real rather than hypothetical audiences. This conclusion, of course, is espe-
cially significant when we come to discuss the ethical consequences of read-
ing. Furthermore, highlighting the actual audience prepares the way to the
second step of rhetorical reading: moving outside of the authorial audience
and evaluating the multilayered experiences offered by the narrative. I will
discuss this point more fully when I take up the differences between unreliable
and deficient narration in chapter 9.
(7) The second column, unlike Chatman’s model, lists not just human
agents but also other resources, such as occasion and arrangement, that
authors deploy for significant communicative effects. I have already com-
mented on how Higgins uses arrangement for his rhetorical and ethical pur-
poses. As for occasion, think of how much Robert Browning in “My Last
Duchess” communicates about the ethical character of the Duke of Ferrara
with the artfully delayed disclosure that the Duke tells the story of his previ-
ous wife on the occasion of a visit from the representative of the father of his
bride-to-be.
(8) I recognize that there is a considerable diversity among the resources—
narrative audience and narratee are very different from paratexts, which in
turn are different from voice and style. But placing them all in the same col-
umn highlights two points: they are all text-based, and in any given passage,
some resources are likely to be more valuable than others (as further reflection
on a category such as occasion suggests).
(9) Emphasizing the author/implied author as a constant and the narra-
tor as a variable resource reorders their priority in narratological analysis. In
Chatman’s model, the implied author delegates just about everything to the
narrator or to the nonnarrated mimesis. In my model, the implied author typ-
ically does not tell directly, but he or she does more than hand over the telling
to the narrator, as my focus on the channel of narrative arrangement suggests.
Here is another example from Eddie Coyle: The first sentence of the novel
is “Jackie Brown at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he
could get some guns” (3). The first sentence of chapter 19 is “With no expres-
sion on his face, Jackie Brown sat in the outer office, his cuffed hands in his
lap” (114). And as quoted above, the first clause of the last chapter is “Jackie
Brown at twenty-seven sat with no expression on his face” (179). The echo
contributes substantially to the communication of the ethics of the told: in all
three moments, despite the changes in experience and especially the changes
in his understanding of Eddie Coyle, Jackie Brown is essentially the same
tough guy—though in the second two situations he sits in silence rather than
making deals.
28 • CHAPTER 1