Jekyll and Hyde Fiction: An Analysis of Duality in Speculative Fiction Rhetoric

Jekyll and Hyde Fiction: An Analysis of Duality in Speculative Fiction Rhetoric

“Thus I drew steadily nearer the that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two...If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that is unbearable.”

                                        -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Speculative Fiction (SF) is without a doubt, one of the most popular genres of the twenty-first century. SF creates an eventuality of existence based on the world that the reader experiences every day. SF has the unique ability to transport the reader to a place where their imaginative capability is limitless. It is possible while reading SF to experience a space scape through a porthole in the Omega Nebula, or walk the tattered remains of post-apocalyptic America. However, the reader, with their human concerns and problems, remains a proactive part in the interpretation of the events presented by the author. SF, though it has the potential to illustrate completely alien situations, is one of the most effective storytelling techniques because readers are at once thrilled by the unknown and the imaginative, but ultimately contemplate what this eventuality means for their own existence. Therefore, the power of SF is dual; it has both communicative and influential capability. In the forward of the first edition of Wayne C. Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction, the author describes two different types of rhetoric that are found in fiction: didactic fiction, or “fiction used for propaganda or instruction,” and non-didactic fiction, or “the art of communicating with readers”(Booth, xiii). This necessarily brings this essay to a crossroad in the very onset of it's existence; which is more worthy of focus? However, in contemplation of the two varieties of rhetoric in line with the values presented in the course, it is veritably impossible to separate the two, as Dr. Jekyll discovered so horrifyingly in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Looking at Douglas Ehninger's definition of rhetoric found in On Systems of Rhetoric, this becomes apparent.

“[Rhetoric is] that discipline which studies all of the ways in which men may influence each other's thinking and behavior through the strategic use of symbols.”(Ehninger, 1972)

It is imperative that initially, rhetoric must be also defined as every act of human interaction, echoing Andrea Lunsford's definition of rhetoric in Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse; “Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of human communication”(Lunsford, 1980). The first part of this definition, about influencing thinking and behavior, is a reflection of didactic fiction, as propaganda and instruction seek to ultimately influence the reader. The second statement, the “strategic use of symbols,” clearly reflects non-didactic rhetoric, or the ability of the author to communicate with the reader, because rhetorical strategy can serve to boost the effectiveness of communication. With an enhancement of communication, necessarily the ability of the author to influence behavior and subsequently “reality,” as Lloyd Bitzer proposes in The Rhetorical Situation is also affected. In this way, the two enter a symbiotic relationship; human interaction serves to influence one's peers, and the ability or inability to communicate effectively dictates the speaker's sway over their audience. Therefore, this essay will be wrought in two parts, the first being a discussion of non-didactic rhetoric and the efficiency of storytelling and communication, focusing primarily on Part I of Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction. The second part will tie this to didactic rhetoric in fiction, mostly a discussion of the idea of heterotopian rhetoric as an effective means to influence thought, behavior, and “reality.”

Part I:

General Rules, I-IV: Balancing Subjectivity and Objectivity For Communicative Efficiency

Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction is one of the most popular textbooks for a course centered on the art of fiction writing. It has become the center for discussions of how a fictional text works. Primarily, this discussion will center around how authors make novels accessible to the reader. The focus of the a majority of the first part of The Rhetoric of Fiction describes the difference of authorial presence using the common concept of “showing versus telling.” In the second chapter of Part I, Booth engages the reader in a discussion about the role that the objective author plays in a novel. Booth argues that although a objective author is in most respects more desirable that a subjective one, the author can never quite sever all ties from the text. Instead, he proposes several different techniques that an author can use to widen the divide. A big part of this is the author's duty to create a reliable narrator. One of the most important part of this is harnessing their personal voice. The author needs to be aware of what he asks of his readers regarding sympathy and disdain. Optimally, the author should never ask for one or the other without giving reason for it, or invoking the reader's own logos. If all readers feel strongly towards one character or another, there is a fault with the author's ability to remain objective and “impartial.” Impartiality plays a large role in creating a reliable narrator. Booth states that an author can use a stance of indifference, in pointing out both the commendable and the flawed traits that characters display, to engage readers more thoroughly in the text. This is accomplished because the reader gains more pleasure in being able to reserve judgment for themselves. Above all, the author should try to maintain a stance of neutrality towards values present in their work. Complete neutrality, of course, is impossible, as a central part of reader involvement in a piece of literature is preferring one character over another. However, if the author is too subjective, it can put the reader off the novel. Style, tone, and technique are all methods used to describe different aspects which the reader glimpses from the impartial author; commentary, however, betrays subjectivity.(Booth, 37) Here again, the duality of fiction is present; there must be a balance between the reader using his or her own logic to determine their character preference and the author's own authority. Ultimately, the fewer biases the author utilizes, the more his readers are likely to find his work agreeable.(Booth, 40) Booth notes that an author who tells important elements of the story shows the power of ethos of the author over their audience.

`“One of the most artificial of devices of the storyteller is the trick of going beneath the surface of the action to obtain an reliable view of a character's mind and heart.”(Booth, 3)

Booth goes on to say that telling an audience critical knowledge essentially gives them hoop to jump through; in order to grasp the story to follow, the reader must accept the information without question. In the case of character traits, such as personal mantra, identity, or morality, this kind of information is almost never obtained even by the closest of friends or relatives. In the case of clarity and concision, there is no real parallel, but the reader is given no empirical evidence to base this information on. Yet, because it is a story, in order to continue their relationship to the text, the reader suspends this lack of objectivity in favor of the author's authority and ethos. From this, it is clear to the reader what they should hope for. In general, that the moral and righteous prevail, and the wicked and evil are vanquished, and a clear and effortless communication between author and audience is established. Booth states that this sort of rhetoric can never vanish completely from a work of fiction, but that it has been more present in the past. The opposite, of course is a dramatic, objective, “showing” narrator. This has been argued to be a more “artistic” form of storytelling by modern authors. Booth quotes Mark Harris' essay, Easy Does It Not to illustrate this:

“I shall not tell you anything, I shall allow you to eavesdrop on my people, and sometimes they will tell the truth and sometimes they will lie, and you must determine for yourself when they are doing which. You do this every day. Your butcher says 'This is the best,' and you reply, 'That's you saying it.'”(Harris, 117)

This more dynamic form of storytelling promotes the theories of literary critics such as Robert Scholes, Wolfgang Iser, and Jean-Paul Sartre. These three state that the pleasure to be gained by literature is the active engagement of the reader with the text. With this in mind, the rhetoric behind an objective story-shower can be established. Because the reader is forced to figure out what they think is true and untrue, the audience's logic is forced to work in order to determine who they want to ultimately succeed, based on their own beliefs and “truths.” This can also be compared to the ideas in Bitzer's The Rhetorical Situation. Bitzer argues in this essay that the author varies their rhetoric based on an issue, the audience, and a set of constraints. Objective story-showing gives a greater breadth to loosen the constraints of the situation and appeal to a greater number of issues and a larger audience, enhancing the efficiency of communication.

Part II: Heterotopian Rhetoric: Entelechy, Estrangement, and The CESH Proof

Science Fiction and Fantasy are quickly becoming one of the most read genres, if not the most read genre, of the 21^st century. However, this genre is continually neglected as a form of “high” art. Most people, if asked what their conception of Science Fiction is, will reply with the common stigma of the the cable channel SciFi, Star Trek, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and other examples of B-grade film. What they don't realize is that SciFi fiction is different from what is known as Speculative Fiction(SF). Speculative Fiction is different from those titles listed above because, unlike its fantastical brethren, SF has roots based on contemporary society. There is a philosophical term that describes how SF acheives this feat. "Science Fiction and a Rhetorical Analysis of the 'Literature Myth'" by Kris Rutten, Ronald Soetaert, and Geert Vandermeersche. The trio contemplates how the the term coined by Kenneth Burke, entelechy applies to Speculative Fiction. Entelechy is described as “...the tendency of a potential to realize itself. … for example the way a seed contains in itself the tree that it will eventually become.”(R,S&V, 4). “Based on this definition of entelechy, Burke argues that entelectical satire is a very valid method of problematizing the development of society. This form of satire has a three step process. The first is to locate a archetype that is quickly beginning to paralyze culture. Next, define that archetype in specific terms, and finally describe what the eventuality of what will happen if this definition is applied to society by hunting down all possible outcomes of the archetype. What Rutten, Soetaert, and Vandermeersche claim is that science fiction fits what Burke calls entelechtical satire because science fiction dramatizes technological developments and trends and follows them "to the end of the line."(R, S, &V, 4).

In his his doctoral thesis, “The Art of Heterotopian Rhetoric: A Theory of Science Fiction as Rhetorical Discourse,” Robert Christopher Jason Graves connects this to several much larger theories of rhetoric. The first is the idea of Heterotopia. The term heterotopia can be defined as an “other” place: a utopia, eutopia, or dystopia, with many variations of each. This “other” place is initially alien to the reader; indeed that “estrangement” is it's very definition. As Darko Suvin argues in his 1972 essay, On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre, “In SF, the attitude of estrangement[. . .]has grown into the formal framework of the genre”(Suvin, 375). Even so, SF authors operate within the bounds of entelechy. Stories that include estrangement are only able to defamiliarize the reader in a way that is possible or probable in the continuation of societal archetypes, that is, a heterotopia. Graves proposes that by blending these two ideas into one proof, a heterotopian work of SF can begin to take shape as a form of didactic rhetoric, that is also a seamless meld with the ideas of efficiency of communication described in part I of this essay.

Graves calls his rhetorical device the Cognitive Estrangement of a Scientific Heterotopia, or from now on the “CESH” proof. First, the three steps regarding Burkeian term, entelechtical satire, must be observed. A archetype is identified and established, and then taken “to the end of the line.” In Graves' CESH proof, this is the creation of what he calls a “Scientific Heterotopia” In describing their heterotopia, a SF author uses both entelechy and Wayne Booth's suggestion of objectivity. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, is a beautiful example of how a SF writer uses objectivity. In the opening chapter, Ender has his “monitor” removed. This “monitor” is implanted into his central nervous system, and it transmits physical change, hormonal change, and actually records what his ocular nerves pick up. This example immediately invokes cognitive estrangement. Children today do not have an implant in their neck. Additionally, a “monitor” models entelechtical satire as children in our society go through serious standardized tests in order to survey intelligence level in many different disciplines. Realizing the “seed” in vigorous testing that children endure in the present day, a possible endpoint that appeals to the reader's logos is to have each child's brain activity tested at literally every moment. Furthermore, Card does not come right out and say that the monitor is hooked up to the subjects central nervous system; instead, he shows the reader by describing how Ender has a grand mal seizure when his doctor attempts to remove it from the base of his skull, and how his removing the monitor had the potential to have “switched him off”(Card, 15) enhancing his non-didactic rhetoric. Because the reader can see that the monitor has the potential to gravely harm the subject, however, Card imposes his values on the reader, violating Booth's idea of the “impartial” narrator. Given that fact, Graves can demonstrate how an example such as this one, that is, an objectively described but clearly biased segment, forms a base for the CESH model as a didactic rhetorical proof:

“...heterotopian readers are less likely to resist these criticisms because they are projected in a heterotopia that is estranged from the “real space” of the audience[...] Heterotopian Rhetoric seeks to provide a form of psychological projection that allows the audience safe passage to cognitively explore critiques of themselves, their societies, and, most importantly, their privileged paradigms.”(Graves, 55-56)

Essentially, the cognitive estrangement of an objective and imaginative heterotopia provide the reader with a space where he or she can reserve their judgment of a practice like a central nervous system implantation, evoking an efficiency in communication for a wide audience, however the author is also able to impose their own biases because the space is a hypothetical one. With these two elements joined, it can be postulated that Heterotopian Rhetoric could be even more powerful than Aristotle's pillar logos because it goes beyond reason as the reader knows it, and enters the realm of reason as it could be; an appeal to what is possible(Graves, 59)

Without a doubt, the theory behind mimetic fiction as a form of rhetoric is complicated enough, without adding the speculative element of what is possible. Still, even with the confusion added by the genre of Speculative Fiction, the Jekyll and Hyde analogy still holds in many respects. In order to appeal to a large audience, the non-didactic efficiency of communication must be observed in the first two steps of Burke's entelechy. But in order to make a work of Speculative Fiction more than a B-grade movie that plays in loops on the SciFi channel, it must also a cognitive element that suggests the ramifications of a social archetype. An author must be objective in order to for a reader to reserve judgment for their own pleasure, and conversely can use that same objectivity and CESH to impose a greater number of biases on the reader. And overarching all of this, the author's ability to use non-didactic rhetoric dictates how well their didactic rhetoric influences the thought, action, and reality of their readers. These theories applied to Science Fiction can have the most profound impact, and as one of the writers that helped the literary critics open their eyes to the genre said:

“The result can be extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate—and often very tightly reasoned: it is speculation about the possibilities of the real world.” (Robert Heinlein)

Bibliography

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric Of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago, London: University Of Chicago Press, 1983. Print.

Rutten, Kris, Ronald Soetaert, and Geert Vandermeersche. "Science Fiction and a Rhetorical Analysis of the ."CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1709&context=clcweb>

Graves, Robert Christopher Jason. "The Art of Heterotopian Rhetoric: A Theory of Science Fiction as Rhetorical Discourse." Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy, Bowling Green University. (2009): Web. <http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Graves Robert Christopher.pdf? bgsu1245638686>.

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric Of Motives. 1^st ed. London: University of California Press, 1969. eBook.

Suvin, Darko. "On The Poetics Of The Science Fiction Genre." College English. Vol. 34 No.3 (1972): Web. 12 Dec. 2012.<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/375141uid=3739768&uid=2&uid =4&uid=3739256&sid=21101482313101>.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York, NY: Tor Books, 2004. Print.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Jenny Davidson. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Other Stories. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. Print.