RRhetoric
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Narrative & Time

Analepsis

an-uh-LEP-sis / ˌænəˈlɛpsɪs

Interrupting the current narrative to recount earlier events: a flashback. The earlier information can change how the reader understands the present scene.

"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

Examples

At the station she remembered her first journey. She had been ten then, and her father had carried both their bags.
Practice example · written for this exercise

The narration leaves the station scene to recount an earlier event.

The medal lay on his desk. He was back in the field hospital now, hearing the same rain strike the canvas thirty years earlier.
Practice example · written for this exercise

The narrative moves from the desk into an earlier scene.

The rest of the family

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