What is Narrative?

Like many ideas or rather concepts, narrative is difficult to define. The reason for this is highlighted by Barthes when he writes, “...either narrative is a random assemblage of events, in which case one can only speak of it in terms of the narrator's art, talent, or genius-all mythical embodiments of chance; or else it shares with other narratives a common structure, open to analysis, however delicate it is to formulate”. Narrative is ever-present in your life and the lives of others. Since narrative is such a broad concept, according to Barthes, it requires a workable theory to analyze the different types and provide a certain level of understanding that would otherwise be unattainable. Even after making such a suggestion, Barthes realizes that even a theory would provide a lacking understanding due to the fact that the millions of narratives would both "partake in and deviate from the model". Linguistics provides a method of analysis, from which it is possible to differentiate between narrative and a mere series of “propositions”. A narrative can be thought of as being a verbose sentence, in that it consists of a volley of sentences, statements, and actions. A narrative can be as simple as, “The secret agent swiftly disarmed the perpetrator”, or so complex that different layers of meaning must be analyzed.[1]

Abbott recognizes that when most people think of the meaning of narrative, they immediately think of it as a kind of art. While this is true in many cases, narrative is something we, as human beings, engage in the course of our daily lives. From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, we have created 24 hours’ worth of narrative. Although Abbott agrees with Barthes, in the sense that narrative is complex, he also appreciates that narrative is present in almost all human “discourse”. While Barthes goes into the details of understanding or at least going about understanding narrative, Abbott goes further by discussing WHY narrative matters at all. “Narrative is the principle way in which our species organizes its understanding of time”. As Abbott points out, human beings are naturally inclined to create a “shape of time” and contextualize an arbitrary event.[2]

[1] Barthes, Roland and Duisit, Lionel. An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative. New Literary History. Vol.6 No.2 (1975)

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

Nimit Patel