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The cooperative principle and the literary narrative; an analysis of the
story The Reigate Squires by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The aim of this paper is to apply Grices maxims related to the
cooperative principal to a literary narrative text. The paper tries to apply
the modified maxims as suggested by Richard J. Watts in The
Pragmalinguistic Analysis of Narrative Texts to a short story by Arthur
Conan Doyle. We will first summarise Watts reformulation of the
Gricean maxims and then try to see its applicability to literary narratives.
Watt says that a literary narrative is a kind of display text in which there
is an apparent non-participation of the reader. He reformulates the
cooperative principals to suit the special needs of a text in which the
addressee has no chance to interfere during the discourse to seek
clarifications or express doubts. He reformulation of the Gricean maxims
is repeated below.
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a. The Maxim of Quantity
1. The narrator should include within his narrative turn at least an
orientation section and as many narrative clauses, complicating actions
and resolutions as are required to bring his turn adequately to a close.
He may also introduce an abstract and a coda.
2. The narrator should include within his narrative turn as much
evaluation as is required to make the narrative turn interesting to his
audience.
3. The narrator should not include within his narrative turn more
evaluation than is required to make the narrative turn interesting to his
audience.
b. The Maxim of Quality
1. The narrator should not report narrative events which he believes to
be false in terms of the fictional world created.
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4. The narrator should present his narrative events in an orderly
sequence. (Watts, 1981, 89-93)
It is quite clear that no narrative text can adhere to all of these maxims.
But the way in which a narrative text breaks these maxims or
manipulates them is what we are proposing to study. Such cases of
violations of the narrative maxims should be treated as implicatures
which reveal authors communicative intentions. Further, it is possible
that certain types of literary narrative texts need certain violations of the
communicative principals. The maxim d.,4, is always violated in the
detective fiction because the communicative intention is to maintain
suspense. Thus, every violation may tell us about the priorities that the
author has in mind. Let us look at the short story The Reigate Squires
keeping in mind the above possibilities.
An analysis of the short story The Reigate Squires
When talking about the cooperation in a short story, we have to keep in
mind that the authors purposes and the narrators purposes can be
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different. In the short story that we have taken for analysis, we have a
first person narrator in Dr. Watson. We also have the author of the work.
Without going into the questions of implied writer and the implied
reader, we can still talk about the authors narration and Watsons
narration. We will mainly focus on the way in which the narrator Watson
cooperates with the readers in the short story.
Let us first look at the maxim of quantity. Quantity here refers more to
what is necessary to make a narrative complete than to the actual size of
the novel. We can see that the narrator Watson follows the maxim of
quantity well. There is no abstract in Watsons narrative (the title of the
story is authors abstract) and there is also no coda. But maxim a.1.
clearly states that abstract and coda are only optional elements. To be
cooperative, the narrator of a literary narrative should primarily have
adequate orientational, narrative and evaluation clauses to bring the
narrative turn to a close. Watson gives all the background information
necessary to orient the reader towards the story, gives the complicating
actions in a clear and chronological manner from his point of view and
ends the story when the resolution has reached. Watsons narrative
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follows the unmarked pattern of labovs model of coherence and hence
can be said to be very cooperative.
Watsons narrative is also cooperative in terms of maxims a.2 and a.3
respectively. This is one story where the evaluatory clauses are very
limited and there is hardly an evaluatory comment that is not related to
the narrative action. There is no general comment about life or criminals
or women or society. It seems that Watsons whole point is to tell an
interesting story about the extraordinary detective powers of Holmes and
the evaluatory comments that he makes are all related to this aspect of
the tellabilty of the story. (Singular and complex problem, pg.117; ---
it was admirably done, pg. 137) Thus, we can say that Watson follows
the maxim of quantity very well.
As for as maxims of quality are concerned, we should again remember
that Watson is the narrator of the story. His narration is necessarily
limited by his knowledge and his interpretation of the events. He does
not ever consciously mislead us. His interpretation of certain things may
be wrong. For example, when Holmes faints, he does not know that
Holmes is pretending. He assumes that Holmes is really not well. The
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author deliberately uses the first person narrator to mislead us, the
readers. Watson also never enters into the mind of other characters and
presents their thoughts. He strictly follows the two maxims of quality.
Watsons narration is also very strictly relevant. If we look at the event
sequences in the novel, we can see that all the events are connected to
the one theme of the detection. In this regard, both the author and the
narrator follow the maxim of narration. There is no event that remains
unconnected to the main theme at the end of the novel. Sometimes
relevancy is postponed, but the final resolution will show that the event
was relevant after all. For example, Holmes fainting seems to be
irrelevant at that particular point of time. Nevertheless, we later on know
that that event has connections with the detection of the crime.
Watson also follows the maxim of manner within his limitations. When
he does not follow the maxim of manner, it is mainly because he himself
is not clear about the significance of the events. Obscurity and ambiguity
are there because Watson has not been able to decipher the clues. Even
then, he tries his best to be cooperative, as when he reproduces the
facsimile of the piece of paper which is an important clue. He does not
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make the narrative long and he does present the events in an orderly
manner from his point of view. That is, he has narrated the events in the
order in which he has come to know them.
It is here that we should note that the authors purpose and the narrators
purpose are different. Watson, as he has been used in the novel, is a
faithful narrator who wants to follow the cooperative principles. But the
author, in addition to following the cooperative principles, should also
follow the specific demands of the type of narrative text that he is
creating. Sometimes, the demands of the script may go against the
cooperative principals. When such violations occur, we should think of
them as deliberate and look for the implicatures. For example, the
overriding focus of a detective fiction of the type that was popularized
by Doyle and later on by Agatha Christie is the suspense. Any orderly
presentation of facts will certainly destroy the raiso-de-etre of
detective fiction. Ambiguity and obscurity are also a necessary part of
the detective fiction. In other words, to write a detective novel, an author
will have to violate the cooperative principles.
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It is here that the use of a narrator like Watson becomes very important.
This narrator is apparently cooperative, but his cooperation is a mask for
the violation of the cooperative principals by the author. Thus, Watson in
this short story, as else where becomes a narratorial tool for creating the
illusion of cooperation.
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Sources-
Doyle, Arthur Conan The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1950) Penguin
Books
Watts, Richard J. The Pragmalinguistic Analysis of Narrative Texts
(1981) Gunter Narr Verlag Tbingen