Part of a larger rhetorical biography, this essay examines several of the narratives of the southern writer and humorist, Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944), to understand the unhappy "ordinary experience" of Southern racism and sexism. Following a biographical introduction, the first section discusses Cobb's narratives, while the second deals with Cobb's narrative Blacks. The third section discusses Cobb's narrative women. In the fourth section, Walter Fisher's concept of "narrative rationality" is applied in a critical analysis of Cobb's works. Sixty-nine notes are included. (SR)