Reconstructing

Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm

In his seminal book on narratives, Human Communication as Narration, Walter Fisher (1987) presented perhaps one of the most comprehensive theories for understanding human communication through stories. He asserted that stories are “symbolic actions, words and/or deeds that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them” as the foundational belief for his narrative paradigm (Fisher, 1987, p. 49). In Fisher’s description, we reminded of the Foss’ (2011) advocacy for the use of interpretation to create change in an individual’s life, which suggests that stories are an important symbolic resource to draw from in this process. We also see how the third wave’s highly-individualistic feminist subject in Gilbert’s personal narrative might be especially drawn to stories as preferred symbolic resource to create meaning in her life.

The primary function of Fisher’s narrative paradigm is to offer “a way of interpreting and assessing human communication that leads to…a determination of whether or not a given instance of discourse provides a reliable, trustworthy, and desirable guide to thought and action in the world” (Fisher, 1987, p. 90). Given that stories are more than just a figure of speech and have the power to both inform and influence, Fisher establishes “narrative rationality” as a universal logic and means for the assessment for stories (p. 47). This assessment is tested against narrative “probability (coherence) and fidelity (truthfulness and reliability)” (p. 47) – in other words, humans come to believe in and act on stories in so much as they relate to and identify with them. Narrative rationality helps readers determine: “Does the set of conclusions advanced by the story ring true with [my] perceptions of the world? Are the central conclusions
reliable/desirable guides for [my] life?” (p. 176). These are the primary questions that will guide the current narrative analysis.
However, several researchers (Bennett & Edelman, 1985; Kirkwood, 1983, 1992; McClure, 2009; Rowland, 1989; Stroud, 2002; Warnick, 1987) felt that this assessment was limited in its ability to account for the acceptance of stories that may not “ring true” with one’s perceptions or experiences of the world. For example, Kirkwood (1983) offered a view of how stories allow readers to understand and adopt new ideas, especially those that are intensely personal such as one’s own identity. He argues that:
“Stories do more than convince listeners to adopt new ideas about what feelings and states of consciousness humans may be capable of; they evoke such states in listeners and thus allow them to experience the new possibilities firsthand. By evoking an unfamiliar and often unexpected feeling or state of awareness in an individual, stories call forth a new reality in that person’s life, a reality which is intrapersonal and private (Kirkwood, 1983, p. 73).
Given that previous studies have recognized that Fisher’s narrative paradigm doesn’t fully allow for the acceptance of stories that contain contradictions and new possibilities – both of which are highly characteristic of the female subject’s search for identity under postmodern, third wave influences – and that Gilbert’s personal narrative presents new possibilities for female identity and includes examples of how she acted upon stories that contained foreign concepts for her, we will turn to William Kirkwood’s (1992) and Scott Stroud’s (2002) research specifically to re-conceptualize the questions of probability and fidelity in the narrative analysis for this study.
Extensions of Narrative Rationality

As Kirkwood (1992) asserted, “it is difficult to find in Fisher’s account of rhetoric any opportunity, let alone, obligation, for rhetoric to confront or expand people’s understanding of themselves or life” (p. 31). Given that Eat, Pray, Love is a personal narrative that confronts both the author’s understanding of herself, as well as her audience’s understanding of themselves, Fisher’s narrative paradigm and, specifically, narrative rationality can only take us so far in the assessment of the text.

Kirkwood (1992) finds Fisher’s theory limiting in the belief that only stories “that do not negate the self-conceptions that people hold of themselves” (1987, p. 75) – or, in the current study, the personal ontological and axiological beliefs shaped by postmodernism and third wave feminism – can be deemed true by an audience. He argues, along with several other scholars (Bennett & Edelman, 1985; Rowland, 1989; Warnick, 1987), that rhetoric has the opportunity, and sometimes, obligation, “to confront or expand people’s understanding of themselves or life” (Kirkwood, 1992, p. 30). He goes on to assert that stories “help people discover their capacity to become what they are not” (p. 32) which has clear implications for the creation and reconstruction of identity. As a solution, he offers that a “rhetoric of possibility,” presented through narratives, can better account for how rhetors challenge people with “new and unsuspected possibilities of being and action in the world” (Kirkwood, 1992, p. 31). Here, we can begin to see not only how Gilbert was presented with new ways to think about her own identity through the rhetorical acts performed to her by others along her journey, but how she is able to present these new possibilities to her audience through her narrative.
Stroud (2002) also attempted to offer a new understanding of the narrative paradigm

which “allows for the introduction of new values and narratives to an audience” (p. 370). He

argued that the narrative paradigm doesn’t allow for audiences to accept new stories that challenge their values – it only allows audiences the choice of accepting narratives that resonate with their existing values and beliefs (Stroud, 2002). Through his study of multivalent narratives – i.e. “stories that include co-existing and conflicting value structures [that] expose audiences to new values and ideas” (p. 371) – Stroud’s (2002) conclusion was that certain stories can still “offer good reasons for belief and/or action” (p. 371) even if they present contradicting values to the reader. We can see how this relates to Gilbert’s journey to foreign lands where she interacts with people and cultures who share very different values and beliefs from her own. Even though her experiences presented her with conflicting values and beliefs, she still found good reasons to adopt new thinking, a new identity and authentic happiness for herself as a result.
These extensions of Fisher’s narrative rationality provide a better account for the improbabilities, contradictions and generative possibilities that are inherent in the postmodern subject and female identity in the third wave, as well as Gilbert’s journey and personal narrative. Gilbert was forced her to reconstruct a new identity by connecting to a universal identity, which was a possibility that was presented to her by others along her journey which did not meet the criteria for Fisher’s original conception of narrative rationality. In other words, both Gilbert and her readers can still come to accept and act upon stories that don’t necessarily meet the criteria for rationality as Fisher outlines, even though they don’t ring true or familiar. Due to the dismantling of larger social structures by postmodernism, and the multiplicity of female identity presented in the third wave, Kirkwood’s and Stroud’s studies not only help inform the text and deepen our understanding of how Gilbert interprets and chooses possibilities for her identity, they also give us insight into how other women might construct new identities in light of these current philosophical and ideological forces.
NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

In performing a narrative analysis of Elizabeth Gilbert’s personal narrative, Eat, Pray, Love, two themes emerge which illuminate how female identity is experienced under the influence of postmodernism and third wave feminism. The first theme revolves around the process of reframing and transcending identity, where we observe how Gilbert comes to understand her identity crisis and how she chooses to confront it. The second focuses on how she comes to reconstruct a new identity by connecting with a new awareness and understanding of a “universal identity” which encompasses all human beings. In both themes, we see how stories act as vehicles for discovery and possibility, even when they don’t “ring true” with what Gilbert understood about herself and the world.