Somebody Telling Somebody Else A Rhetorical Poetics Of Narrative

(Chris Devlin) #1

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

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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
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