Seymour Chatman is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.

Preface1. Introduction
Narrative and Poetics

Elements of a Narrative Theory

Is Narrative a Semiotic Structure?

Manifestation and Physical Object

Narrative Inference, Selection, and Coherence

A Sketch of Narrative Structure

A Comic Strip Example

"Reading" and "Reading Out"2. Story: Events
Sequence, Contingency, Causality

Verisimilitude and Motivation

Kernels and Satellites

Stories and Antistories

Suspense and Surprise

Time and Plot

Order, Duration, and Frequency

How Time Distinctions Are Manifested

Narrative Macrostructure and the Typology of Plot3. Story: Existents
Story-Space and Discourse-Space

Story-Space in Cinematic Narrative

Story-Space in Verbal Narrative

Story-Existents: Character

Aristotle's Theory of Character

Formalist and Structuralist Conceptions of Character

Todorov and Barthes on Character

Are Characters Open or Closed Constructs?

Toward an Open Theory of Character

Character: A Paradigm of Traits

Kinds of Character

A. C. Bradley and the Analysis of Character Setting4. Discourse: Nonnarrated Stories
Real Author, Implied Author, Narrator, Real Reader, Implied Reader, Naratee

Point of View and Its Relation to Narrative Voice

Point of View in Film

Narrators' and Characters' Speech Acts

"Nonnarrated" Representation in General

Nonnarrated Types: Written Records

Pure Speech Records

Soliloquy

Records of Thought: Direct Free Style = Interior Monologue

Stream of Consciousness = Free Association

Interior Monologue in the Cinema5. Discourse: Covert versus Overt Narrators
Covert Narrators Presupposition

Indirect Tagged and Free Style

The Manipulation of Sentences for Narrative Purposes: Presupposition as an Example

Limitation of Authority in Narrative Transmission

Shifting Limited versus Omniscient Mental Access

Overt Narration: Set Descriptions

Overt Narration: Temporal Summaries

Reports of What Characters Did Not Think or Say

Ethos and Commentary

Commentary

Implicit Commentary: Ironic Narrator and Unreliable Narrator

Commentary and the Story: Interpretation

Commentary and the Story: Judgment

Commentary and the Story: Generalization

Commentary on the Discourse

The NarrateeConclusionAppendix: Diagram of Narrative StructureIndexes: Author and Title, Subject