Hypodiegetic narrative

In narratology, a hypodiegetic narrative is a narrative embedded in another narrative. The account of the monster in the novel Frankenstein is an example.^[1] The term was coined by Mieke Bal in 1977 and narratologists often prefer it over the name metadiegetic narrative that was coined by Gérard Genette in 1980.^[2][1][3][4]

Another name sometimes used is pseudo-diegetic narrative, although this more strictly is when the hypodiegetic status is forgotten and the narrative begins to function as a simply diegetic one.^[1][4]

In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH the life story of Nicodemus that he tells Mrs Frisby is such a narrative.^[5]

When narrative levels are confused or entangled, this is metalepsis.^[5]

Bal explained the terminological difference thus:

I continue to be unhappy with Genette's hierarchical inversion. I think that to indicate dependence, we have to replace higher with its opposite. To save the prefix "meta-"^[a] for a more appropriate use, I want to proppose, provisionally and for lack of anything better, that we speak of "hypo-"^[b]: "hypo-narrative", "hypo-diegetic".^[6]

She noted that Robert Scholes in 1971 had used "metanarrative" to mean an exterior story wrapped around an interior story, and this required a name for the opposite framing.^[7]

Footnotes

1. See "meta-"
2. See "hypo-"