Camille Gross: Walter Fisher 24 April

         The readings assigned for our essay on Big Fish, Dr. Redick used a lot of quotes from Walter Fisher. This semester I was taking a rhetorical criticism class where I focused a lot on Fisher’s teachings. A concept he came up with for communication was the narrative paradigm. Basically the paradigm talks about how storytelling is an effective means of interaction and even helps back up arguments rather than using logic.
The narrative paradigm is based on the five factors: humans are storytellers, decision making is based on good reasons, good reasons are based on history, biography, culture, and character, rationality is based in people’s awareness of consistency and reminiscent of lived experience, and we must choose among all the stories. Rationality relies on coherence and fidelity. Fidelity looks at the story compared to similar stories and the values they discuss. Coherence refers to the storyteller’s ability to remain consistent throughout the story in their character. For example, in Big Fish, Edward remains consistent throughout each story he tells. His character and behavior within the story never changes. As for fidelity, each story resembles previous stories he has told. Even though Edward’s stories were exaggerated, he followed along the narrative paradigm which is why people believed his stories and enjoyed them.