Title: Narrative as rhetoric : technique, audiences, ethics, ideology /
Authors: Phelan, James, 1951-
Publisher: Ohio State University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Narration (Rhetoric); Fiction Technique; Ideology and literature.
Abstract: In Narrative as Rhetoric, James Phelan explores the consequences for narrative theory of two significant principles: (1) narrative is rhetoric because narrative occurs when someone tells a particular story for a particular audience in a particular situation for some particular purpose(s); (2) the reading of narrative is a multidimensional activity, simultaneously engaging our intellects, emotions, ideologies, and ethics.
Contents: Narrative as rhetoric : reading the spells of Poter's Magic -- Part 1 Narrative progression and narrative discourse : lyric, voice, and readerly judgements -- Character and judgement in narrative and in lyric : toward an understanding of audience engagement in The Waves -- Gender politics in the showman's discourse ; or, listening to Vanity Fair -- Voice, distance, temporal perspective, and the dynamics of A Farewell to Arms -- Part 2 Mimetic conventions, ethics, and homodiegetic narration -- What Hemingway and a rhetorical theory of narrative can do for each other : the example of My Old Man -- Reexamining reliability : the multiple functions of Nick Carraway -- Sharing secrets -- Part 3 Audiences and ideology -- Narratee, narrative audience, and second-person narration : how I and you -- read Lorrie Moore's How -- Narrating the PC controversies : thoughts on Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education -- Toward a rhetorical reader-response criticism : the dificult, the stubborn, and the ending of Beloved -- Appendix Why Wayne Booth can't get with the program ; or the nintentional fallacy.