The Genre of Trolls - Doria

synchronous (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 28, 41), many times co-exist in them, and
they are significant in the present. They are not alien, without any relation
to the present (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 32–33). The heterochrony created by the
legend brings the narratives closer to the individual; events have occurred in
the listener’s immediate surroundings, and this knowledge might influence
future behaviour and experiences. By drawing such a chronotope into his
story through allusion, Alén engenders doubt about the proper chronotope
of the text. The doubleness of parodic discourse provides the perfect conduit
for his exploration of chronotopic indeterminacy, but as Bakhtin stresses,
it is a dialogue between chronotopes, not within them—the individual chronotope
constitutes a whole (Bakhtin 1986a: 252). This multiplicity of chronotopes
within a narrative contributes to the multileveledness of the text.
Chronotopicity may be further examined in the story of “Little Matt”,
which does not lend itself equally well to an analysis of parodic stylization,
wherefore I will abstain from such an investigation here and concentrate on
other aspects of parody in it. The figure of Little Matt as portrayed in the
text neatly demonstrates the perhaps most important facet of the Bakhtinian
chronotope, its power to affect the image of man in literature (Bakhtin
1986a: 85). Little Matt’s counterparts in other variants of the tale are precisely
such ready-made, unchanging persons as Bakhtin describes in his
essays on chronotopes and the Bildungsroman (Bakhtin 1986a; 1986b).
Neither the world nor the hero is capable of change, everything remains
the same no matter what happens. The price they have to pay for their
stable identity is death and banishment from the human world. The moment
Little Matt feels compelled to offer his advice to the grieving king, he
embarks on a course that will lead him to his own becoming. He becomes
a social being, unlike the other semi-humans, who are loners and occasionally
somewhat antisocial. By involving himself in the king’s life and concerns,
he truly enters the human sphere and becomes an active, independent
participant in the events unfolding in this realm, in contrast to the other
semi-humans who only follow orders; they never do anything on their own
initiative. They cannot make their way in the world, and they behave like
automatons. While Little Matt really responds to humans, the others
merely react to them. He learns empathy and altruism, to act selflessly on
another’s behalf. That he simultaneously functions as the king’s somewhat
unorthodox supernatural helper, and that he is well aware of his own physical
superiority, does not change this fact.
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Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén