Somebody Telling Somebody Else A Rhetorical Poetics Of Narrative

CHAPTER 1

Somebody Telling Somebody Else

AUTHORS, RESOURCES, AUDIENCES

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WHY AREN’T CHARACTERS IN THE NARRATIVE

COMMUNICATION MODEL?

O

NE OF the most influential proposals of classical narratology is the

narrative communication model proposed by Seymour Chatman in

his aptly named Story and Discourse (1978) (entities within the brack-

ets are located in the narrative text):

AUTHORREAL IMPLIEDAUTHOR NARRATOR NARRATEE READERIMPLIED READERREAL

[ ]

Since Chatman proposed this model in 1978, narrative theorists have sug-

gested various revisions. Some theorists have proposed fewer agents—the

implied author is the one most often given the axe—and some (e.g., moi in

Living to Tell about It) have proposed moving the implied author outside the

narrative text, but these proposals have only solidified the model’s central

place in narrative theory. To be sure, some theorists, including David Herman

(2008), Richard Walsh, and Patrick Hogan have proposed alternative concep-

tions, but so far these alternatives have not displaced Chatman’s model. In this

way, the model is a good example of what Thomas Kuhn refers to as “normal