: 171).

As E.M. Forster said the difference between flat characters and round characters is in the psychological depth or in a sophisticated way in which one is perceived in a character traits: flat\ static character is a one-dimensional figure that is characterized by a very restricted range of speech and action patterns. A flat character does not develop at all through all the action and may be reduced to a type or a caricature. They are also used for comic effect. On the contrary a round character develops throughout the action and cannot be reduced to a type.

Further I will show you a short list of character types:

Confidant (fem., confidante) is someone in who the protagonist can rely on, exchange views with, confide in, usually a close friend.

Foil character: foil is “a sheet of bright metal that is placed under a piece of jewelry to increase its brilliancy” (Jahn N7.8.). One meaning of to foil is ‘to enhance by contrast’. In literature a foil character is a minor character with some features of a major character, normally through contrast.

Chorus character usually appears in drama and is an uninvolved character, who comments in events usually in a philosophical way or in clichés.

A specific text of naming strategy is a text’s system of denomination or naming conventions in which a character is identified. As naming patterns coincide with characterization, point of view or focalization, they deserve to be closely stylistic analyzed. How (with what sequence of expressions) does a text develop a character’s identity? The characters might be referred at by certain sequences of expression like first names, nicknames, last names or with or without a (honorific) form of address: Mr., Mrs., Dr., Father, Senator, Colonel etc. In Lauren’s series for example most of the time Lucinda Price, Cameron Briel, Pennywheather Van Syckle-Lockwood are referred to by their nicknames Luce, Cam and Penn, respectively. And Miss Sophia and Mr. Cole keep their ‘honorific’ form of address throughout the series.

Characters of the Fallen series

Lucinda ‘Luce’ Price is the female protagonist of the series. By means of auto-characterization she is depicted as being a normal adolescent with an abnormal life. She is seeing strange shadow since she was little. She was sent to Sword & Cross by means of court because she was blame for a friend’s death but she could not remember what exactly had happened. Luce has many physical appearances throughout the series, because she is cursed to live only seventeen years and to be reincarnated again and again but one specific trait remains the same: her soul. She was the third archangel, Lucifer’s evening star and the reason of the Fall. She was the reason Lucifer invented love, but she was miserable with him and fell for Daniel, another angel, one of The Watchers. At the Roll Call in Heaven she and many others were dragged down to Earth by Daniel’s choice to fight for love. Their punishment was to live an eternal curse (Lucifer’s) that made Luce unaware of her past lives but made her fall for Daniel in each and every life and die as soon as she remembered their choice.

Her physical traits are depicted by means of explicit altero-characterization, mostly through Daniel’s eyes, and auto-characterization, especially in Passion where Luce described her self-pasts. She is beautiful with short hair in her present life and with long hair in her other lives and with deep hazel eyes but she is unaware of her beauty. She loves peonies, probably because they symbolize riches and honor, good fortune and happy marriage. At Sword & Cross she is depicted as wearing black clothes (the only ‘color’ allowed there) and throughout Passion she is depicted mostly in white dresses.

Her name is significant because Luce is actually the ‘price’ that the Outcast must pay in order to reenter in Heaven. But it can also mean that she has a price to pay in order to live her romance and by the end she has to give up her angelic being and live one more mortal life in order to be with Daniel.

Luce is charismatic, curious, outgoing, stubborn, all personalities traits that are depicted by means of indirect characterization, thus resulting from her actions and thoughts and the perceptions of other characters. She chooses to save Cam in Rapture and as consequence Gabbe and Molly die. She is brave and determined to break the curse and save her love and the whole world. Everyone loves her except those who want her dead, members of The Scale and The Elders.

Daniel Grigori is the male protagonist, a guardian angel (a Watcher), the sixth angel in Heaven, the Angel of Lost Souls and Luce’s eternal lover. He is aware of all the past he has shared with Luce and a witness of all her deaths. He loves her no matter what but he is also confusing her with his behavior. At Sword & Cross, being afraid of losing her again, Daniel has mood change very often and that leaves Luce perplexed but pushes her into finding out more about him. He is depicted as a tormented soul, by both means of explicit and implicit auto- and altero-characterization. The warmth of his soul is the thing that Luce unaware recognizes in him and falls in love. He is Luce’s savior and protector. He loves her beyond imagination and fight for her. He is not selfish and loves genuinely Luce. Daniel is a living lesson that loves implies sacrifice and freedom. Daniel was Cam’s brother until Cam chose Lucifer’s side and he is a close friend to Gabbe and Arriane. He is able to make allegiances with his demon ‘friends’, the two nephilims (Miles and Shelby) and The Outcasts in order to save the world and his love. His physical traits are mostly depicted through Luce’s eyes. He is beautiful with remarkable face features. His eyes are grey but turn violet whenever Luce is around. He has blond hair and an amazing pair of white wings.

Cameron ‘Cam’ Briel is a demon and is depicted in antithesis to Daniel. He was an angel too but that had sided with Lucifer after he lost his love, Lilith with whom he was supposed to marry but who wanted a ceremony in a temple and when Cam refused, because his angelic being was not allowed to enter in God’s House, she left him and then killed herself. He was Daniel’s brother and is now his enemy but he still proves to be a friend when needed. He is portrayed as being the typical ‘charming bad boy’. He seems to be cold and sarcastic but it is revealed by the other characters that he has a heart once and loved a mortal woman. He tries to seduce Luce various times just to annoy Daniel, but he does not succeed. Unforgiven is the novel focused on Cam and his romance with Lilith whom he has to save from living ‘special crafted Hells’. He is gorgeous with black hair, emerald (green) eyes and soft rose full lips. He has a tattooed on the back of his neck a sunburst, Lucifer’s sign that he owns Cam’s soul. His wings were strong, narrow golden with black strips.

Arriane Alter is a fallen angel that chose ‘God’s side’. She is the first to befriend Luce at Sword & Cross. She is depicted in Fallen in love as Tessriel’s (‘Tess’) lover and that makes her a lesbian. Their love however is impossible because Tess is a demon and was marked on the back of her neck. Tess tries to persuade Arriane into choosing Lucifer’s side but Arriane choose to leave her. She admires the romance between Daniel and Luce and believes in true selfless love. She proves to be Luce’s protector throughout the series. She tells about herself that she is insane. Her physical traits are given through Luce’s eyes (as Luce is mostly the internal focalizer and the narrator hides behind her). She is seen as a smaller version of Luce, with long curled black hair. She had made Luce to cut it short just like hers. She has a scar ‘cold and warm’ at the same time (supposedly from the episode of her fight with Tess in Fallen in love – but this is not mentioned in the series).

Penntweather ‘Penn’ Van Syckle-Lockwood is an innocent and intelligent girl that befriends Luce at Sword & Cross, after Luce was attacked by Molly at lunch. She is the only student there that did not have to be there for behavioral problems. Her father was the groundskeeper there and is buried in the school’s cemetery. Penn helps Luce in discovering a bit of Daniel’s life due to her part-time job at the school’s office. She knows well Sword & Cross and the students that are there. Unfortunately, she lives only in Fallen where at the end Miss Sophia kills her but Luce remembers her several times throughout the series. She has curly brown hair and wears a pair of glasses with a thick purple rime. Due to her health she has to wear several lawyers of clothes.

Gabrielle ‘Gabbe’ Givens is the second archangel of the Throne that after the Fall remained just an angel sided with God. She was pretty close to Luce then and she maintains the relation now even though Luce misinterprets her behavior and thinks that she does not like her. As it is mentioned in Fallen, Gabbe is Luce’s guardian angel. She sacrificed herself in Rapture and was killed by Miss Sophia with a starshot (the only way that an angel could be killed). Gabbe is depicted as a “Neutrogena commercial beauty” as she has blond hair and blue eyes. Her distinct characteristic is her Southern accent. Her wings were ‘glowing iridescent’.

Rolland Sparks is a demon, a former angel that sided with Lucifer. He is depicted in Fallen as being the guy that can smuggle everything inside the school. He throws epical parties – Luce is invited to one of them. Roland is Cam’s friend but is Arriane’s best friend. She tries to get him on the good side again. From Fallen in love we know that Roland lived a love story in medieval age with Rosalind, a mortal. He believes in Luce and Daniel’s love and takes them as example even though he cannot live a romance like theirs. In Fallen in love he manages to keep Rosalind’s actual husband away from the war proving to love her more than he imagined. He also helps Daniel and Luce in Rapture. He proves to be carrying and protective. His physical traits made him a victim of racism due to his dark skin and his brown dreadlocks. He also has a toothy smile. His wings were ‘dark gold and black marble’.

Mary Margaret ‘Molly’ Zane is a demon that at first is Luce’s enemy but she proves to cover for Luce at her parents’ house while she travelled through the Announcers. She is aggressive and wears an ankle bracelet that electroshocks her when she is behaving badly. She is killed by Miss Sophia in Rapture alongside Gabbe. She is depicted as being an ‘angry pixie’. She has platinum blonde hair which turns pink in Rapture. Her wings were ‘cloudy bronze’.

Miss Sophia Bliss is a transeternal and the Head of the Elders of Zhsmaelim. She is Luce’s enemy and wants to kill her. She kills Penn, Gabbe and Molly and is killed by Cam in Rapture. She has a sister named Dee who hates her. She has a few physical traits and is represented “with [a](her) face [that] looked old and young at the same time” with black eyes, not grey but silver hair and a pointed nose.

Callie is Luce’s best friend from Dover school and she appears sporadically in the series. She is most remembered by Luce than being physically pictured in the text.

Todd Hamond is a guy from Sword & Cross that befriends Luce and has a crush on her. He saves Luce from the fire in the library in which he dies. He has “short brown hair, brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles across his nose”. (Fallen, p.12)

Trevor is the reason why Luce was sent at Sword & Cross. He does not appear in any of the novels but it is mentioned in Fallen various times. He died in a fire for which Luce was blamed.

Mr. Cole is the history teacher from Sword & Cross. He is mortal but he knows that Daniel, Cam. Arriane, Gabbe, Roland and Molly are angles and demons respectively. He helps Daniel and Luce and appears in the series once in Fallen and once in Torment.

Annabelle Alter is Arriane’s older sister and a fallen angel. She plays two minor roles in Fallen and Passion and is one of the crew member in Rapture where helps the others to save the past. She is described with pink hair and pink clothes and dark silvery wings.

Miles Fisher and Shelby Sterris are the two Nephilim teens from Shoreline School. They prove to be good friends to Luce chasing her through Announcers in Passion and helping her in Torment. They fall in love in the novella collection and are depicted in Rapture as being married with a child on the way. Shelby is daughter of the angel Semihazah and a mortal woman. She was used by her ex crazy boyfriend, Phil, one of the Outcasts, in order to get to Luce. Miles is the boy that always wore a baseball cap. He has clear blue eyes and strong cheekbones. He had a crush on Luce whom he kisses once but ends up with Shelby on Valentine’s Eve in Medieval age.

Dawn and Jasmine are two minor characters, best friends, from Torment that claimed to have heard bed time stories about Luce and Daniel’s romance. Due to her similarly appearance with Luce, dawn was kidnapped twice by the Outcasts.

Steven Filmore and Francesca are the demon-angel couple of professors from Shoreline School. Even though their romance is impossible they still love each other. They are both beautiful and slim, she with blonde curled hair and he with silver hair. They are both present in Rapture at the Fall place in order to fight Lucifer.

Phil, the leader of the Outcasts, is Selby’s ex-boyfriend. He tries to kidnap Luce in Torment but he fails. The Outcast originally sided with Lucifer at the Roll Call but then they refused to go to hell. They were cast out of Heaven too and were blinded. They had the ability to see ‘a burning soul’ and so they recognized some of the angels and demons. Their wings were dirty and transparent in accordance with their personality. Phil sided with Daniel in the war against Lucifer and Luce asked for redemption for all the Outcasts in Rapture. It was granted by the Throne and they regained their angelic figures.

Lucifer / ‘Bill the stone gargoyle’ appears as the gargoyle inside Luce’s Announcers in Passion. He guides her through her past lives and tries to persuade her to kill her eternal soul in order to spare Daniel form suffering over her lost. He does not achieve his objective and reveals himself as being Lucifer the first archangel of Heaven. He was the one that cursed Daniel and Luce at the Roll Call and now has a plan to erase the past and reclaim Luce’s love.

Lucifer is defeated in Rapture where he is depicted as being “…lovely. Amber hair spilled down his shoulders in shiny waves. His body seemed grander, defined by muscle no mortal would ever achieve. His cold blue eyes were mesmerizing.” (Rapture, p.382) He is the Morning Star that invented ‘love’ in Heaven when he fell for Luce.

Lucifer is an important character in Cam’s novel, Unforgiven, where he makes a bet with Cam that can save Lilith from many Hells crafted especially for her. He gives Cam fifteen day to convince Lilith to fall in love with him again and so save her or else Cam will have an eternal permanent place in Hell by Lucifer’s side.

Lilith is Cam’s lover and has somewhat Luce’s faith except on the contrary. She is doomed to live a lot of Hells in which she hates the same person, Cam. They are mentioned briefly in Passion where it is revealed that they were supposed to get married but as Cam could not enter in a church, because his angelic being, she thought ill of him and left him, later killing herself. In Unforgiven she is the female protagonist, a very beautiful girl with red hair and blue eyes and excellent at music, the only thing Lucifer granted her.

Paulina ‘Dee’ Serenity Bisenger is a transeternal and one of the relics that the angels need in order to find the original place of the Fall: the Desideratum. She is Miss Sophia’s sister but she hates her. She had to be sacrificed by Luce in Rapture in order to reveal the place of the Fall. She was a kind woman that accepts her faith bravely. She declares when she dies that she will dream about her lover Dr. Otto.

Lyrica and Viviana are two of the remaining trustworthy Elders. They appear briefly in the prologue of Rapture and again in chapter twelve as being ‘lifeless’.

2.7. Discourses in Fallen by Lauren Kate: speech, thought and consciousness

An oral or a written text that is produced by an act of narrating is called a narrative discourse. According to Lubomir Dolezel said “Every narrative text T is a concatenation and alternation of DN [narrator's discourse] and DC [character's discourse]” (Jahn N8.1.). Therefore, a narrative text can be also subdivided into the narrator's discourse telling the ‘narrative of (nonverbal) events’, next the narrator's evaluative or commentatorial statements and in the end the characters’ discourses (verbal events\ words). Even though this is a visible distinction there appeared some phenomena such as ‘narrative report of discourse’, ‘psychonarration’, ‘narrated perception’ and ‘coloring’, etc.

A mixed structure is encountered when the narrative of events includes (or shifts to) a narrative of words therefore is addressed by a quotation theory: a quotation theory is a theory in which the speech or a thought of a character is caused. The most important relationship is that of structuring and embedding: here the narrator’s discourse or frame is presented by a character’s discourse or inset. There are some attitudinal forces between frame and inset range from ‘wholly consonant’ via ‘neutral’ to ‘wholly dissonant’ (ironical). A quoted discourse is either self-quotation or 'alteroquotation' (quotation of somebody else's speech). The inset can be represented by both actual words and virtual words (hypothetical utterances as well as verbalized mental events), and an inset mimetic can oscillate between rough approximation to verbatim reproduction. As Genette showed (1983), a character’s consciousness can be divided into a narrative of events or a narrative of words.

An ‘attributive discourse’ is a special subset of diegetic statements where an agent or an act of speech is identified. There are two main forms in syntactical terms: an ‘introductory tag’ at the beginning of a sentence (Mary said (that)) and a ‘parenthetical tag’ in the middle of the sentence or the end (That, she said, was fine; “That is fine”, she said).

In semantic terms there are three attributive discourses based on: ‘verba dicendi’ or ‘inquits’ (she said, asked, replied, muttered), ‘verba cogitandi’ or ‘cogitats’ (she thought, realized, felt), and ‘verba sentiendi/percipiendi’ or ‘percepits’ (she saw, heard, felt, remembered, imagined). Usually an introductory tag can occur either with 'direct' or 'indirect discourse' and parenthetical tags can happen with direct and 'free indirect discourse'.

When we speak about discourse representation we speak about three traditional basic forms: the ‘direct’ style, the ‘free indirect’ style, and the ‘indirect’ style. In the following table I will show you the general characteristics of each style and some more detailed definitions:

In a direct discourse the character’s speech is direct or verbalized thought (‘direct thought’). When we see direct speech it is usually with quotation marks, signaling the transition from quoting to quoted discourse. Tagged direct discourse is framed by a clause of attributive discourse, on the contrary untagged direct discourse (alternatively, free direct discourse) does not have an attributive discourse. A useful advantage of direct discourse is that the tenses and the pronouns do not depend of the deixis of the quoting discourse.

“‘It was me to,’ she said outloud. ‘I can do this. I can save her. I can save my life.’” (Torment: 271) [tagged direct thought]

“Don’t think about him, Arriane chided herself. Not when Tess is by your side and there is no need to question your love!” (Fallen in Love: 115) [untagged direct thought]

In free indirect discourse (f.i.d.) we have the exact opposite of the direct discourse such as verbs and pronouns depending on the current narrative situation. The ‘free’ term means that the discourse quoted appears in the form of a non-subordinate clause. In general, free indirect discourse changes the words from the original utterance, continuing to have subjective constructions and expressions, question forms, exclamation marks, the quoted speaker's emphasis, etc. Normally free indirect discourse is not as mimetic as direct discourse but more mimetic than indirect discourse.

“But why? Why had she done it? What stupid idea had made that seem like a smart move? And now she was far away from Daniel, from everyone she cared about, from anyone at all. And it was all her fault.” (Passion: 82) [a third-person context in untagged f.i.d.]

In the indirect discourse style, the character’s words or verbalized thoughts are used (indirectly) with a reporting clause of introductory attributive discourse, and grammatically it summarizes, interprets and straightens the character’s language. Indirect discourses are adjusted by pronouns tenses, and referring expression from the narrator’s perspective. A strategy of ‘departicularization’ is used to capture the gist of the character’s discourse but in the narrator’s own language. According to Brian McHale there are three subtypes of mimesis and concreteness: ‘diegetic summary’ (which mentions a speech/thought event without further specification), ‘summary report’ (which names the topics only), and ‘indirect content-paraphrase’ (which reports propositional content in the form of indirect discourse).

“She wanted to say it couldn’t possibly be true, that there were no similarities between Cam and Daniel no matter how Cam tried to whitewash things.” (Torment, p. 135) [free indirect discourse]

“But Steven had said it himself: There were a trillion shadows out there.” (Torment, 153) [free indirect discourse]

Another important aspect is the technique of ‘inside view’ represented into a character`s mind. In the late 19th and 20th century the novelists present the mental processes of characters, their thoughts and perceptions, their memories, dreams, and emotions. Further I will enumerate some representative names of this period who were interested in what was soon called ‘stream of consciousness art’, ‘literary impressionism’, ‘novel of consciousness’: D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Dorothy Richardson, Marcel Proust, Italo Svelvo, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Schnitzler, David Lodge, etc.

The term `stream of consciousness` was coined by the American psychologist William James (the brother of Henry James) denoting the different state of mental process and its level of awareness. In the literary criticism the term is used as a general term for the textual rendering of mental processes, trying to capture the random, irregular, disjointed, associative and incoherent character of these processes.

A character’s stream of consciousness is represented through their ‘interior monologue’, ‘direct thought’, and ‘free indirect thought’. As I have already discussed the ‘direct thought’ and ‘free indirect thought above, the last one not discussed is the interior monologue which is also a direct thought but a special one. According to Cohn (1978) the interior monologue is “An extended passage of ‘direct thought’, sometimes also considered an independent text type (‘autonomous monologue’)”. Another theorist, Edouard Dujardin, says: “The essential innovation introduced by interior monologue consists in the fact that its aim is to invoke the uninterrupted flow of thoughts going through the character's being, as they are born, and in the order they are born, without any explanation of logical sequence and giving the impression of ‘raw’ experience.” (Interior monologue)

Stream of consciousness in Fallen series:

Luce could not possibly focus on this right now. Not when there was so much else to process. She and Cam in the cemetery. Maybe it hadn’t been the standard definition of romantic, but Luce almost preferred it that way. It was like nothing she’d ever done before. Skipping class to mosey through all those graves. Sharing that picnic, while he refilled her perfectly made latte. Making fun of her fear of snakes. (Fallen: 155)

“She meant: Does he know about this trip already? and What’s the real story between he and Cam? and Is he still mad at me about that kiss? and It is wrong that Miles is coming through? and also What are the odds of Daniel showing up at my parents’ house tomorrow even though he says he can’t see me?” (Torment: 388)

The term ‘soliloquy’ (originally a term in drama theory meaning a monologue uttered aloud in solitude) contains some early forms of extended direct thought. It is a 16th- 17th century style that presents directly a character’s thought. On the contrary to some modern form of the ‘interior monologue’, the epic soliloquy is characterized “both by a dialogical structure and by a highly rhetorical language” (Orth 2000; cf Fludernik : 147-148).

The two forms of ‘diegetic statements’ known as ‘psychonarration’ and ‘narrated perception’ are caused by the psychological states. The former term ‘psychonarration’ is the textual representation of a character’s conscious or unconscious mental states and processes using forms of ‘narrative report of discourse or ‘narrated perception’. The latter term, ‘narrated perception’ is the textual representation of a character’s perception often using a form of psychonarration, or a rendering in indirect discourse or free indirect discourse.

The term ‘mind style’ is a general term for a character’s or a narrator’s typical patterns of mentation that includes the textual evocation, especially the typical diction, rhetoric, and syntax, of a narrator’s or a character’s mindset and typical patterns of thinking.

According to Hough the term ‘coloring’ is used to describe the local coloring (also ‘tainting’ or ‘contamination’) that is used by the narrator’s style, character’s diction, dialect, sociolect, or idiolect, often serving a comic or ironical purpose. The term is useful especially when the narrator’s voice and the character’s voice are distinctive (typically, in the fiction of Austen, James, Lawrence, and Mansfield).

Conclusion

To conclude this study, I can say that the relationship between angels and mortals can only be alleged. Although there are many religious stories regarding this matter, of fallen angels, we must not forget that religion is interpretable. Hence, one can choose what to consider true and how to interpret the teaching of God. I personally believe that there still is a great war to come, as. we have in ourselves both angelic and demonic traits. It all depends on our ‘over fought’ free will to choose either of them, but I really hope that ‘the good side’ will eventually win,

Lauren Kate contributed to literature with this amazing series bringing in discussion a possible parallel world of angels and demons. But the outstanding element of the series is the love story between Daniel, the angel, and Lucinda, the mortal and ex-archangel. The series offers a surprising yet complex psychological insight through Lucinda’s character and voice– this simple high-school girl has the power to change the world. Lauren Kate’s choice of narrative devices such as: a covert heterodiegetic narrator that hides behind an internal focalizer (Luce) shortens the distance between us (the readers) and the narrative universe. Also by switching to an internal focalizer we can trust Kate’s version of the story. Kate’s usage of both a showing and a telling narrative mode keeps us focused on the most important aspects and at the same time it allows us to ‘textually breathe’. By means of flashbacks and flashforwards the authoress significantly restrains the story and discourse time. Her open endings give a plus in tellability and keep us wishing for more.

The entire Fallen series is fresh and modern. Lauren Kate’s writing style fits perfectly the mentality of the times we live in and the subject of the novel, i.e. a fascinating story about choice, love, destiny and the eternal balance of good and evil, is intelligently developed in order to catch the attention and interest of more than one category of age.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Kate, Lauren. Fallen. UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2009, Print

–, Torment, UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2010, Print

–, Passion, UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2011, Print

–, Fallen in love, UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2012, Print

–, Rapture, UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2012, Print

–, Unforgiven, UK: Random House Children’s Book, 2015, Print

Secondary Sources

Bal, Mieke (2004). Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-31657-6.

–, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-9631-9.

Black, Mathew; VanderKam, James C. (1985). The Book of Enoch or I Enoch: A New English Edition. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-07100-8.

Boyd, Gregory A. (1997). God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-1885-3.

Brooke, George J. (1984). Exegesis at Qumran: 4Q Florilegium in I. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-567-44164-5.

Bruner, Jerome S. (2009). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02901-9.

Fludernik, Monika (2009). An Introduction to Narratology. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-05877-8

Forster, Eduard Morgan (2010). Aspects of the Novel. Rosetta Books. ISBN 978-0-7953-1156-7.

Genette, Gérard; trans. Lewin, Jane E. (1983). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9259-9.

Grabbe, Lester L. (2006). A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period (vol. 1): The Persian Period (539-331BCE). Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 978-0-567-21617-5.

Hastings, James (2015). Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. Delmarva Publications, Inc. GGKEY:46PF9BJJDF1.

Herman, David; Jahn, Manfred; Ryan, Marie-Laure (2010). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-45839-4.

Hühn, Peter; Meister, Jan Christoph; Pier, John; co. Schmid, Wolf (2014). Handbook of Narratology. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-031646-9.

Jahn, Manfred. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative (English Department, University of Cologne, 2005), accessed May 25, 2015, http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm

Lanser, Susan Sniader (1981). The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-06486-4.

Olson, Greta (2011). Current Trends in Narratology. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-025499-0.

Orlov, Andrei A. (2011). Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-3953-2.

Prince, Gerald (1982). Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-083862-6.

–, (2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8776-3.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (2003). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-46497-5.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. Space. created: 13. January 2012, revised: 22. April 2014. accessed April 19, 2016. n. pag. web: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/space

Stanzel, F. K. (1986). A Theory of Narrative. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-31063-5.