My final paper focuses on Westworld’s season one finale and how the show presents narrative complexity throughout the season. For the sake of brevity and a focused blog post, I want to explore how the timeframe contributes to the show’s narrative complexity and work out some ideas that I have currently. Merriam-Webster defines analepsis as “a literary technique that involves interruption of the chronological sequence of events by interjection of events or scenes of earlier occurrence.” Rather than a conventionally linear sequence of time in which the narrative takes place, these “interruptions” with other events create multiple paths for the audience to track. Westworld embodies a similar structure in that it jumps around from protagonist to protagonist in each episode as they unravel aspects of the various mysteries inherent to the theme park. The analepsis functions in Westworld through two timelines, which the season finale reveals to the audience mid-way through the episode. The show preserves this secret because they only present as much information as the main characters are aware of in their respective storylines.
For example, the Man in Black (Ed Harris) is a mysterious, old, antagonistic figure who knew more information than the audience did, including the truth about the timeline and details about the multiple lives of the hosts(androids) such as Dolores’ past lives(Evan Rachel Wood). The plot twist involving the analepsis was that Dolores’ storyline was a memory because the Man in Black reveals that her love interest and do-gooder companion throughout the season, William (Jimmi Simpson), was the Man in Black when he was a younger man. The audience realizes from this new information that the show never explicitly defined a timeline and assumed that each event in the story was part of a linear storyline. According to Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television, analepsis functions by altering the show’s chronology creates instances of disorientation for the viewer through “a lack of explicit storytelling cues and signposts.” Even in the season finale, Westworld finds a way to add a new element to the story that recontextualizes how the audience watches and understands the show.
Suddenly, the timeline for each of the storylines comes into question, in that the audience is uncertain when each perspective occurred within the overall season chronology. Even the nature of flashbacks, another device under the umbrella of analepsis, becomes unreliable. Dolores unknowingly fabricated her storyline with memories of William from 30 years in the past, when in reality, she was using those memories of locations they visited to retrace her steps in the present day. It is an alarming revelation that the audience cannot trust their lens into the story, which creates uncertainty in how the rest of the episode will unfold. Analepsis as a narrative device through this specific instance creates a unique viewing experience that makes Westworld stand out as a narratively complex series.
Sources (informally cited, sorry)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analepsis
file:///Users/kirafarmer/Downloads/Mittell.Narrative%20Complexity%20in%20Contemporary%20American%20Television%20(3).pdf
One reply on “Exploring Narrative Complexity through Analepsis in Westworld”
Kira, I really like your analysis on the use of analepsis in the first season of Westworld. To this day, those last few episodes of the first season are some of my favorite hours of television I have watched. I think that this form of storytelling works super great with the plot of Westworld because we get to experience the way that Dolores is learning about her world (through a disorienting mix of flashbacks as she is trying to gaining access to her memories). It also makes for a great twist ending almost all of the time 🙂
One example of a show that uses a similar style of storytelling is the first season of Dark, a german show on Netflix (would recommend). The show basically has 3 different timelines: past, present, and future that are all connected. As the characters discover patterns in these realities, the viewer is brought along they way through this confusing mystery through analepsis. This storytelling technique is always such a rollercoaster if it is done right!