Towards a stylistic typology of narrative gaps: knowledge gapping in Flannery O’Connor’s fiction

Abstract

This article examines the functions of narrative gaps in the creation and manipulation of knowledge in Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. A distinction is first made between the announced and the unannounced gap, the latter being the general type that occurs most frequently in modern fiction, including that of O’Connor. The form and functions of the announced gap are briefly discussed with reference to 18th-century narratives. The article demonstrates the presence of an attenuated announced gap in O’Connor’s fiction in the use of the indefinite pronoun something. It also makes distinctions between the narrative gap, the ellipsis, and general narrative indeterminacy. The attenuated announced gap and the unannounced gap help to produce involvement of the reader in creating the emotional, spiritual, and rational background for an O’Connor narration. These narrative gaps are stylistically indicative of O’Connor’s prose from her earliest to her latest fiction, both in the particular forms that they take and in their functioning generally to encode concerns with the limitations and possibilities of human knowledge, a thematic concern of heavy significance throughout her fiction. The article is a contribution in the development of a general stylistics of narrative gaps.