ABSTRACT
The narratee as defined by Gerard Genette and Gerald Prince should not be confused with either the actual or the implied reader, since neither of these need be the immediate addressee of the narrator. Prince's proposal is threefold. First, to elaborate a typology of narratees, according to the kind of 'signals' portraying the narratee that appear in the text. The zero-degree narratee, however, is acquainted with no texts and in the absence of commentary, the adventures of Don Quixote would seem as ordinary to him as those of Passemurailles or of the protagonists of Une Belle Journee. Should the importance of a series of events be emphasized, should one reassure or make uneasy, justify certain actions or underscore their arbitrariness, this can always be done by addressing signals to the narratee. The narratee-character might play no other role in the narrative than that of narratee Heart of Darkness. But he might also play other roles.
