Abstract: Regarding narrative form as a rhetorical means, rhetorical narrative theory emphasizes the multilayered communication among authorial agency, textual phenomena and reader response, and develops an effective analytical framework for narrative interpretation. A rhetorical narrative inquiry of The English Patient sheds light on the way the text guides readers’ narrative judgments and reconstructs its own ethics of identity. In terms of narrative structure, the text constructs its narrative trajectory moving in two directions temporally, juxtaposing the discussion of “personal identity” and “social identity” against the backdrop of World War II. The mystery of the identity of the patient and different conceptions of “identity” both serve as narrative dynamics to promote the progression of the narration, expanding readers’ multi-dimensional judgments about identity. In terms of narrative devices, the novel adjusts narrative distance by adopting “lyricality” and “portrait”, coupled with multiplicity of narrative frequency and points of view, thus inviting readers to understand and even identify with the main character’s ethics of identity. While suggesting its limitation of being too idealistic and in turn revealing the gap between the character’s ethics of identity and the implied author’s, the novel finally establishes its own ethics of reconciliation.

Keywords: narrative devices; narrative judgment; identity

摘要： 修辞叙事理论将叙事形式视作一种修辞手段，注重探索作者、文本与读者之间的多层次交流，并发展出有效的分析框架解读叙事。对小说《英国病人》的修辞叙事解读有助于探索文本叙事形式如何引导读者的叙事判断，重构关于身份的伦理。在叙事结构上，文本呈现出时空上的双向运动轨迹，并置了战争背景下关于“个人身份”与“社会身份”的探讨，以“身份之谜”与认识差异为动力，推动叙事进程，拓展读者关于身份的多维度判断；在叙述技巧上，文本通过叙述的“抒情性”与“人物刻画”、叙述频率以及叙述视角的多元化等策略，调节叙述距离，引导读者理解甚至认同主人公的身份伦理观，并了解其过于理想化的局限性，从而将其与隐含作者的身份伦理观区分开来，最终达成和解的伦理。

关键词: 叙述技巧, 叙事判断, 身份