Politeness: Narrator and Reader Level
Politeness needs to be considered on different
levels of narrative organisation. On the level of character-to-character
interaction, the normal conventions of politeness apply and will be exemplified
below. The situation is slightly different, and more complex, on the higher
level of author/narrator and reader. Here the interaction is essentially
one-way: our only recourse if we do not like something is to stop reading, as
Wodehouse points out: he must engage his readers’ interest, lest people
throw him aside and go out to picture palaces (A Damsel in Distress,
1919/1961: 5). Wodehouse here acknowledges that readers may regard the act of
reading as an imposition. In principle, telling or writing a story can be
regarded as an FTA: we are expected to yield the floor, or give up our time, to
attend to someone else. Arguably, our decision to read a novel is motivated by
interest, admiration for an author, perhaps a wish to pass the time or, in an
academic situation, compulsion. In that case, it can hardly count as an FTA.
Some authors are sensitive to the potentially FTA of narration: writers like
Fielding attempt to establish a relationship with the reader, and mark the end
of the novel with a formal parting. He points out (Tom Jones, 1749/1973
XVIII: 1) that fellow-travellers on a stagecoach frequently make up any
quarrels, secure in the knowledge that they are unlikely to meet again. Such
formality is more commonly found in eighteenth-century fiction than in modern
novels. On the other hand, he engages in a major FTA in the introduction to
Book X. Ostensibly offering instructions to readers on matters of
characterisation, he accuses them of not having enough Latin to read Virgil
(and promptly quotes Juvenal, and translates it in a footnote). Throughout, the
reader is addressed as thou, my good reptile (by this date thou is
used only to inferiors). Only at the end of the chapter does he return to the
polite term of address: you, my friend. All this shows a total disregard
for the reader’s positive face, until some restitution is made at the end.