| Relational Narrative Desire provides a narratological analysis of intersubjectivity and transsubjectivity, fictional representations of shared states of distinct subjectivities. In narrative, inter/transsubjectivity signals a pluralised source of mediation; protagonists recognise themselves as co-created, relational identities through inter/transsubjective connections. As relational identities, protagonists recognise and identify with like subjectivities, with the narratological result that certain modern psychological narratives are structured through voice, not plot.; In Part I, I consider how contemporary narratology's privileging of plot perpetuates its structuralist origins by: (a) failing to conceive narrative identity in pluralised, inter/transsubjective forms; and (b) continuing to polarise certain aspects of narrative voice in mimeticism and anti-mimeticism. I explain how, in particular stylisations, narrative voice assumes a structural function comparable to, but distinct from plot, and moves identity out of singular modes of attribution wherein a narrative voice is assumed to signify a particular character or consciousness. By considering narrative voice stylisation as a structuring device, a model of narrative desire emerges that is different from Peter Brooks's (1984) model in Reading for the Plot; I call this model relational narrative desire.; In my model of relational narrative desire, a pluralised mediation source relies on a degree of impersonality and disembodiment. I contextualise this within Monika Fludemik's "natural narrative" and Ann Banfield's "speakerless sentences," arguing that narratology needs to expand its understanding of narrative voice's capacity for anti-mimeticism and accommodate relational identity, virtual subjectivity, and communal consciousness ---narrative strategies not accommodated in Brooks's model of narrative desire. I then contextualise my narratological discussion in relation to Jessica Benjamin's psychoanalytic theory of intersubjectivity, Luce Irigaray's philosophical concept of civil identity, Jurgen Habermas' theory of communicative reasoning, and Bracha Ettinger Lichtenberg's aesthetic theory of metramorphosis. These theorists argue for two aspects crucial to relational narrative desire: the textual presence of two or more distinct speaking/thinking sources, and the value of power-with( in) over power-over social structures. I adapt and apply these theories to stylistic effects in narrative, showing how H.D. and Woolf's novels stylise my theory of relational narrative desire.; In Part II, I focus on H.D. and Woolf's narrative voice stylisations that are difficult, or even impossible, to attribute to singular speaking/thinking sources of mediation. By shifting the emphasis from plot to voice, H.D. and Woolf s novels show how emergent forms of partial identity transcend notions of self-unified individuality. Such a shift produces narrative voice stylisations that reflect plurality and anonymity, not singularity. Close textual analyses of H.D.'s Palimpsest and Bid Me to Live, and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts show how certain protagonists evolve from non-relational to relational identities. This evolution perceives individuality and identity in terms of partialness, a view associated with feminist psychoanalytic and philosophical care-ethics. In H.D. and Woolf's novels, relational identity reconfigures the self-Other relation as one entailing attunement and mutual recognition of self and Other in a subject-subject pairing (opposed to patriarchy's subject-object pairing). This mode of narrative desire values social connectedness over individual autonomy; thus, a paradoxical logic emerges from relational identity, sustaining the tension between protagonists' contradictory needs for inclusion and independence.; Integral to inter/transsubjective connections represented in H.D. and Woolf's novels is the recognition stage of tolerance, where difference... |
