ABSTRACT
I situate my analysis of our corpus of African American women’s narratives within a conception of narrative as rhetoric rooted in the following default definition: somebody telling somebody else on some occasion and for some purposes that something happened. This definition seeks to capture the way in which narrative is both a way of knowing and a way of doing. Narrative is a way of knowing because, as the teller seeks to communicate how something happened, they transform an undifferentiated moment-by-moment stream of experiences into an intelligible whole. The teller selects what to include and what to omit, gives greater emphasis to some events than others, and identifies the connections among them (causal or otherwise). In this way, the teller comes to understand those unfolding experiences—and communicates that understanding to their audience. Narrative is a way of doing because the teller shapes their story in order to influence their audience in particular ways. The teller may seek to reinforce or alter its audience’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, and, in some cases, may try to spur the audience into action.
