A Study Of James Phelan’ Theory Of Narrative Progression

Nineteen ninties, Narratology has re-emerged in Britain and the United States, somescholars called it the Narratology of "small scale revival", and Rhetorical Narratology is animportant force of it. James Phelan is a famous literary theorist, and is the representativescholar of the Rhetorical Narrative theory. He proposed the “Narrative Progression " conceptclearly reflects the characteristics of Rhetorical Narratology. Narrative Progressionemphasizes the interaction between the text and the reader, and a two-way interactivecommunication process. The paper will study the main content and the theoretical quality ofNarrative Progression theory by analyzing Phelan’ works. This paper is mainly concern aboutthree issues: first, the origin of the Narrative Progression; second, the concept "unstablility"and "tension" dynamic mechanism of Narrative Progression is directly correspondingnarrative and discourse layer or not; third, the specific connotation of “instability” and“tension” in literature texts.According to the three major problems, the paper is divided into three chapters. The firstchapter introduces the definition of "Narrative Progression ", and discusses the theoreticalorigin of the concept “Narrative Progression”,and study the main content of it. NarrativeProgression is earliest read in Reading Characters, the Characters: Process and NarrativeInterpretation. Narrative Progression and the traditional Narratology are similar, but itcontains more rich mean. The second chapters is connotation to the division of narrativeimpetus. According to Phelan’s theory, Narrative Progression itself is divided into two parts,one is the text itself in the Progression, belong to the story level; the second is the reader’sresponse to the text, which belongs to the discourse level. The "unstablility" and "tension"Narrative Progression of the two driving force mechanism are respectively belong to the twopart. But recently, some scholars have questioned this division, for example, Shen Danconsidered the instability and tension can not simply belong to the story level and thediscourse level, they are cross exist. The third chapter relates to the specific connotation ofnarrative motive mechanism--" unstablility " and "tension", and how they function inliterary texts." unstablility " and "tension" is not two independent terms, they are a part of Phelan’s whole theory system, and is closely related to his view about reader and UnreliableNarration.Narrative Progression theory to literary activities as an interaction between the author,text and reader, which not like Social and Historical Criticism that adhere to the author andthe social and historical context, also did not like the new criticism that only concern to thetext as "internal research", also did not like the Aesthetics of Reception--the ReaderResponse Criticism that only concern about the importance of reading process, and ignore thetext and author. Rhetorical Narratology find a balance among the writers、text and readers.