The Narrator and the Ethnographer: a reading of Malinowski’s “Argonauts of the Western Pacific”

Abstract

In the preface of “Argonauts of Western Pacifi c”, James Frazer identifi es two ways to describe “the human nature” – one that presents the characters in a partial way, as conducted by Molière and another that identifi es the “totality” in the characters, citing Shakespeare and Cervantes as examples. Th is paper aims to apply to Malinowski’s work these two forms of “human nature”. From this diff erentiation I propose two notions – “model” as the descriptive form characterized by partiality and “modulation” as the style that approaches the “totality”. Guided by this main question, the paper approaches the author’s methodological orientations, as well as provides a treatment of this work, taking into account mainly the diff erent temporalities in the narrative constructions of the “Argonauts” chapters.