more characters in unstable situations, he advances the plot by complicating
those instabilities, and he ends the plot by resolving those instabilities to one
degree or another—or thematizing the impossibility of resolution. Narratorial
dynamics are diverse, but two broad patterns, which I will unpack more fully
in part 2, are reliable and unreliable narration. Each pattern has consequences
for how an author handles the plot dynamics and thus adds an important
layer to the textual dynamics. Unreliable narration introduces tensions among
authors, narrators, and audiences and the issue of whether these tensions will
be resolved can become an important part of the textual dynamics. Readerly
dynamics include both local and global interpretive, ethical, affective, and aes-
thetic responses to the unfolding textual dynamics. They also include such
broader activities as configurations and reconfigurations of the various layers
of the developing trajectory. Since analyzing the progression involves unpack-
ing the underlying logic of the narrative—why it is the way it is and not some
other way—it provides valuable insight into the narrative’s purposes.
(10) Rhetorical readers develop interests and responses of three broad
kinds, each related to a particular component of the narrative: mimetic,
thematic, and synthetic. Responses to the mimetic component involve rhe-
torical readers’ interest in the characters as possible people and in the nar-
rative world as like our own, that is, hypothetically or conceptually possible;
responses to the mimetic component include rhetorical readers’ evolving
judgments and emotions, their desires, hopes, expectations, satisfactions, and
disappointments. Responses to the mimetic component of fiction are tied to
rhetorical readers’ participation in the narrative audience. Responses to the
mimetic component of nonfiction are tied to rhetorical readers’ sense of the fit
between the actual world and its representation in the narrative. Responses to
the thematic component involve rhetorical readers’ interest in the ideational
function of the characters and in the cultural, ideological, philosophical, or
ethical issues being addressed by the narrative. Responses to the synthetic
component involve rhetorical readers’ interest in and attention to the charac-
ters and to the larger narrative as artificial constructs. The relationship among
rhetorical readers’ relative interests in these different components will vary
from narrative to narrative depending on the nature of its genre and progres-
sion. Some narratives (including most so-called realistic fiction) are dominated
by mimetic interests; some (including allegories and political polemics such as
Animal Farm) stress the thematic; others (including the nouveau roman and
postmodern metafiction) put priority on the synthetic. But the interests of
many narratives are more evenly distributed among two or three of the com-
ponents. Most narratives in the realistic tradition, for instance, promote both
the mimetic and the thematic, and some narratives situate mimetic characters
PRINCIPLES OF RHETORICAL POETICS • 11