RRhetoric
← The Field GuideThe Rhetoric Field Guide

Narrative & Time

Analepsis

an-uh-LEP-sis / ˌænəˈlɛpsɪs

The flashback: the narration steps out of the present to tell earlier events. The past arrives when it will mean most, which shows that the narrator, not the calendar, controls the order.

"Some years ago…" — Ishmael looking back

Don't confuse it with Prolepsis. Prolepsis is its forward-facing mirror, the flash-forward.

Drill its family — Narrative & Time

In the Reader — 1 excerpt

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
— Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude · open the passage →

The rest of the family

In Medias Res Prolepsis Foreshadowing Free Indirect Discourse Stream of Consciousness Stichomythia