Theorizing Dual Progression: Some Questions for Dan Shen

I'm flattered that Dan Shen identifies her work on dual narrative movements as an extension of my efforts to theorize progression, but I declare upfront that I do not have any proprietary claim on that concept or on the broader rhetorical narratology underlying Dan's inquiries. Let a thousand flowers bloom in the expanding rhetorical field! And let individual gardeners cut and cull the results as they deem best. That said, since Dan and John V. Knapp asked for my views, I'm happy to offer them, for whatever they're worth. I find that the flowers Dan has planted deserve to be nourished, even as I pose questions about possible ways to redirect their growth.

I endorse Dan's project for intertwined practical and theoretical reasons. On the practical side, authors have constructed important narratives with dual progressions. Even if we set aside for now the status of any of the narratives Dan discusses, we can point to such indisputable cases as Nella Larsen's Passing, with its overt story of racial passing and its covert one of sexual-identity passing (see Rabinowitz), and the anonymous "Female Ingenuity," memorably analyzed by Susan S. Lanser as she launched feminist narratology, with its overt story of marital happiness and covert story of marital distress. Ian McEwan's Atonement offers a fascinating variation because the overt/covert relationship is as much about the nature of the telling as about the told: its first three parts are overtly marked as only McEwan's novel, but the final part (overtly) reveals that they are simultaneously and covertly Briony's novel (see Phelan, Experiencing 109–32, for a discussion of the consequences of this revelation). Since dual progressions are a thing, a comprehensive rhetorical theory needs to give an adequate account of them. Drawing on her notable skills as a close reader and a careful logician, Dan offers important steps toward that account: a clear definition of covert progression ("a hidden dynamic paralleling, at a deeper level, the … overt dynamic throughout the text" [Shen, "'Covert Progression'" 2]); a taxonomy of relations between the covert and the overt; fifteen theses about how to identify covert progressions and their effects; a consideration of how dual progressions entail other dualities of narrative elements.

I find three claims central to Dan's account:

1. 1. Covert progressions run parallel to rather than being integrated with overt plots. This claim underlies the way Dan differentiates her views from those of other theorists of "deeper meaning" such as David H. Richter (on covert plot), Armine Kotin Mortimer (on second story), and Kelly Marsh (on submerged plot). These theorists, in Dan's view, see the second layer as ultimately becoming part of the primary one, while she sees that layer as a separate movement.

2. 2. Covert progressions either complement or subvert overt plots, though the specifics of the complementarity or subversion can vary from narrative to narrative.

3. 3. Narratives with dual movements entail multiple other dualities, including those involving event structures, characterization, and implied authors (IAs) and authorial audiences (AAs).

My main questions are about (1) the dualities of authors and audiences in claim #3 and (2) how to determine whether a reader's discovery of a covert progression is part of an authorial design. In addition, my question about dualities will lead to questions about claims #1 and #2.

Dual or single agents?

About the IA, Dan writes, "in a narrative with dual dynamics, instead of inviting readers to infer one image of the implied author, the text invites readers to infer two contrastive or even opposed images … from the two narrative movements" ("'Covert Progression'" 22). About the AA, she writes, "Corresponding to the dual image of the IA, there are two contrastive or opposed positions of the 'authorial audience.' In Mansfield's 'Revelations,' the authorial audience position for the overt plot is non-feminist and that for the covert progression is feminist" (22). Dan's formulations logically follow from the claim that dual movements are parallel, and they capture the idea that an actual reader who recognizes the two tracks will be following authorial invitations in...