Propp's method has the salient advantage of being able to examine concurrently a number of wondertales to find common structural items among them. Tales with similar morphological structures often share elements of content including a topos, defined as a recognizable arrangement of smaller literary feature such as themes, motifs, and settings.
Propp reasoned that all Russian wondertales adhere to the 31-function model he
developed, but in order to categorize ancient Near Eastern wondertales we need to derive a morphology suited to the appropriate data. The three wondertales examined within this study share a distinctive topos: a protagonist sets out for a distant foreign land that lies beyond a topographical boundary but becomes detained and isolated in the intervening area. While there this hero faces near-death but overcomes these circumstances and returns to complete his quest having been elevated in social standing. Using this basic framework as a guide and starting point, we see that the three stories in question actually share more specific correspondences. Any tale utilizing this topos will have some basic features in common with other tales since there is similar content, but they will
nevertheless vary somewhat from one another in some respects. Recall that sequence is of paramount importance in Propp's system; identifying dramatis personae and functions
39
may be done simply by noticing in each tale how characters (and which ones) activate each plot event leading to the sequence shared by all three tales.
Each of these stories employs a hero, a donor, and a helper. The Lugalbanda poems and Jonah employ a separate dispatcher, whereas in "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor" this role is implied in the story. There are other contributing characters in the tales (the sailors on the ship with Jonah, for example) but we differentiate between these and the dramatis personae proper because of their respective impact on plot progression.
Incidental characters do nothing to truly advance the plot or make a significant impact upon the principal characters; they rather exist to fill out the story and, in the case of the Jonah story, only cause attention to be drawn back to the dramatis persona. Dramatis personae may also "double up" in that a single character may fulfill more than one of these indispensible roles. I argue in Chapter Three that part of the theological message of the Jonah tale is that, aside from the prophet himself, all of the roles of the dramatis personae are filled by the actions of God.
Consider the following simple list of functions, derived by charting the
similarities between the sequence of events of only the three aforementioned wondertales and with character designations and functions modeled after the manner of Propp's list:
I - The hero is called upon to leave home on a quest; symbol: α
1. The hero responds (or does not respond) to a call to duty from dispatcher
II - The hero joins a group as a lesser member; symbol: β
1. The hero leaves as part of an overland expedition 2. The hero embarks a ship for a voyage
III - The hero goes forth and crosses a threshold into the wilderness while traveling to a foreign land; symbol: ↑
1. The hero crosses a barrier of water 2. The hero crosses mountains
40
IV - The hero's company faces unexpected adversity from nature; symbol:
A
1. From illness 2. From a storm
V - The hero is stranded alone in "no-man's land" for three days; symbol:
B
1. Abandoned by traveling companions 2. Expelled by companions
3. Lone survivor among companions VI - The donor revitalizes the hero; symbol: C
1. Donor provides nourishment for rejuvenation 2. Donor provides shelter for the hero
VII - The hero gives thanks with an offering or a prayer; symbol: D 1. Hero offers a sacrifice
2. Hero prays
3. Hero offers a banquet
VIII - The helper and the hero meet; the hero fears the helper; symbol: E 1. The helper initially fears the helper
IX - The helper queries the hero; symbol: F 1. The helper interrogates the hero 2. The helper seeks out the hero X - The hero praises the helper; symbol: G
XI - The helper foretells the destiny of the hero and gives him a gift;
symbol: H
1. The helper foretells the hero's fortune and gives him goods
2. The helper foretells the hero's fate and offers him a skill XII - The hero returns to the human sphere of action; symbol: ↓
1. The hero returns to his initial quest
2. The hero's initial quest goes ignored, the benefits already realized
XIII - The hero uses his newly acquired gift to bring about a status change for himself; symbol: γ
1. The hero uses a new skill 2. The hero uses new possessions
41
XIV - The hero and the dispatcher thrive upon the hero's return to humanity; symbol: δ
The symbols adopted for this set of functions are largely arbitrary, though I envision a structure in which α and β are balanced by γ and δ, respectively, and ↑
complements ↓, resulting in a roughly symmetrical pattern of functions corresponding to the pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal division of van Gennep's rite de passage. Other commentators have pointed out the symmetry of the Lugalbanda narrative75 and the Jonah story76 and these studies have done much to reveal that these tales exhibit careful arrangement, far from fulfilling the reputation wondertales have for triviality. In their written forms these wondertales show signs of even more complexity; the Lugalbanda narrative, for example, survives as epic poetry, a form which uses carefully chosen language. "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor," on the other hand, evinces little artistic refinement and is composed in prose. The flexibility of Propp's method allows us to temporarily isolate narrative structure from the features of the written text.77
This list of functions is tailored to these three wondertales though there is obviously some overlap with Propp's list or any other set of functions derived from wondertales since all wondertales share the element of fantasy. This list differs from Propp's because these functions result from the common topos mentioned above rather than topoi operative within Propp's tales. I read the Jonah story as a transformation of this topos and, consequently, as a transformation of this morphology. In the following
75 Jeremy Black, Reading Sumerian Poetry (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), 67ff.
76 See, for example, Phyllis Trible's detailed explanation of the "external structure" of the Book of Jonah; I will return to her description in more detail in Chapter Three. Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah, 110-111.
77 Milne has remarked that ―Morphology of the Folktale was not intended by its author to be so much a definitive work a as a directive one.‖; Vladimir Propp and the Study of Structure, 88.
42
chapters I analyze, in turn, the Lugalbanda story and "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor" in order to demonstrate the affinities between those wondertales and Jonah. But although the Jonah story draws upon and maintains this recognizable sequence it diverges in some key respects, the result of which is the depiction of the failed rite of passage of its "hero," Jonah. In using this familiar topos the story inverts some of these functions to make its own, unique theological statements and remarks about the prophetic character of the prophet Jonah.
Propp himself discussed the potential of such transformations for the morphology of wondertales.78 And much of his later scholarship shows a more marked interest in the folkloric interpretation of ritual.79 Propp became very interested in the social
implications of the wondertales he diagrammed, and his interests carry over into the present study. In short, he believed that elements of wondertales reflect or reinterpret social rituals. One such ritual is the rite de passage; syntagmatic in its structure this ritual is a literal or metaphorical separation, transition, and incorporation, which implies the paradigmatic shift between two opposed categories of being.80 In these wondertales the rite de passage corresponds to a physical passage as much as a symbolic one since the hero ventures between spheres of human action. An interesting feature of this topos is that rather than undergoing change in some far-distant human land (the intended
78 Propp discussed "transformations," whereby early folkloric elements morphed over time and for various contexts, much like linguistic elements; Propp, Theory and History of Folklore, 88.
79 Unfortunately almost all of these works remain untranslated. For English works see especially History and Theory of Folklore, 105-108, "Fairy tale transformations," trans. by C.H. Severens in Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views, (ed. Latislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska;
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), 99-114, and "Study of the Folktale: Structure and History" Dispositio I (1976): 277-292.
80 Alan Dundes, "Structuralism and Folklore," chapter 6 in The Meaning of Folklore, ed. Simon J. Bronner, 126-144.
43
destination for the hero) this critical action takes place, unexpectedly, in a "no-man's land" between human spheres of action. After facing a trial of his mortality there and demonstrating behavior appropriate to human-divine relations, the hero returns to the human sphere changed by his fortunes and elevated in his social standing. This topos relies heavily on the perception and symbolic demarcation of physical space, so let us now examine this in the context of ancient Near Eastern wondertales.