Dear All,
I'm trying to write a relevance theory explanation of why the following
opening of a short story by Donald Barthelme is peculiar:
Edward looked at his red beard in the tableknife. Then Edward and Pia went
to Sweden, to the farm.
The full stop is strange, as is the repetition of 'Edward', but I'm mostly
concerned with the 'Then'. It seems to me that this is strange because it
conjoins two dissimilar events - dissimilar in duration and significance,
and because the triviality of the first event suggests an absurdly short
interval between the two. Ultimately I think these sentences (and others)
are used to convey a disturbed state of mind which cannot distinguish
between the trivial and the significant, but I'm puzzled over where we get
the expectation that conjoined sentences will describe similar events. Is
it from an assumption schema? Is it because conjoining the trivial with the
significant does not yield enough cognitive effects?
If anyone has done or knows of any related work, or has any ideas, I'd be
interested to hear.
With best wishes,
Barbara
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