FIGURE 2.4. From probability to plausible violations of probability to probable
implausibilities and impossibilities.
Having given this overview of the explanatory power of rhetorical poetics,
including its capacity to account for the important role of author-audience
relations in the deployment of narrative elements, I turn in part 2 to more
in-depth looks at a range of resources of narrative, including character narra-
tion, character-character dialogue, and occasions of narration. But even as I
bring these resources to the front and center of the discussion, I shall remain
ultimately concerned with how authors use them to achieve certain effects on
audiences, how the details of those uses are in turn influenced by the knowl-
edge and responses of audiences, and how the effects of those author-audience
interactions relate to the authors’ overall purposes.
AUDIENCES AND PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES • 59