Narrating knowledge: presupposition and background in Flannery O'Connor's fiction

Abstract

Clausal presupposition in Flannery O'Connor's fiction is examined and shown to contribute stylistically to O'Connor's explorations of the fallibility of human knowledge. Marked presuppositional constructions - those in which the narrator and narratee do not share the background knowledge of the presupposition - are analysed as attempts on the part of the narrator to put into a shared gestalt background contested knowledge. These attempts have three main effects: (1) an ironic comment on false knowledge held by a character; (2) a displacement of knowledge from a character's awareness; (3) an empathetic response to a character's knowledge of mystery or destiny. A call is made to develop a typology of literary uses of marked presuppositional constructions making reference not only to the quality of knowledge among the narrator, narratee, and character(s), but also to the specific literary effect of marked presupposition, e.g. irony, narrative suspense, empathy. If it is true that marked presupposition is a fundamental characteristic of literary enjoyment (Kock, 1976), a typology of a narrator's use of contested presuppositions tells us much about a particular author's characteristic strategies of engaging a reader's interest. It is left an open question whether all authors whose narrators use contested presuppositions are as concerned as O'Connor was with the fallibility of human knowledge.