Narrative + Genres The genre of ‘self- disclosure’ and approaching self disclosure in the form of small story-analysis o BETTY tells her STORY –Two BIG STORIES of how she lost her dress Small stories- a different genre?

Genre + Self Disclosure Genre Theory studies “kinds of texts” their defining features, their production, their reception  to place a text in a genre category is immediately to interpret the category (or particular text) in terms of a theory about genre (Kearns, 2004, 201)  it is to make assumptions about the text’s production, reception + defining features  What, then, are the defining features, the typical production and reception conditions of SELF DISCLOSURE?

Self Disclosure Self-disclosure is not simply providing information to another person. Instead, scholars define self- disclosure as sharing information with others that they would not normally know or discover. Self- disclosure involves risk and vulnerability on the part of the person sharing the information. Once one person engages in self-disclosure, it is implied that the other person will also disclose personal information. This is known as the norm of reciprocity. Mutual disclosure deepens trust in the relationships and helps both people understand each other more.

Betty tells her story a twice-told story –in the morning –four hours later opportunity to compare and contrast the construction of a story-world (time, place + characters) Liane Brandon 1972 Betty Tells Her Story

Betty’s Story The story Betty tells is a simple one. She needed the perfect dress for a special occasion. Betty describes in amusing detail how she found just the right one, spent more than she could afford for it, modeled it for admiring friends, felt absolutely transformed and then…never got to wear it. Then Betty is asked to tell her story again. This time the story is strikingly different. While the facts are the same, Betty reveals how she really felt: her anxiety over buying the dress, her discomfort at being praised for beauty she feels she doesn’t have, and her subsequent bewilderment at the way things turn out. Betty becomes withdrawn, sad and vulnerable, and her voice, body and words express the painfulness of the memory. The contrast between the two stories is haunting.

References to knowledge states I knew I didn’t know I remember I mean I guess I think I know I don’t know You know how narrators position themselves as characters and as tellers/narrators engage in separating and weaving together Story and Discourse resulting in a ‘sense-of-self’

I knew When did narrators ‘know’? –what do comments on the characters’ knowledge back-there-and-than do? Contrasting presentations of events in version A with presentations in version B where knowing was explicitly mentioned Starting with version A Lines

Version A –lines next version B lines 68-90

I knew… Version B – lines …and I knew when I went downstairs that they would be… next version B lines

I knew… Version B –lines …I somehow knew you know that that that dress was gone next version B lines

I knew… Version B –lines …and and I knew I’d never find it again next version B lines

I knew… Version B –lines …and with no conviction that we would

Version A Version B I knew5 I didn’t know11 I remember28 I mean18 I guess15 I think11 I know I don’t know16 You know2325

What do narrators do when they knew? when they remember? when they mean and guess? when they don’t know?

Self Disclosure what is it + how is it done? by use of intersecting and manipulating character’s and narrator’s consciousness –fusing narrator and character in version A versus differentiating between them in version B authorial intrusion of the narrative flow generating different empathies (for character back-then versus narrator in the here-and-now) seemingly making the self (of the narrator) heard (over the character) (by “telling over what we narrate”) taking these features as signs of “internal monologue” - the authentic self the narrative production of authenticity by undercutting narrativity through reflexivity

Conclusion---Implications Self Disclosure --- just a genre? A genre that is more anti-narrative than narrative? Big Stories, reflexivity and the narrative interview? “Death of the Novel” - novels replaced by biographies? “Self-Perpetuating Therapies”? Implications for Genre Theory???