City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Somebody telling somebody else, a rhetorical poetics of narrative, James Phelan

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-268) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Somebody telling somebody else

bibliography

James Phelan

Theory and interpretation of narrative

a rhetorical poetics of narrative

In Somebody Telling Somebody Else: A Rhetorical Poetics of Narrative, James Phelan proposes a paradigm shift for narrative theory, a turn from viewing narrative as a structure to viewing it as a rhetorical action in which a teller selectively deploys the resources of storytelling in order to accomplish particular purposes in relation to particular audiences. Phelan explores the consequences of this shift for an understanding of various elements of narrative, including reliable and unreliable narration, character-character dialogue, and occasions of narration. In doing so, he offers new readings of a wide range of narratives from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, from Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim to George V. Higgins's The Friends of Eddie Coyle, from Franz Kafka's "Das Urteil" to Toni Morrison's "Recitatif, " from David Small's Stitches to Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent, " from John O'Hara's "Appearances" to Ian McEwan's Enduring Love. Phelan contends that the standard view of narrative as a synthesis of story and discourse is inadequate to handle the complexities of narrative communication, and he demonstrates the greater explanatory power of his rhetorical view. Furthermore, Phelan gives new prominence to the presence and activity of the "somebody else, " as he shows that an audience's unfolding responses to a narrative often influence its very construction. -- Back cover

Part 1. On the explanatory power of rhetorical poetics : Introduction : Principles of rhetorical poetics -- Somebody telling somebody else: authors, resources, audiences -- Somebody telling somebody else: audiences and probable impossibilities -- Part 2. Resources: generic frames, techniques, occasions, and synergies : Probability in fiction and nonfiction: Pride and prejudice and The year of magical thinking -- Engaging the stubborn: narrative speed and readerly judgments in Franz Kafka's "Das Urteil" -- Estranging unreliability, bonding unreliability, and the ethics of Lolita -- The how and why of backward narration in Martin Amis's Time's arrow -- "I affirm nothing": Lord Jim and the uses of textual recalcitrance -- Toni Morrison's determinate ambiguity in "Recitatif" -- Conversational and authorial disclosure in dialogue narrative: George Higgins's The friends of Eddie Coyle and John O'Hara's "Appearances" -- The implied author, deficient narration, and nonfiction narrative: Joan Didion's The year of magical thinking and Jean-Dominique Bauby's The diving bell and the butterfly -- Reliability, dialogue, and crossover effects in Jhumpa Lahiri's "The third and final continent" -- Reliable, unreliable, and deficient narration: toward a rhetorical poetics -- Occasions of narration and the functions of narrative segments in Enduring love -- Conclusion : Reflections on the how and why of rhetorical poetics