the interpreter, progress often involves recognizing the teller’s orchestration of
the interactive effects of various resources, including the trajectory of rhetori-
cal readers’ responses. To return briefly to McEwan’s Enduring Love, Joe Rose’s
unreliable character narration interacts with its occasion, with the character
narrations and occasions of the two Appendices, and with McEwan’s sequenc-
ing of all three segments, and these interactions have major consequences for
rhetorical readers’ evolving engagements with the mimetic, thematic, and syn-
thetic components of the narrative—or to put it another way, with its cogni-
tive, affective, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions. Furthermore, the analysis of
these interactions prepares the way for a closer look at McEwan’s handling of
other resources, such as Clarissa’s character narration in her letter to Joe after
the row that leads to their separation, and even the strange events connected
with Joe’s procuring a gun. The findings emerging from those examinations
would then feed back into the analysis of the other interactions, potentially
leading to some revision of its conclusions. And so on and so on until the
rhetorical interpreter is ready to cry, “Hold, enough.”
A similar pattern applies to the rhetorical theorist’s progress. Consider,
for example, the analysis of character narration across the various chapters
of this book. Progress in the understanding of some aspects of that resource
has ripple effects on our understanding of other aspects. The more we get
inside the rhetoric of unreliable narration, the more we can understand the
rhetoric of both reliable narration and deficient narration. Just as important,
progress with one resource often has ripple effects with another. My work on
character narration, for example, sheds light on the rhetorical dynamics of
character-character dialogue, and the more we understand about each of these
resources, the more we can appreciate synergies between them. And so on.
In addition, the accumulated theoretical insights can then inform rhetorical
interpretation even as the workings of individual narrative can lead to revi-
sions in the theory. To put this point another away, the activities of configura-
tion and reconfiguration are important not only in reading narrative but also
in constructing rhetorical narrative theory.
BEYOND THESE methodological issues that render the problems of rhetorical
poetics exquisite is something even more important for the project: a belief in
the value and power of narrative itself. The motivation for the somebody who
tells is not far to seek: to come to terms with some aspects of human experi-
ence; to communicate ideas, attitudes, values, and convictions to anyone who
will listen; to create something of lasting beauty. And more. But why be the
somebody else? Rhetorical poetics answers by pointing to the positive effects
258 • CONCLUSION