Notes on the Narrator and his Characters

There are two main ways a narrator uses to bring a character to life:

[1] what we are directly TOLD about a character

[2] what we are SHOWN about a character — what he or she says and does — how other characters respond to or say about them.

Mark primarily shows what his characters are like through action and dialogue. There is virtually no description of physical appearances. Rather, Mark values his characters primarily as human agents in the drama of life. And he is particularly aware of their place in society as descriptive and determinative of who they are.

Characters as individuals in ancient Greco-Roman literature tended to be stylized, unchanging and predictable. Within this context, Mark shows Jesus to be highly individual and complex. We see in his life someone who is fully engaged and transformed through his obedience and submission to God.  

The moral fabric of the narrative

As the narrator, Mark embeds a moral fabric — standards of judgment, beliefs and values — throughout his story over against which he leads the reader to evaluate the characters of the story. 

The positive way is a matter of living "on God's terms" — having faith and courage, undergoing persecution for the Good News, being least and servant in a life for others, and not lording it over others. By contrast, the negative life is living a destructive life "on human terms" — being without faith and fearful, saving one's self, acquiring the world, being great, and using power over others. 

The characters in Mark largely embody one or the other of these two ways:

• Jesus and the minor characters [for the most part] embody what God wants for the people 

• the authorities embody what people want for themselves

• the disciples vacillate between the two ways

The Episodes

Below is a listing of the episodes that make up Mark's story of Jesus. Take a look at list and try to see patterns and developments in how the story unfolds. Think also about the settings, the various characters involved and what kinds of conflicts take place.

These episode titles are taken from an edition of the NIV.

  

1. John the Baptist Prepares the Way


2. The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus


3. The Calling of the First Disciples


4. Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit


5. Jesus Heals Many


6. Jesus Prays in a Solitary Place


7. A Man With Leprosy


8. Jesus Heals a Paralytic


9. The Calling of Levi


10. Jesus Questioned About Fasting


11. Lord of the Sabbath


12. Crowds Follow Jesus


13. The Appointing of the Twelve Apostles


14. Jesus and Beelzebub


15. Jesus' Mother and Brothers


16. The Parable of the Sower


17. A Lamp on a Stand


18. The Parable of the Growing Seed


19. The Parable of the Mustard Seed


20. Jesus Calms the Storm


21. The Healing of a Demon-possessed Man


22. A Dead Girl and a Sick Woman


23. A Prophet Without Honor


24. Jesus Sends Out the Twelve


25. John the Baptist Beheaded


26. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand


27. Jesus Walks on the Water


28. Clean and Unclean


29. The Faith of a Syrophoenician Woman


30. The Healing of a Deaf and Mute Man


31. Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand


32. The Yeast of the Pharisees and Herod


33. The Healing of a Blind Man at Bethsaida


34. Peter's Confession of Christ


35. Jesus Predicts His Death


36. The Transfiguration


37. The Healing of a Boy with an Evil Spirit


38. Who is Greatest?


39. Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us


40. Causing to Sin


41. The Pharisees Question Jesus about Divorce


42. The Little Children and Jesus


43. The Rich Young Man


44. Jesus Again Predicts His Death


45. The Request of James and John to Sit with Jesus in Glory


46. Blind Bartimaeus Receives His Sight


47. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem at Passover


48. Jesus Clears the Temple


49. The Withered Fig Tree


50. The Authority of Jesus Questioned


51. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants


52. The Pharisees Question Jesus about Paying Taxes to Caesar


53. The Sadducees Question Jesus about Marriage at the Resurrection


54. The Greatest Commandment


55. Whose Son Is the Christ


56. The Widow's Offering


57. Signs of the End of the Age


58. The Day and Hour Unknown


59. Jesus Anointed at Bethany


60. The Lord's Supper


61. Jesus Predicts Peter's Denial


62. Gethsemane


63. Jesus Arrested


64. Before the Sanhedrin


65. Peter Disowns Jesus


66. Jesus Before Pilate


67. The Soldiers Mock Jesus


68. The Crucifixion


69. The Death of Jesus


70. The Burial of Jesus


71. The Resurrection

Discerning the Conflict

The usual basis for any story is conflict, the struggle of forces to prevail. Conflict "works", is effective, because in the course of the struggle the core values and beliefs of the narrative are revealed.

In the Gospel of Mark, we see three main conflicts that weave throughout the story: [1] Jesus against non-human forces [demons, illness, nature], [2] Jesus against authorities [the Roman oppressors and the scribes, Pharisees, and priestly leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem], and  [3] Jesus against his disciples. But what is the force or character that initiates or sets off the struggle? What is the goal that the whole story is driving towards?

It is God's activity that triggers the action in the narrative. Through the words and actions of of God's agent Jesus, God's rule challenges every other claim to power... In all of this the rule of God generates conflict because it ruptures the conventional conception of God and creates a new understanding of God. Instead of guarding boundaries, God now crosses boundaries. Instead of remaining in the Temple, God breaks out and is available everywhere. Instead of withdrawing from defilement, God spreads holiness. Instead of working from the centre, God works from the margins. God sends an anointed one who does not dominate but who undergoes persecution and death in the service of others. In all of these matters, the authorities are trapped inside the old wineskins of their conventional views, unable to see the new wine in their midst. By judging the new wine by the categories of old wineskins they destroy the wine — and they also end up destroying the wineskins as well.

Mark As Story, Rhoads, Dewey & Michie

Saint Mark as Narrator

Every author who writes a story has something to say or a message to bring. And every story has a narrator, the teller of the story who is embedded in the story itself. This narrator has their own effect upon the story.

There are different kinds of narrators:

[1] the first person "I" narrator, who can only tell what they see, hear or understand themselves

example: Huckleberry Finn

[2] the third person narrator, who is present in the story but external to it, somewhat like the camera frame in a movie which is always present but largely unnoticed by the viewer.

There is the objectively omniscient narrator, who only tells what can be seen and heard. A narrator with limited omniscience can tell the thought and feelings of the protagonist. The narrator with unlimited omniscience is able to tell anything about the story world. including what is in the mind of any character at any time in any place. They are an implied invisible presence in every scene. They can speak, as it were, from outside the story and at the same time, lead the reader deep into the heart of the story.

Most ancient stories, including the Gospel of Mark, are told by an narrator with unlimited omniscience. The question arises: how does the narrator in Mark shape and affect the response of the reader? 

Questions, questions...

Mark uses a number of techniques to help get his message of the Gospel across. One of the simplest, yet most disarming and effective is the use of questions. The 16 chapters of his Gospel contain no less than 114 questions. In whatever context, questions engage a listener and sow seeds of thought. The intriguing thing about Mark's questions is that in the story 77 of them are left unanswered. This forces the reader to work to come up with answers of their own to the questions. And it also shows Mark's confidence in the reader's ability to work out implications on their own. He leaves us with questions, but also plenty of resources with which to work.

It is also curious how often questions come in pairs:
"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" 1.24
"What is this? A new teaching with authority?" 1.27
"What does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 2.7

While we are still absorbing the first question, a second question is placed that develops or sharpens the first. Again, that much more engaging.

Words are occurences, events

Fully literate persons can only with great difficulty imagine what a primary oral culture is like, that is a culture with no knowledge whatsoever of writing or even the possibility of writing. Try to imagine a culture where no one has ever 'looked up something'. In a primary oral culture, the expression 'to look up something' is an empty phrase: it would have no conceivable meaning. Without writing, words as such have no visual presence, even when the objects the represent are visual. They are sounds. You might 'call' then back — 'recall' them. But there is  nowhere to 'look' for them. They have no focus and no trace [a visual metaphor, showing our dependency on writing], not even a trajectory. They are occurences, events.

Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 31.