The Rhetoric of Fiction

author’s voice is never really silenced. It is, in fact, one of the things we read fiction for

There is probably no inherent reason why a realistic structure should require any particular form of realistic narrative technique

Attitudes toward these three variables, subject matter, structure, and technique, depend finally on notions of purpose or function or effect.

Satirists like Swift and Voltaire, though they may indulge in some realistic effects for their own sake, will clearly sacrifice realism whenever their satirical ends require the sacrifice.

Many in this century have required that a work reflect adequately the ambiguities of the human condition or even of the universe itself.

Others have felt that reality should be sought in an accurate transcription of sensations produced by surfaces rather than in allegiance to any general view of things.

correct relation between the reality shown by characters in novels and the reality of their models in “real life.

To some it has seemed unrealistic to show chance at work in the fictional world; to others a careful chain of cause and effect is forbidden, since in real life chance plays an obviously great role.

For many of the so-called naturalists, no picture could be real unless it did justice to the unpleasant side of life.

But when the reality to be reflected begins to leave the visible conditions of life and moves toward metaphysical Truth, invariable technical and formal requirements are likely to be implicated.