Character in The Good Soldier

Levenson, Michael

doi:10.2307/441407

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Armstrong draws attention to the need for the reader to make a decision as to whether to trust or suspect Dowell, suggesting that ‘[b]oth are guesses about the hidden or as yet undisclosed’, but deciding on balance to trust him (Armstrong, 1987: 397). Levenson sees Dowell as erratic in his narratorial behaviour, but basically morally laudable; he is ‘the one character capable of selflessness’ (Levenson, 1984: 372). Those critics who take a less charitable view of Dowell argue that his intent is to deceive, and question his version of what he knows and even of what takes place in the novel.…”

Section: The Good Soldiermentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I don’t know how it is best to put this thing down’: Uncooperative narration in Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier

Chapman

2023

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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This article offers a pragmatic stylistic analysis of Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel The Good Soldier, assessing the technical notion of ‘cooperation’ developed in Gricean theory as a means of explaining its distinctive narrative style. Critics have generally agreed this text offers a salient example of unreliable narration, but have differed significantly in how they judge the character of the narrator himself, and even in how they interpret the events of the novel. Grice characterises communicative exchanges as typically rational pieces of behaviour, in which a mutually accepted set of purposes guarantees that individual contributions are suitable and constructive, but he does also detail ways in which speakers may fail to fulfil these expectations. This article will analyse examples from the novel in which the relationship between narrator and reader might be characterised as uncooperative in specifically Gricean terms; the narrator faces a clash of conversational maxims, opts out of the maxims or violates them, rather than either adhering to them or flouting them for communicative effect. This suggests a way in which pragmatic literary stylistics might be able to offer a principled explanation of the idiosyncratic style of this canonical work of modernist fiction, and by extension of the effects of this style of narration on the reader.

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Section: The Good Soldiermentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I don’t know how it is best to put this thing down’: Uncooperative narration in Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier

Chapman

2023

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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Narrative triangulations: Truth, identity, and desire in Ford Madox Ford'sThe Good Soldier

Angelis¹

2007

English Studies

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Fordian Confiteor: Catholicism and Social Disengagement in The Good Soldier

Steedley¹

2015

Twentieth-Century Literature

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Concentrating on characterizations of Catholicism in The Good Soldier, “Fordian Confiteor” argues that Ford Madox Ford’s characters turn to religious stereotypes and unauthorized forms of confession in a disastrous attempt to secure themselves against monumental changes in contemporary society and politics. Demonstrating how John Dowell’s impressionistic narrative signals the dangers of social disengagement and political isolation, the essay also addresses the novel’s historical allusions to the English Reformation and the latent correlations between characters’ behavior and the antimodernist stance of the Catholic Church during the opening decades of the twentieth century.

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Character in The Good Soldier

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

‘I don’t know how it is best to put this thing down’: Uncooperative narration in Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier

‘I don’t know how it is best to put this thing down’: Uncooperative narration in Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier

Narrative triangulations: Truth, identity, and desire in Ford Madox Ford'sThe Good Soldier

Fordian Confiteor: Catholicism and Social Disengagement in The Good Soldier

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