Toward A Feminist Narratology-S Lanser

Toward a Feminist Narratology
Author(s): Susan S. Lanser

Source: Style, Vol. 20, No. 3, Narrative Poetics (Fall 1986), pp. 341-363
Published by: Penn State University Press
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Susan S. Lanser
Toward a Feminist Narratology*
Whatyouchooseand rejecttheoretically, then,dependsuponwhatyouareprac-

ticallytrying to do. This has alwaysbeen thecase withliterary criticism:
it is
simplythatit is oftenveryreluctant to realizethefact.In anyacademicstudy
we selecttheobjectsand methodsofprocedure whichwebelievethemostimpor-
tant,and our assessmentof theirimportance is governedby framesof interest
deeplyrootedin ourpracticalformsofsociallife.Radicalcriticsare no different
in thisrespect:it is just thattheyhavea setofsocialprioritieswithwhichmost
peopleat presenttendto disagree.This is whytheyare commonly dismissedas
'ideological',because'ideology'is alwaysa wayofdescribing otherpeople'sinter-
estsratherthanone's own.
TerryEagleton(211)
Feminist criticism,like narratologyand all good theoriesperhaps,is an

optimisticenterprise,eager to account forthe whole of its relevantuniverse.
For nearlytwo decades it has not only offerednew ways of seeinga vast range
of textsby both women and men, in virtuallyeverygenreand language; it has
also scrutinizedtheassumptions,theories,and methodsof literaryscholarship,
frombiographyand historyto deconstructionand psychoanalysis,fromarche-
typal criticismto reader response. Yet in the sometimes sharp debates both
within feminist criticism (especially between "American" and "French"
approaches1) and between feminismand other critical modes, structuralist-
formalistmethodshave been virtuallyuntouched.In consequence, narratology
has had littleimpact on feministscholarship,and feministinsightsabout nar-
rative have been similarlyoverlooked by narratology.The title of this essay
may thereforeseem startling,as if I am tryingto forcean intersectionof two
lines drawn on different planes: the one scientific,descriptive,and non-ideo-
logical, the otherimpressionistic,evaluative, and political (a false opposition
that I hope my opening epigraphhelps to dissolve).
Althoughfeminismand narratologycannot reallybe said to have a his-
tory,therehave been a fewgesturesof synthesis.While narcological studies
are absent fromnearlyall oftheotherwiseeclecticand wide-rangingcollections
of feministapproaches to literature,the excellentvolume Women and Lan-
guage in Literatureand Society(1980) does incorporateessays of structuralist
bent.2The only directefforts to link feminismand narratologyof which I am
aware are Mária Minich Brewer'scritique of narratologyin "A Loosening of
* I amgrateful
toMichael LeonaFisher,
Ragussis, CarenKaplan,
andHarold
Mosher
forinvaluable
criticism
ofthisessayinsuccessive
manuscript
stages.
Style:Volume20, No. 3, Fall 1986 341
342 Susan S. Lanser
Tongues," Mieke Bal's applicationofit in "Sexuality,Symbiosisand Binarism"

and therecentFemmes imaginaires3myown attemptto forgea feministpoetics
of point of view in The NarrativeAct; and the very recent essay of Robyn
Warhol.4 Even feministcriticswho acknowledge considerable debt to their
formalistor structuralist traininghave sharplycriticizedits limitations.Naomi
Schor vows that she could not practicefeministcriticismat all in the "subtle
oppression exercised [in American departmentsof French] by structuralism
and doctrinaire"(ix); JosephineDonovan, speakingfrom
at itsleast self-critical
an Anglo-Americanperspective,rejects"the dissectionof literatureas ifit were
an aestheticmachine made up of paradoxes, images,symbols,etc.,as so many
nuts and bolts easily disintegratedfromthewhole" ("Women's Poetics" 108).5
It would be safe,I think,to say that no contemporarytheory,whetherAnglo-
American or continental,has exertedso littleinfluenceon feministcriticism
or been so summarilydismissed as formalist-structuralist narratology.
In part, of course, this coolness toward narratology-both the practice
and the word6-is characteristicof the professionas a whole. At the end of her
excellent book on narrativepoetics, Shlomith Rimmon-Kennan feels com-
pelled to ask whethershe has written"an introduction... or an obituary"to
the field(130). TerryEagletonuses even strongerdeath imagerywhen he likens
structuralismto "killinga person in orderto examine more convenientlythe
circulationof the blood" (109). To psychoanalyticcriticslike Peter Brooks, a
formalistnarratology, howevervaluable, cannotgrasp"our experienceof read-
ing narrativeas a dynamic operation" (316).7 And thereis perhaps no surer
barometerof professionalsentimentthan David Lodge's brilliantsatire,Small
"
World,in which Morris Zapp says of a Sorbonne narratologist, 'Hasn't his
moment passed? I mean, ten years ago everybodywas into that stuff,actants
and functionsand mythemesand all thatjazz. But now . . .' " (134). Those
Anglo-Americanscholars who were never comfortablewith structuralismin
generalor narratologyin particularhave probablybeen relievedat its decline,
while most criticsgroundedin Continentalthinkinghave moved on to post-
structuralist theoriesthat offeran exhilaratingopenness against which narra-
tology may seem mechanical, empirical, hardly conducive to the plaisir du
texte.
Given a literaryclimate at best indifferent to narratology,my desire to
explore the compatibility of feminism and narratologyis also a way to think
about what narratologycan and cannot do, what place it mighthave in the
contemporarycriticalenvironmentof Americandepartmentsofliterature,and
how it mightenrichthe hermeneuticalenterpriseforcriticswho are not them-
selves theoristsof narrative.My immediate task, however,will be more cir-
cumscribed:to ask whetherfeministcriticism,and particularlythe study of
narrativesby women, mightbenefitfromthe methods and insightsof narra-
tologyand whethernarratology, in turn,mightbe alteredbytheunderstandings
of feministcriticismand the experience of women's texts.It is in the frank
Toward a FeministNarratology 343
desire to say yes to both these questions that this essay has been conceived.
It is in the suppositionthatthe readersof thisjournal are more involved with
narratologythan withfeminismthatmy emphasis will be on the second ques-
tion ratherthan the first.
There are compellingreasons why feminism(or any explicitlypolitical
criticism)and narratology(or any largelyformalpoetics) mightseem incom-
patible. The technical,oftenneologistic,vocabulary of narratologyhas alien-
ated criticsof manypersuasionsand may seem particularlycounterproductive
to criticswith political concerns.Feminists also tend to be distrustfulof cat-
egories and oppositions, of "a conceptual universe organized into the neat
paradigms of binarylogic" (Schor ix)8- a distrustwhich explains part of the
attractionof feministtheoryto Derridean deconstruction.But there are (at
least) threemore crucial issues about which feminismand narratologymight
differ:the role of genderin the constructionof narrativetheory,the status of
narrative as mimesis or semiosis, and the importanceof context for deter-
mining meaning in narrative.
The most obvious question feminismwould ask of narratologyis simply
this: upon what body of texts,upon what understandingsof the narrativeand
referentialuniverse,have the insightsof narratologybeen based? It is readily
apparent that virtuallyno work in the fieldof narratologyhas taken gender
into account, eitherin designatinga canon or in formulatingquestions and
hypotheses.This means, firstof all, that the narrativeswhich have provided
the foundationfornarratologyhave been eithermen's texts or textstreated
as men's texts.Genette'sformulationof a "Discours du récit" on the basis of
Proust's A la recherchedu tempsperdu, Propp's androcentricmorphologyof
a certainkindof folktale,Greimas on Maupassant, Iser on male novelistsfrom
Bunyan to Beckett,Bartheson Balzac, Todorov on the Decameron- these are
but evident examples of the ways in which the masculine text stands forthe
universal text.In the structuralist quest for"invariantelementsamong super-
ficial differences"(Lévi-Strauss8), for (so-called) universais ratherthan par-
ticulars,narratologyhas avoided questions of genderalmost entirely.This is
particularlyproblematicforthose feministcritics-in this country,the major-
ity-whose main interestis the "differenceor specificityof women's writing"
(Showalter, "Women's Time" 38). The recognitionof this specificityhas led
not only to the rereadingof individual texts but to the rewritingof literary
history;I am suggesting thatit also lead to a rewriting
of narratologythattakes
into account the contributionsof women as both producersand interpreters
of texts.9
This challengedoes not deny the enormous value of a body of brilliant
narrativetheoryforthe studyof women's works; indeed, it has been applied
fruitfullyto such writersas Colette (Bal, "The Narratingand the Focalizing")
and Eliot (Costello) and is crucial to my own studies of narrativevoice in
women's texts.It does mean thatuntilwomen's writings,questions of gender,
344 Susan S. Lanser
and feministpoints of view are considered,it will be impossible even to know

the deficienciesof narratology.It seems to me likelythat the most abstract
and grammaticalconcepts (say, theoriesof time) will prove to be adequate.
On the otherhand, as I will argue laterin this essay,theoriesof plot and story
may need to change substantially.And I would predictthat the major impact
of feminismon narratologywill be to raise new questions, to add to the nar-
ratologicaldistinctionsthat already exist,as I will be suggestingbelow in my
discussions of narrativelevel, context,and voice.
A narratologyfor feministcriticismwould also have to reconcile the
primarilysemiotic approach of narratologywith the primarilymimetic ori-
entation of most (Anglo-American)feministthinkingabout narrative.This
differencereminds us that "literatureis at the juncture of two systems";one
can speak about it as
oflife
a representation
an account
ofreality
a mimetic
document
and as
a non-referential
linguistic
system
an enunciation a narrator
supposing anda listener
a linguistic
primarily construct. (Furman64-65)
Traditionally, structuralistnarratologyhas suppressed the representational

aspects of fictionand emphasized the semiotic,while feministcriticismhas
done the opposite. Feministcriticstend to be more concernedwithcharacters
than with any other aspect of narrativeand to speak of characterslargelyas
if theywere persons. Most narratologists, in contrast,treatcharacters,ifat all,
as "patternsof recurrence,motifswhich are continuallyrecontextualizedin
othermotifs";as such, they"lose theirprivilege,theircentralstatus,and their
definition"(Weinsheimer 195). This conception could seem to threatenone
of feministcriticism'sdeepest premises:that narrativetexts,and particularly
textsin the novelistictradition,are profoundly(if never simply) referential-
and influential-in theirrepresentationsof genderrelations.The challenge to
both feminismand narratologyis to recognizethe dual natureof narrative,to
findcategoriesand termsthat are abstractand semiotic enough to be useful,
but concreteand mimeticenough to seem relevantforcriticswhose theories
root literaturein "the real conditions of our lives" (Newton 125).
The tendencyto pure semiosis is both cause and effectof a more general
tendencyin narratologyto isolate textsfromthe contextsof theirproduction
and receptionand hence fromwhat "political" criticsthinkof as literature's
groundof being- the"real world." This is partlya resultof narratology'sdesire
for a precise, scientificdescriptionof discourse, for many of the questions
Toward a Feminist Narratology 345
concerningtherelationshipof literatureto the "real world"- questions of why,

so what, to what effect-are admittedlyspeculative. Thus "when narratology
does attemptto account forthe contextual,it does so in termsof narrative
conventions and codes. Yet theircapacity to account for social, historicalor
contextualdifferences always remainslimitedby the originalformalistclosure
withinwhich such codes and conventionsare defined"(Brewer 1143). This is
whyearlyin thehistoryofformalism,criticslike Medvedev and Bakhtincalled
fora "sociological poetics" that would be dialecticallytheoreticaland histor-
ical: "Poetics provides literaryhistorywithdirectionin the specificationof the
research material and the basic definitionsof its formsand types. Literary
historyamends thedefinitionsof poetics,makingthemmore flexible,dynamic,
and adequate to the diversityof the historicalmaterial" (30). My insistence
on writingwomen's textsinto the historicalcanon of narratologyhas precisely
this aim of makingit more adequate to the diversityof narrative.
Finally,feministcriticismwould argue that narratologyitselfis ideolog-
ical, indeed in an importantsense fictional.One need not agreewholeheartedly
with Stanley Fish that "formalunits are always a functionof the interpretive
model one bringsto bear (they are not 'in the text')" (13), to recognize that
no interpretivesystemis definitiveor inevitable.But as Fish also remindsus,
everytheorymustbelieve itselfthe best theorypossible (361). Formalist-struc-
turalistnarratologymay "know" that its categoriesare not immanent,but it
proceeds as if there were "a stable and immediatelyknowable text,directly
available to classificatoryoperationsthatare themselvesneutraland innocent
of interpretivebias" (Chambers 18-19). Feministcriticismhas simplynot had
this luxury:in its critiqueof masculine bias, it has of necessitytaken the view
that theorysometimes says more about the reader than about the text.
A narratologyfor feministcriticismwould begin, then, with the recog-
nition that revision of a theory's premises and practices is legitimateand
desirable. It would probably be cautious in its constructionof systemsand
favor flexiblecategoriesover fixedsets. It would scrutinizeits norms to be
sure of what they are normative. It would be willing to look afreshat the
question of genderand to re-formits theorieson the basis of women's texts,
as Robyn Warhol's essay on the "engagingnarrator,"just publishedin PMLA,
begins to do. In both its concepts and its terminology,it would reflectthe
mimeticas well as the semioticexperiencethatis the readingof literature,and
it would study narrativein relation to a referentialcontext that is simulta-
neouslylinguistic,literary, historical,biographical,social,and political.Granted,
narratologymighthave to be willingto cede some precisionand simplicityfor
the sake of relevance and accessibility,to develop terminologyless confusing,
say, than a series like analepsis, prolepsis, paralepsis, and metalepsis. The
valuable and impressiveworkthathas been done in the fieldwould be opened
to a critiqueand supplementin which feministquestions were understoodto
contributeto a richer,more useful,and more complete narratology.For as I
346 Susan S. Lanser
have been tryingto suggest,a narratologythatcannot adequately account for

women's narrativesis an inadequate narratologyformen's textsas well.
A re-formednarratologyshould be ofparticularinterestto feministcritics
because fictionis the dominant genre in the study of women and literature.
The necessarilysemiotic nature of even a revised narratologywill help to
balance feministcriticism'snecessarilymimetic commitments.The compre-
hensiveness and care with which narratologymakes distinctionscan provide
invaluable methods for textual analysis. As Mieke Bal argues, "The use of
formallyadequate and precisetools is not interesting in itself,but it can clarify
other,veryrelevantissues and provideinsightswhichotherwiseremainvague"
("Sexuality" 121). Narratologyand feministcriticismmight profitablyjoin
forces,forexample, to exploretheteleologicalaspects of narrative,whichhave
concerned narcologists like Ann Jefferson and Marianna Torgovnick and
feministcriticslikeRachel Blau DuPlessis. I can imaginea richdialoguebetween
Armine MortimerKotin's and Nancy K. Miller's analyses of the plot of La
Princesse de Cleves. And a major benefitof narratologyis that it offersa
relativelyindependent(pre-textual)frameworkforstudyinggroupsof texts.It
could, forexample, provide a particularlyvaluable foundationfor exploring
one of themost complexand troublingquestionsforfeministcriticism:whether
thereis indeed a "woman's writing"and/ora female tradition,whethermen
and women do writedifferently. For given the volatile natureof the question,
the precision and abstractionof narratologicalsystemsoffersthe safetyfor
investigationthatmore impressionistictheoriesof difference do not. This kind
of researchwould demonstratethe particularresponsivenessof narratologyto
certainproblems forwhich othertheorieshave not been adequate and hence
illustrateits unique value forfeministscholarship.
#* *
I would like to begin the movement toward a feministnarratologyby

identifyingsome ofthequestionsa feministreadingmightraise fornarratology.
I will emphasize here not so much the fruitful applications which narratology
could currentlyofferbut the questions that it does not yet seem to have
addressed. I have chosen, instead of a typical piece of fiction,a far more
anomalous work because it presentsmany complexities in a short space of
textand allows me to examine several aspects of women's writingand writing
in general.The textis a letter,allegedlywrittenby a youngbridewhose husband
censored her correspondence.It appeared in Atkinson'sCasket in April 1832,
sandwichedbetweena discussion ofangels and directionsfor"calisthenicexer-
cises."10No indication is given of the letter'ssource, authenticity,or author-
ship. I am assuming,but cannot be certain,that it is apocryphal; I make no
assumptionsabout the author'ssex. Here is thetextas it appears in the Casket:
FEMALE INGENUITY.
Secret A young
Correspondence.- Lady,newlymarried, to showherhus-
beingobliged
band,alltheletters
shewrote,
sentthefollowing
toan intimate
friend.
I cannot be satisfied,myDearestFriend!
blestas I aminthematrimonial state,
unlessI pourintoyourfriendly bosom,
which haseverbeeninunisonwithmine,
thevarious deepsensations which swell
withtheliveliest emotions ofpleasure
myalmostbursting heart.I tellyoumydear
husband is oneofthemostamiableofmen,
I havebeenmarried sevenweeks, and
haveneverfound theleastreasonto
repent thedaythatjoinedus,myhusband is
inperson andmanners farfrom resembling
ugly,crass,old,disagreeable, andjealous
monsters, whothink byconfining tosecure;
a wife,itis hismaxim totreat as a
bosom-friend andconfidant, andnotas a
plaything ormenialslave,thewoman
chosentobe hiscompanion. Neither party
hesaysought toobeyimplicitly;-
buteachyieldtotheother byturns-
Anancient maiden aunt,nearseventy,
a cheerful, venerable,andpleasant oldlady,
livesinthehousewithus-sheis thede-
lightofbothyoung andold-sheis ci-
viltoalltheneighborhood round,
generous andcharitable tothepoor-
I knowmyhusband lovesnothing more
thanhedoesme;heflatters memore
thantheglass,andhisintoxication
(forso I mustcalltheexcessofhislove)
often makesmeblushfortheunworthiness
ofitsobject, andI wishI couldbe moredeserving
ofthemanwhosenameI bear.To
sayall inoneword, mydear, , andto
crown thewhole, myformer gallantlover
is nowmyindulgent husband, myfondness
is returned, andI might havehad
a Prince, without thefelicityI findwith
him.Adieu!Mayyoube as blestas I amun-
abletowishthatI couldbe more
happy.
N.B.-Thekeytotheaboveletter, is toreadthefirstand
thenevery alternate
line.
For purposes of easy reference,I reproduce below the decoded subtextthat

this readingof alternatelines will yield:
348 Susan S. Lanser
I cannot myDearestFriend!
be satisfied,
unlessI pourintoyourfriendly bosom,
thevarious deepsensationswhich swell
myalmostbursting I tellyoumydear
heart.
I havebeenmarried sevenweeks, and
repentthedaythatjoinedus,myhusband is
ugly, andjealous[;]
crass,old,disagreeable,
a wife,itis hismaxim totreatas a
plaything ormenialslave,thewoman
hesaysought toobeyimplicitly;-
Anancient maiden aunt,nearseventy,
livesinthehousewithus-sheis thede-
viltoall theneighborhood round,
I knowmyhusband lovesnothing more
thantheglass,andhisintoxication
often makesmeblushfortheunworthiness
ofthemanwhosenameI bear.To
crown thewhole, myformer gallantlover
is returned,andI might havehad
him.Adieu!Mayyoube as blestas I amun-
happy.
Writtenfortwo readers(the pryinghusband and theintimatefriend)thisletter

is in an unusually obvious sense a double construction,a blatant specimen of
writingover and under censorship.The surfacetextand subtextare strikingly
differentboth in storyand narration,and a narrative theoryadequate for
describingthe whole will have to account forboth and forthe narrativeframe
thatbinds them.In particular,such a textraises fordiscussion questions about
narrativevoice, narrativesituation,and plot.
Perhaps the most obvious difference betweenthe letters,apart fromtheir
contrastingstories,is the difference between the two-voices. Some linguists
have argued that there is a "woman's language" or a discourse of the pow-
erless:" speech that is "polite, emotional, enthusiastic,gossipy, talkative,
uncertain,dull, and chatty"in contrastto men's speech or powerfulspeech,
which is "capable, direct,rational, illustratinga sense of humor, unfeeling,
strong(in tone and word choice) and blunt" (Kramarae 58). The two letters
illustratemany of the differencesbetween these two modes of speech. The
surfacetextis virtuallya samplerof "women's language": its self-effacing nar-
ratorpraises the "more deserving"husband and blushes forher own "unwor-
thiness"; her "liveliestemotions" generatea discourseof repetition,hyperbole,
convolution, and grammatical anomaly. It is the voice of one who clearly
cannot "say all in one word," who can assert herselfonly in empty phrases
and a syntaxof negativity.The voice of the subtextis, by contrast,strikingly
simple and direct,in the kind of language that commands (an all-too-ready)
authority.12This second narratorshows herselfangry,strong,decisive, sure of
herjudgments,acutelyaware of her husband's deficienciesand of her own lost
opportunities.Her speech acts- "I repent,""I know," "she is the devil," "I
am unhappy"- are acts of conviction; such a voice requiresenormous confi-
dence and would probablybe accorded an immediate credibility.Beneath the

"feminine" voice of self-effacement and emotionality,then,lies the "mascu-
line" voice of authoritythat the writercannot inscribe openly. The subtext
also exposes the surface text,and hence the surface voice, as a subterfuge,
revealingthe "femininestyle"to be a caricaturedonned to mask a surervoice
in the process of communicatingto a woman under the watchfuleyes of a
man. But this also means thatthe powerlessformcalled "women's language"
is revealed as a potentiallysubversive-hence powerful-tool.
In The NarrativeAct I called fora poetics that would go beyond formal
classificationsin order to describe the subtle but crucial differencesbetween
voices like these. For in structuraltermsthe two voices are similar: both are
first-person/protagonist (autodiegetic) narrators(though they are addressing
different narratees).Most of the qualities thatdistinguishthe two voices have
yet to be codifiedby narratology.One mightask, forexample, what kinds of
illocutionaryacts the narratorundertakesand whethershe undertakesthem
in a discourse of "presence" or "absence," if we take "absence" to encompass
such practices as "irony, ellipsis, euphemism, litotes,periphrasis,reticence,
pretermission,digression,and so forth"(Hamon 99). This question, in turn,
mightlead to a (much-needed)theorythat would defineand describe tone in
narrative.Tone mightbe conceived at least in part as a functionof the rela-
tionship between the deep and superficialstructuresof an illocutionaryact
(e.g., the relationshipbetween an act of judgment and the language in which
the judgment is expressed).
This double textrecalls an even sharperlesson about narrativevoice, the
lesson formulatedby Bakhtin:that in narrativethereis no single voice, that
in farsubtlersituationsthan this one, voice impingesupon voice, yieldinga
structurein which discourses of and forthe otherconstitutethe discourses of
self;that,to go as faras Wayne Booth does, "We are constitutedin polyphony"
(51). The blatant heteroglossiaof this letter-and I shall suggestbelow that it
is even more layered than at firstappears- is but a sharper version of the
polyphonyof all voice and, certainlyin visible ways, of the female voices in
many women's narratives.For the condition of being woman in a male-dom-
inant society may well necessitate the double voice, whetheras conscious
subterfugeor as tragicdispossession of the self. Thus in a textlike Charlotte
PerkinsGilman's The Yellow Wallpaper,thenarratorspeaks herdesiresunder-
neath a discourseconstructedforherby her husband John;in Susan Glaspell's
"A Juryof Her Peers" two women protecta thirdfroma convictionformurder
by communicatingin "women's language" under the watchfulbut unseeing
eyes of the Law; in novel afternovel JaneAusten constitutesa narrativevoice
that cannot be pinned down, thatcan be read accordingto one's own desires;
a novel like Marge Piercy's Small Changes builds a double structurethrough
which both its author and its protagonistwork out the necessityof living in
a world of double discourse (Hansen). A narratologyadequate to women's
350 Susan S. Lanser
texts(and hence to all texts,thoughpolyphonyis more pronouncedand more

consequential in women's narrativesand in the narrativesof otherdominated
peoples) would have to acknowledgeand account forthis polyphonyof voice,
identifyingand disentanglingits strands,as recentstudies by Graciela Reyes
and Michael O'Neal begin to do.
If we returnwiththis understandingof voice to the double-textletter,it
is easy to identifythose verbal featuresthatdistinguishone fromthe otherby
examiningthe formsof "excess" thatwerepared away in thedecodingprocess.
The firstand less significantis a combinationof repetitionand hyperbolethat
serves as "filler,"yieldingphrases like "which has ever been in unison with
mine" and "withtheliveliestemotionsofpleasure." The second is more impor-
tant, for it creates the syntactichinge that binds and finallytransformsthe
whole: a series of negationsthat the subtextwill reverse:
I . . . havenever found theleastreasontorepent

myhusband is . . . farfromresembling . . . monsters
a wife, itis hismaxim totreat. . . notas a plaything
Neither party,hesaysought toobeyimplicitly
I amunabletowishthatI couldbe morehappy-
This negativityis more than the link between two texts; it is the means by
which the two lettersfinallyyield a third:a thirdstory,a thirdvoice, a third
audience. For thenegativitymakes ofthe surfacetextnot one narrator'ssimple
proclamationof happinessbut the indictmentof an entiresocial system.What,
indeed, does the surfacepaint but the veryportraitof marriagethat it claims
to erase? Each negative statementsuggestsdeparturefroma social norm, a
normin whichbridesrepenttheirmarriages,husbands are monstrous,women
are treatedas playthingsor slaves, and women's desires are unthinkable.In
other words, the surfacetext,by sayingwhat one particularmarriageis not,
shows the terriblecontoursof what its narratorexpectedmarriageto be. While
the subtextcondemns one man and laments one woman's fate, the surface
lettercondemns an entiresociety,presentingas typicalthe conditions which
the subtextimplies to be individual. The subtext,then,becomes an instance
of the surfacetextratherthan its antithesis;the two versionsreveal not oppos-
ing but related truths.It is fitting,
then,that theymeet at theirpoint of dis-
satisfaction,at the single line- the first-that does not change: "I cannot be
satisfied,my dearest Friend!"
In the light of this reading, women's language becomes not simply a
vehicle forconstructinga more legitimate(masculine, powerful)voice but the
voice throughwhichthe more globaljudgmentof patriarchalpracticesis exer-
cised. This text differsfromthe "palimpsestic" discourse feministcriticism
frequentlydescribesin which "surfacedesigns" act simplyas a cover to "con-
ceal or obscure deeper, less accessible (and less socially acceptable) levels of
meaning" (Gilbert and Gubar 73). Here the "surface design" turnsout to be
a moredamningdiscoursethanthetextitpurportsto protect.The textdesigned

forthe husband conceals an undertext(the textdesigned forthe confidante),
but the undertext,in turn,createsa new readingof the surfacetextand hence
a thirdtextdesigned,I would argue,foryetanotheraddressee. This thirdtext
is the one constitutedby the public "display-text"13that is the letteras it
appeared in Atkinson'sCasket. Its addresseeis the literaryreader;she is neither
the duped male nor the sister-confidante but the unidentifiedpublic narratee
of eithersex who can see beyond the immediate contextof the writer'sepis-
tolarycircumstanceto read the negativediscourse as covertculturalanalysis.
Thus the literarycontextof this text provides a thirdand entirelydifferent
reading from the readings yielded to the private audiences of husband and
friend.At the same time,it is theknowledgeof the othertwo texts,the access
to the privatetexts,thatopens the thirdreading,in a version,perhaps,of what
Genette calls hypertextualité (Palimpsestes 11).
The factthat this letterhas several narrateessuggeststhe importanceof
recognizingthe narrativelevels a textmay contain. Gérard Genettehas made
an extremelyimportantcontributionto narratologyin distinguishingthe mul-
tiple diegeticlevels possible in a singletextbecause one narrativemay enclose
or generateanother (Genette, NarrativeDiscourse 227-37; Nouveau discours
55-64). Genettespeaks oftheoutermostlevel as theextradiegetic, ofa narrative
incorporatedwithinthis one as intradiegetic,and of a thirdnarrativelevel as
metadiegetic.Extradiegeticnarrators,says Genette, are usually "author-nar-
rators"- Jane Eyre, George Eliot's "third person" voice- and "as such they
occupy the same narrativelevel as theirpublic- that is, as you and me" (Nar-
rativeDiscourse 229). But as Genette also makes clear, thereis no necessary
connectionbetweenextradiegeticnarrationand a public audience; letter-writ-
ers and diarists(Pamela, Werther)may also be extradiegeticnarrators.Intra-
diegetic(and metadiegetic)narrators-Rochesterwhen he is tellingJane Eyre
the storyof BerthaMason, thecharactersin Middlemarch- are conventionally
able to address only narrateesinscribedwithinthe text.In FrankensteinWal-
ton's lettersto his sisterconstitutean extradiegeticnarrative;Frankenstein's
story,told to Walton, is intradiegetic,and the monster'shistory,narratedto
Frankensteinand enclosed within the tale he tells Walton, is metadiegetic.
Genette's notion of levels provides a precise way of speaking about such
embedded narratives and identifyingtheir narratees- and for describing
transgressionsacross narrativelevels (called metalepses) like those Diderot's
narratorcommits in Jacques le fataliste.
But Genette himselfrecognizesthat narrativelevel has been made too
much of,and thatindeed it does not take us veryfar.In the Nouveau discours
he makes clear just how relativethe distinctionof levels is by generatingan
imaginaryscene in which threemen sit down, one offersto tell the othersa
"
storywhichhe warnswill be long,and the storyteller begins, 'For a long time
I used to go to bed early . . ."' (64). With a frameof only a sentence,says
352 Susan S. Lanser
Genette, the entiretyof Proust's A la recherchesuddenly becomes an intra-

diegeticnarration.If we look at theletterin termsof Genette'slevels,we could
identifyas eitheran extradiegeticnarratoror simply as an editor the voice
thatpresentsthe letteras a specimenof "Female Ingenuity"and explains both
its contextand its secretcode to thereadersofAtkinson's Casket. 14The diegetic
level of the letteris then contingenton this initial decision. And both the
surfaceletterand the subtext,being interlinear,exist on the same level, in an
unusual case of double diegesis. Genette's notion of levels does not allow us
to say much about the narrativesituationof this letterbecause it applies only
to internalrelationsamong partsof a text.It does not describeany individual
narrativeact per se, and it closes oifthe textfromconsiderationsexternaland
contextual.
To provide a more complete analysis of narrativelevel, I would propose
as a complementto Genette'ssystema distinctionbetweenpublic and private
narration.By public narrationI mean simplynarration(implicitlyor explicitly)
addressed to a narrateewho is external(that is, heterodiegetic15)
to the textual
world and who can be equated witha public readership;private narration,in
contrast,is addressedto an explicitlydesignatednarrateewho existsonlywithin
the textual world. Public narrationevokes a direct relationshipbetween the
readerand the narrateeand clearlyapproximatesmost closelythe nonfictional
author-readerrelationship,while in private narrationthe reader's access is
indirect,as it were"through"thefigureofa textualpersona. Such a distinction,
combined with Genette's notions of both level and person, would yield the
typologyshown on the facingpage.
I propose this notion of public and private narrativelevels as an addi-
tional categoryparticularlyrelevantto the studyof women's texts.For women
writers,as feministcriticismhas long noted, the distinctionbetween private
and public contextsis a crucial and a complicatedone. Traditionallyspeaking,
the sanctionsagainstwomen's writinghave takenthe formnot of prohibitions
to writeat all but of prohibitionsto writefora public audience. As Virginia
Woolf comments,"Letters did not count": letterswere private and did not
disturba male discursivehegemony.Dale Spender takes the distinctionseven
further,arguingthat the notions of public and private concern not only the
general context of textual productionbut its gender contextas well: that is,
writingpubliclybecomes synonymouswith writingforand to men. Spender
comments:
Thedichotomy ofmale/female, is maintained

public/private women
bypermitting towrite
... forthemselves
(forexample, andforeachother
diaries) intheform ofletters,
'accom-
plished'pieces,moraltreatises,
articles
ofinterest forotherwomen- in the
particularly
domestic area-andevennovelsforwomen. in patriarchal
. . . Thereis no contradiction
orderwhilewomen writeforwomen andtherefore remain withinthelimitsoftheprivate
sphere;thecontradiction
arisesonlywhenwomen writeformen. (192)
level person PUBLIC PRIVATE
heterodiegeticnarration
of moments of "metalepse"
(third-person)Emma inJacqueslefataliste
or whennarrator consorts
Middlemarch withhischaracters
eXtra-
diegetic homodiegetic JaneEyre's letters
of
(first-person) narration Walton
or
Werther
heterodiegetic? talesofthe
(third-person) Heptameron
or
Scheherezade
intradiegetic
or
metadiegetic homodiegetic the"found"memoir of narratives
of
(first-person)LionelVerney inMary Frankenstein
Shelley'sTheLastMan andthe
orPirandello's
Six Monster
Characters
The bride's letterboth illustratesSpender's formulationand expands it in

importantways. The only public level of narrationhere is the narrationthat
presents the letterin the Casket as the "display" of a correspondence. In
relation to this level, the letteritselfis a private text,designed for a private
readership.Yet the surfaceletteris intendedby its narratorto be an eminently
public text in relation to the subtext,which is the private text she urgently
hopes will not be available to the "public" who is her husband. In termsof
the I-narrator'sintentions,the "public" text is indeed designed forthe man,
the private(indeed secret)textforthe femalefriend.One must already,then,
redefinethe simple distinctionof public and private to create a categoryin
which a narrationis private but is designed to be read as well by someone
other than its officiallydesignated narratee;16I will call this a semi-private
narrativeact. To the extentthat the surfaceletteris in some sense public, it
dramatizes the way in which women's public discourse may be contaminated
by internalor externalcensorship.This, in turn,helps to explain why histor-
ically women writershave chosen, more frequentlythan men, private forms
of narration-theletter,thediary,thememoiraddressedto a singleindividual-
ratherthan formsthat requirethem to address a public readership,and why
public and privatenarrativesby women employdifferent narrativestrategies.17
354 Susan S. Lanser
The concept could also be applied fruitfully to texts in which the narrative
level is unclear,as in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaperand Craik's A Lifefor
a Life, which seem to implicate a public narrateewhile purportingto writea
private diary.
The application of the distinctionpublic/privateto literarytextsrequires
us to thinkin more complex ways about thedichotomyof genderthatSpender
attaches to private and public discourse. Here again the letteris illustrative.
For if my analysis is persuasive in suggestingthe existence of a third text
available only to one who has read both the second and the first,and read in
the lightof a particularunderstandingboth of women and of textuality,then
the public text-thatis, the one -whichis directedby the extradiegeticnarrator
or editor to "anyone"- is also the most hidden text,the hardest to see, for
nothingreallypoints to its existenceexcept itself,and it requiresa readerwho
bringsto it particularkinds of knowledge.Since it is at the public level of
narrationthat the ideal reading becomes possible, the letterpresentedas a
displaytextalso escapes the genderassociations of the originalstructureof the
intradiegetic narrative (in which it seems that public = male and pri-
vate= female),suggestinga kind of paradigm forreading"as a woman" that
encompasses but is not determinedby the question of sex. Equally, when
women write novels that use private narrativeforms,they are nonetheless
writingfor a public, and a public that cannot entirelybe dichotomized in
genderterms.How individual writersnegotiatethiscomplex contextofgender
and public-ityconstitutesanotherimportantarea to investigate.
The difference betweenGenette'sformulationof narrativelevels and my
own illustrates,I hope, the differencebetween purelyformaland contextual
approaches to meaningin narrative.Justas speech act theoryunderstoodthat
the minimal unit of discourse was not the sentencebut the productionof the
sentencein a specificcontext,so the kind of narratologyI am proposingwould
understandthat the minimal narrativeis the narrativeas produced. In the
case of the letterthat appears in the Casket, questions of contextare closely
related to interpretivepossibilities. For depending on whetherone sees the
letteras a historicaldocument or as a textwrittendeliberatelyfor display-
and whether,if "display text,"an imitationor a parody- different readingsof
the letteremerge.If the textis an authenticdocument,a letteractuallywritten
by an unhappy wife that somehow came into the hands of the Casket, then
the text mightbecome importanthistorical evidence of the ways in which
women's writingis conditionedby censorship.If the textwere constructedas
imitation,it stands as evidence of the perception,if not the historicalfact,of
censorship. But the lettermay well have been intended as a parody of the
"female style." Indeed, the historyof this style,and its connection to the
epistolary,provides the contextforan interestingpossibility.Historically,the
letterhas such overdeterminedassociations with women that what became
thoughtof as the "female style,"a styleacclaimed forits artlessness,its sense
of immediacyand lack of forethought, was a styletied to the epistolarymode

(Donovan, "The Silence is Broken" 212-14). If the letteris in facta "display
text," it may well be a display of "female ingenuity"not only in the obvious
sense of a clever composition thatfindsa "woman's way" around censorship,
but in the service of a broader and literarydesign: to make mockeryof the
assumptions about women's "artless" epistolarystyle,to reveal woman as
man's equal in intellectualcapacity.For "ingenuity,"the OED tells us, means
not only the (oxymoronic)union of straightforward openness withthe genius
forskillful,inventivedesign but also the quality or condition of being a free-
born man. And if the letterwas writtenby its own editor,it also provided a
convenient and safe vehicle for criticizingmale dominance, since an editor
need take no responsibilityfora private "found" text.
The rhetoricalcomplexityof the letterremindsus thatnarrativemeaning
is also a functionof narrativecircumstance.Narratologyhas not yetprovided
satisfyinglanguagethroughwhich to make distinctionsof rhetoricalcontext;18
feministcriticism,in itsconcernwithquestions ofauthenticity and authorship,
might find it difficulteven to talk about a text this uncertain in origin. A
feministnarratologymightacknowledgethe existenceof multipletexts,each
constructedby a (potential) rhetoricalcircumstance.To the extentthat such
questions determinethe very meaning of narrative,they are questions for
narratology.
The finalelementof my discussion of difference betweenthe bride's two
letters-the question of storyor plot- I will treatonly sketchilyhere,forit lies
outside my area of expertise.In traditionalterms,the surfacetext- the one
writtenforthe husband- can barelybe said to have a plot, and one mightof
course argue thatit is not a narrativeat all. There is not a singularverb tense
in the text; every independentpredication is cast in the stative or iterative
mode. All the action that the textimplies, hence all thereis of story,precedes
the narrativemoment;by the time of the writingall conflict-the gap between
expectationsand reality-has already been resolved (and not by the protago-
nist's actions at all). Notions of both plot and characterare strainedby such
a structurein which the octantis reallya recipient,in which nothingwhatever
is predictedof which the fulfillment would constituteplot as it is narratolog-
ically defined.And althoughone could also see this stasis as the basis for a
plot leftto the reader's imagination,to the extentthat plot is a functionof
modalized predicationand hence of desire (Costello, Brooks), the surfacetext
refuseseven the possibilityof plot: "I am unable to wishthat I could be more
happy."
Thus the firsttextcreates stasis of both event and character,an idyll of
harmonyin which the "indulgenthusband," as "bosom friend,"is a synthesis
of the confidantewith her "friendlybosom" and the "gallant lover": all char-
acters but the protagonistcoalesce into one idealized whole. But the subtext
does offerthe elementsof a possible plot. Here we have a full-blowntriangle-
356 Susan S. Lanser
husband, lover,wife- in which the necessityfora confidantebecomes logical.

The plot of this subtext is actually highlyconventional: drunken husband,
sinistermaiden aunt,19gallantsuitorin thewings.But heretoo theexpectations
for story,though more fullyroused, are shunted aside. While there is one
singularevent- "my formergallant lover is returned"-the narratorsays, "I
mighthave had him," suggestingthat thereis no real possibilityof change.20
Can one speak narratologicallyof plot or even storyin these two letters,
or is one condemned simply to negative definitions-plotlessness,or story
withoutplot? Narratologyis rich in its effortsto pin down the nature of plot.
The formulationsof Propp, Bremond, Todorov, Costello, Pavel, Prince, all
offeruseful ways to talk about large numbers of texts,perhaps of most (pre-
modernist)texts.But in the case of the letter,each schema fails.Althoughthe
subtextis a catalogue of acts of villainy,forexample, one cannot say of it as
Propp says of his folktalesthat"each new act of villainy,each new lack creates
a new move" (92). In his canon movementis possible; here it is not. The units
of anticipation and fulfillmentor problem and solution that structureplot
accordingto narrativetheoristsexisthere onlyas past and passive happenings.
For these theoriesof plot assume that textualactions are based on the (inten-
tional) deeds of protagonists;theyassume a power,a possibility,that may be
inconsistentwith what women have experienced both historicallyand tex-
tually,and perhaps inconsistenteven withwomen's desires.A radical critique
like Mária Brewer's suggestthat plot has been understoodas a "discourse of
male desire recountingitselfthroughthe narrativeof adventure,project,enter-
prise,and conquest," the"discourse ofdesireas separationand mastery"(1151,
1153).
Ifstandardnarratologicalnotionsofplotdo notadequatelydescribe(some)
women's texts,then what is needed is a radical revision in theoriesof plot.
For one thing,as Katherine Rabuzzi notes (in Donovan, "Jewett'sCritical
"
Theory" 218), 'by and large,most women have known a nonstoriedexist-
"
ence.' Women's experience,says Donovan, oftenseems, when held against
the masculine plot, "static,and in a mode of waiting.It is not progressive,or
orientedtoward events happening sequentiallyor climactically,as in the tra-
ditional masculine storyplot" (218-19). This letter,or a novel like Sarah Orne
Jewett'sThe CountryofthePointedFirs,can thusonlybe definedas a "plotless
text" (Donovan, "Women's Poetics" 106). Similarly,some of Grace Paley's
fineststories(forexample, "Friends" and "Ruthyand Edie" in themost recent
collection,Later theSame Day), whicha traditionalnarratologywould describe
as "plotless," are constitutedby plots of women's attemptsto "make sense"
of theirworld.21A contemporarypopular novel like Meg Wolitzer's Hidden
Pictures,which sets up negativepossibilitiesthat neitheroccur nor are noted
not to occur, when measured against plot theoriesbecomes a "flawed" story
making worrisomepredictionsthat it does not fulfill.Yet one could also see
thisplot as a structureof anxietyand (gradual) reliefthatcorrespondsto "real-
world" experiences of women in the difficultcircumstancesof this novel's

protagonists,a lesbian couple raising a son in suburbia. If again and again
scholars of women's writingmust speak in termsof the "plotfesi" (usually in
quotation marks,suggestingtheirdissatisfactionwiththe term),then perhaps
somethingis wrongwith the notions of plot that have followedfromPropp's
morphology.Perhaps narratologyhas been mistakenin tryingto arrive at a
single definitionand descriptionof plot. We will learn more about women's
narratives-and about scores of twentieth-century texts-if we make ourselves
findlanguage fordescribingtheirplots in positive ratherthan negativeterms.
There is anotherlevel of plot, too, thatthe bride's letterurgesus to think
about. There is, in fact,one sequence of anticipationand fulfillment that this
text does fullyconstitute,and it occurs in the act of writing.In the case of
both letters,whetherthenarrator'slifeis happyor miserable,what she "cannot
be satisfied"withoutis, simply,the telling-narrativeitself.The act of writing
becomes the fulfillment of desire,tellingbecomes the singlepredicatedact, as
if to tell were in itselfto resolve,to provide closure. Récit and histoire,rather
than being separate elements,converge,so thattellingbecomes integralto the
working out of story. Communication, understanding,being understood,
becomes not only the objective of the narrationbut the act thatcan transform
(some aspect of) the narratedworld. In a universe where waiting,inaction,
reception,predominate,and action is only minimallypossible, the narrative
act itselfbecomes the source of possibility.
What happens in theletter,then,is thatthewish forthe other'shappiness
substitutesforthepossibilityofchangein one's own life;thewriter'sexperience
serves as a (positive or negative) stimulus to the reader's own story. The
confidantethus becomes an active participantnot simplyin narration,but in
plot itself;the wish for the narratee'shappiness transfersthe imperativesof
plot, so that the possibilitiesof change and fulfillment are given over to the
narratee.The letterthus suggestsa plot behind women's "plotless" narrative,
the subversive plot of sharing an experience so that the listener's life may
complete the speaker'stale. I would be eager fornarratologyto talk about such
a crossingof the plot of narrationwith the storyplot.
My analysis of this coded lettersuggestsin sketchyways aspects of nar-
rative that a revised poetics might scrutinizeand codify. A comprehensive
theoryof voice would develop a frameworkfordescribingthe elements that
constitutepolyphony and would formulatea linguisticallybased theoryof
narrative tone. Attentionto the rhetoricalcontext of narrative-its generic
status and the public or private level of the narration-would be understood
as importantdeterminantsof narrativemeaning. And theories of plot and
storywould be reexaminedto findalternativesto the notion of plot as active
acquisition or solution and to incorporatethe plot that may be generatedby
the relationshipbetween narratorand narratee. Once it is clear that some
(women's) textscannot be adequately describedby traditional,formalistnar-
358 Susan S. Lanser
ratology,we begin to see thatothertexts-postmodernisttexts,textsby writers

of Asia and Africa,perhaps- ay be similarlyunaccounted for. It is only, I
believe, such an expansive narratologythatcan begin to fulfillthe wish Gerald
Prince expresses at the end (164) of his Narratology: that "ultimately,narra-
tology can help us understand what human beings are."
Notes
1A simpledistinction betweenso-called"American"and "French"feminisms is
impossible.By "French"feminism is usuallymeantfeminism conceivedwithinthe
theoretical premisesof post-structuralism and henceheavilyindebtedto thewritings
of Derrida,Foucault,Lacan, Kristeva,Cixous,and Irigaray."American"feminism
tendsto be conceivedwithinthepoliticalimperatives of theAmericanwomen'slib-
erationmovement andthehistorical experience ofwomeningeneralandwomenwriters
in particular. Bothmodesarepracticed in theUnitedStates,and thetwohavebecome
increasingly intertwined. Nonetheless, thedebatesgo on. For further discussionofthe
differences see, forexample,theintroduction and bibliography and theessayby Ann
Jonesin Showalter, TheNewFeministCriticism ; foran exampleofthenewsynthesis,
see Meese.
2 See especiallyFurman45-54.
3 A piece of Bal's book on the HebrewBible is availableto English-language
readersas "Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow."
4 It is revealingthatthesinglesentencein mybook mostcitedby reviewers is
the statement that"my trainingis deeplyformalist, and my perspective as deeply
feminist"; clearlymanyscholarsconsiderfeminism and narratology an odd pair.
51 findit ironicthatDonovan'srejectionofformalist "dissection"is justified by
finding it incompatible withwhatEvelynBeckand I have calleda "women'sepiste-
mology"(Lanserand Beck86).
6 Particularly in thewakeofthenewpsychoanalytic narrative
theoriestheterm
narratology has fallenintodisuse,perhapsperceivedas too narrowly structuralist.Crit-
ics disagreeabout thedifferences betweennarratology and narrativepoetics ; see, for
example,Rimmon-Kenan's attemptto distinguish thetwoin NarrativeFiction(133
n.l). By narratology I meansimplythatbranchofpoeticsconcerned withdefining and
describing all aspectsof narrative.
I have chosenthroughout thisessay to use the wordnarratology ratherthan
narrative poeticspartly to foreground thedissonancebetweennarratology andfeminism
and partlyto identify morepreciselythe formalist/structuralist practicesthatI am
discussing here.I will,however, be callingin thisessayfora studyofnarrative thatis
finally less formalist thatnarratology generallyconnotes.For thatreason,and sinceI
am also suggesting a less alienatingterminology forthestudyof narrative, I can also
see theadvantagesof narrative poetics, and I wouldnothesitateto makethechange.
7Whilethereis a reader-oriented narratology thatemphasizestheprocessoftext
production, Rimmon-Kenan is rightto implythat"themorefar-reaching 'revisionism'
of somereader-oriented studied... is oftenat odds withtheveryprojectof narrative
poetics"(118).
8Oppositionalthinking has,ofcourse,beensharplydisadvantageous to women,

as to otherdominatedgroups.Binarypairsof the varietyP/not-Pare preciselythe
structures thatcreatehierarchy (as in nonwhite, illiterate,un-American). Categories and
classifications, whilesometimesalso used by feminists, are ripeforProcrustean dis-
tortions, forpremature closures,forstifling rigidities.
9 In TheNarrative ActI have in factworkedwithwomen'stextsas wellas with
men's,and I havealso includedthenarrative theoriesofneglected womenlikeVernon
Lee and Käte Friedemann. But I did not reallyundertake theradicalréévaluationI
am now callingfor,one whichwouldmean beginning withwomen'swritings (both
narrative and theoretical) in ordernotto remarginalize themarginal, in compensation
fora training thathas beenso strongly biasedin favorof malediscourse.
101 discoveredthisletterquiteaccidentally. Whilebrowsing through thestacks
of theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison libraryseveralyearsago, I came acrossan
odd compendium titledThe GenteelFemale, editedbyCliftonFurness.Its endpapers
consistofthepagefromAtkinson's Casketwhichcontainstheletter.
11Thereare threecontroversies embeddedin thistopic:whether thereis in fact
a "women'slanguage,"whether it is exclusiveto women,and whether it is a negative
characteristic. In 1975 Robin Lakoffsuggested thatwomenuse languageformsthat
differ frommen's,andthatthislanguagereinforces thesocialandpoliticalpowerlessness
ofwomen.Othercriticshavearguedthat"women'slanguage"is a fiction constructed
uponsex stereotypes and thatwomendo notactuallyspeakdifferently frommen.Still
othersagreethatthereis difference but ratherthanseeingthedifference as negative,
theyconsider"women'slanguage"betterorientedto concernforothersand to the
carefulcontextualizing of one's beliefs(ratherthanthe"masculine"assertionof uni-
versais).Fora senseofthiscontroversy see Spender32-51. A relatedquestionis whether
it is moreaccurateto speakof"women'slanguage"or of"powerlesslanguage."On the
basis of empiricalstudyin a courtroom context,O'Barrand Atkinsfoundfarmore
credibility accordedto femalewitnesses speakingin the"powerful style"thanto those
speakingin the"powerlessstyle."
12RichardSennett believesthatsimple,directdiscourse intheactivevoicebespeaks
a confidence thatfrequently inspiresa too-easyand hencedangerousobeisance.See
Authority , chapter5.
13MaryLouisePrattusesthetermtodesignate a textorspeechactwhoserelevance
liesis itstellability,and whichis thusdetachablefromitsimmediatecircumstances of
production. Literarytextsandjokes are examples.See Pratt136-48.
14I thankHarold Mosherforthe suggestion thatthisfigureis not actuallya
narrator at all butmerelyan editor.I had beenconsidering thisvoiceto be similarto
theone thatintroduces, say,thegoverness'snarrative in The TurnoftheScrew.The
problem,I believe,lies at leastin partwithGenette'sown system,whichdoes not
distinguish an editorfroman extradiegetic narrator. Such a narrator, afterall, may
appearonlybriefly to introduce a majorintradiegetic narrative and maydo so in the
guiseofan editor.
151 am suggesting thatnotonlynarrators butalso narratees can be heterodiegetic
orhomodiegetic- thatis,withinoroutsidethefictional world-and thata homodiegetic
narrator can addressa heterodiegetic narratee (although itwouldconstitute a narrative
transgression fora heterodiegetic narrator to addressa homodiegetic narratee). I have
decidednottousetheseterms, however, in ordertoavoidconfusion withheterodiegetic
and homodiegetic narratorsand becauseofmycommitment to simplify narrative ter-
minology.
360 Susan S. Lanser
16This is somewhatdifferent fromthecase of a letterthatis intercepted by a

character forwhomit was notdestined,as happensfrequently, say,in Clarissa.The
differenceis thatin thiscase thenarrator knowshertextwillbe intercepted and has
structured thesurfacenarrative accordingly.
17The differencesbetweenprivateand publicnarration in narrativesbywomen
are a majorfocusof thebook I am nowcompleting on womenwriters and narrative
voice.
18As SusanLégerhas pointedoutto me,a booklikeRoss Chambers'sStoryand
Situationis a healthyexceptionto thisnorm.
19I am awarethatmyanalysisof thelettershas omittedany discussionof the
maidenauntand thather"maidenness"makeshera particularly interestingfigurein
thecontextof theportraits ofmarriage in theseletters.
20One couldarguethatthepresenceofa loverin thesubtext keepseternally open
the possibilityof action,even if thatactionseemsto be thwarted by thegiventext.
Such a possibility to thepowerofthedesireforplot.
testifies
21For theexampleof thesePaleystoriesI am indebtedto Alan Wilde,whose
forthcoming book,MiddleGrounds : Studiesin ContemporaryAmerican Fiction
, includes
a chapteron herwork.
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Bakhtin,M. M. "Discoursein the Novel." The Dialogic Imagination.Trans.Caryl

Emersonand MichaelHolquist.Austin:U ofTexas P, 1981.259-422.
Bal, Mieke.Femmesimaginaires: l'ancientestament au risqued'une narratologie
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tique.Paris:Nizet;Montreal:HMH, 1986.
"The Narrating and theFocalizing:A Theoryof theAgentsin Narrative."
Style17 (1983): 234-69.
"Sexuality,Semiosisand Binarism:A Narratological Commenton Bergen
and Arthur." Arethusa16.1-2(1983): 117-35.
Sin,and Sorrow:The Emergence
"Sexuality, ofFemaleCharacter (A Reading
ofGenesis1-3)."TheFemaleBodyin Western Culture.Ed. Susan RubinSulei-
man.Cambridge:HarvardUP, 1986.317-38.
Booth,WayneC. "Freedomof Interpretation: Bakhtinand theChallengeof Feminist
Criticism."CriticalInquiry9 (1982): 45-76.
Bremond,Claude.Logiquedu récit.Paris:Seuil, 1973.
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Toward A Feminist Narratology-S Lanser

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Toward a Feminist Narratology

Author(s): Susan S. Lanser

Toward a Feminist Narratology*

Whatyouchooseand rejecttheoretically, then,dependsuponwhatyouareprac-

Feminist criticism,like narratologyand all good theoriesperhaps,is an

Style:Volume20, No. 3, Fall 1986 341

Tongues," Mieke Bal's applicationofit in "Sexuality,Symbiosisand Binarism"

and feministpoints of view are considered,it will be impossible even to know

Traditionally, structuralistnarratologyhas suppressed the representational

concerningtherelationshipof literatureto the "real world"- questions of why,

have been tryingto suggest,a narratologythatcannot adequately account for

I would like to begin the movement toward a feministnarratologyby

For purposes of easy reference,I reproduce below the decoded subtextthat

Writtenfortwo readers(the pryinghusband and theintimatefriend)thisletter

dence and would probablybe accorded an immediate credibility.Beneath the

texts(and hence to all texts,thoughpolyphonyis more pronouncedand more

I . . . havenever found theleastreasontorepent

a moredamningdiscoursethanthetextitpurportsto protect.The textdesigned

Genette, the entiretyof Proust's A la recherchesuddenly becomes an intra-

Thedichotomy ofmale/female, is maintained

level person PUBLIC PRIVATE

The bride's letterboth illustratesSpender's formulationand expands it in

of immediacyand lack of forethought, was a styletied to the epistolarymode

husband, lover,wife- in which the necessityfora confidantebecomes logical.

world" experiences of women in the difficultcircumstancesof this novel's

ratology,we begin to see thatothertexts-postmodernisttexts,textsby writers

8Oppositionalthinking has,ofcourse,beensharplydisadvantageous to women,

16This is somewhatdifferent fromthecase of a letterthatis intercepted by a

Bakhtin,M. M. "Discoursein the Novel." The Dialogic Imagination.Trans.Caryl

Donovan,Josephine. "SarahOrneJewetťsCriticalTheory:NotesTowarda Feminine

SociologyofKnowledge. Ed. JuliaShermanand EvelynT. Beck.Madison:U of

Warhol,RobynR. "Towarda TheoryoftheEngaging Narrator: EarnestInterventions

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