The Transitivity of “We” and Narrative Legions

Abstract

. Terming the “we” as narrative legions, the following exploration establishes that “we” as a speaker is the missing subject of enunciation with a unique relation between its symbolicity and iconicity. That gives this shifter distinct powers as compared to “I” and “you”. The theory of narrative legions explains how “we” acquires diverse functions as the product of the literary work according to polynomia, that is, multiple laws of discourse which are text-specific. The passage from this missing enunciator to the polynomial “we” is proposed under the concept of transitivity whereby one can analyze the homological and analogical capacities of “we” activated in both literature and politics. Cognitivist, sociological, and phenomenological theories attempt to base the character of the social bond. Narratologists seek to ground we-locutions in the said theories to determine an existential counterpart of the shifter “we. These models for the relation between communication and community have been borrowing from each other within a zone of confusion which the concepts of polynomia and transitivity of “we” dispel.