ABSTRACT
All narration, whether it is oral or written, whether it recounts real or mythical events, whether it tells a story or relates a simple sequence of actions in time, presupposes not only (at least) one narrator but also (at least) one narratee, the narratee being someone whom the narrator addresses. In a fiction-narration - a tale, an epic, a novel - the narrator is a fictive creation as is his narratee. JeanBaptiste Clamence, Holden Caulfield, and the narrator of Madame Bovary are novelistic constructs as are the individuals to whom they
If narratees are distinct from real, virtual, or ideal readers,3 they very often differ from each other as well. Nonetheless, it should be possible to describe each one of them as a function of the same categories and according to the same models. It is necessary to identify at least some of these characteristics as well as some of the ways in which they vary and combine with each other. These characteristics must be situated with reference to a sort of 'zerodegree' narratee, a concept which it is now time to define.
