Narrative

Roland Barthes and Lionel Duisit describe narrative as the closest thing next to language that every human being uses and demonstrates with out thinking twice. Barthes and Duisit state that narrative "in it's infinite variety of forms, it is present at all times, in all places, in all societies" [1].

And this statement is only further confirmed as H. Porter Abbott uses a vivid picture of how if a young girl were to fall and cry to her mother about it, she would be speaking in narrative [2]. It is the telling of how the young girl fell that creates the narrative, and according to Abbott narrative "is the representation of an event or series of events" that makes a statement a narrative [2]. For example, when the young girl cries to her mother about falling, she will only further divulge how it happened and that young girl has just demonstrated a narrative. Abbott does place a strong emphasis on the fact that an event or action makes language a narrative. [2]

[1] Barthes, Roland and Duisit, Lionel. "On Narrative and Narratives". New Literary History. Vol.6 No.2 (1975), Page 252, Page 264.

[2] Abbot, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Page 1.