Somebody Telling Somebody Else

<div>In <i>Somebody Telling Somebody Else</i> James Phelan proposes a paradigm shift for narrative theory a turn from viewing narrative as a structure to viewing it as a rhetorical action in which a teller selectively deploys the resources of storytelling in order to accomplish particular purposes in relation to particular audiences. Phelan explores the consequences of this shift for an understanding of various elements of narrative including reliable and unreliable narration character-character dialogue and occasions of narration.<br>  <br> In doing so he offers new readings of a wide range of narratives from Jane Austen's <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> to Joan Didion's <i>The Year of Magical Thinking</i> from Joseph Conrad's <i>Lord Jim</i> to George V. Higgins's <i>The Friends of Eddie Coyle </i>from Franz Kafka's Das Urteil to Toni Morrison's Recitatif from David Small's <i>Stitches</i> to Jhumpa Lahiri's Third and Final Continent from John O'Hara's Appearances to Ian McEwan's <i>Enduring Love.</i>  Phelan contends that the standard view of narrative as a synthesis of story and discourse is inadequate to handle the complexities of narrative communication and he demonstrates the greater explanatory power of his rhetorical view.  Furthermore Phelan gives new prominence to the presence and activity of the somebody else as he shows that an audience's unfolding responses to a narrative often influence its very construction.<br>  </div>