But why?

In an effort to revisit cognitive theory, I skimmed David Herman’s chapters in Narrative Theory again. First, I tried for a better understanding of why this particular model seems least useful. I am not entirely sure that Herman proves the significance, or the ‘so what?’ of his theory. What is the point of cutting out the implied author and/or reader? Re-reading the cognitive theory sections left me feeling like a toddler. All I kept thinking is ‘but why?!’.

Yeah, yeah, I get that he thinks the whole concept of implied authors and readers is a kind of scholarly hedging. However, I still do not understand what that leaves me with to analyze. He claims that he provides “an approach that openly acknowledges the need to ascribe intentions to narrating agents [that makes] authors or story creators centrally important, while the category of ‘narrator’ will be more or less salient depending on the profile of a given narrational act” (46). But how can you assign intention to a narrating agent that places importance on an author without making up an implied author? And why is this approach sooooo much better, especially since I am never given a model or proof to follow?

Herman’s theory is difficult for me to take another shot at because I am definitely not sure how he does it. Unlike the first two sections in this book, Herman does not actually give me a model of how to apply his theory that I find useful. He gives tons of support for why he thinks his theory is the best, which is all well and good, but I cannot find that out for myself because, along with (or maybe because of) not totally believing it is the best, I have very little idea about how to try it out for myself.

However, I did try. I attempted to apply the cognitive approach to a short story, “Hugo” by Karen Maner, from the anthology The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014. Maner is totally unknown to me, which I thought would make it easier to ignore my instinct toward the implied author. Just looking at the “narrating agent” of the short story left me with very little analysis, some weirdly worded sentences that attached agency to the inanimate text, and a headache. I still don’t like the cognitive approach. Mostly because I still don’t see wwwwwhhhhhyyyy?