What is a Narrative?

“A narrative is essentially a mode of verbal presentation and involves the linguistic recounting or telling of events,” states Gerald Prince in the second edition of his Dictionary of Narratology (Prince 58).H. Porter Abbott breaks the narrative into two parts: the story, an event or sequence of events, and narrative discourse, the representation of those events. Narratives, in addition to having its “external time” (time it takes to read the narrative), has its own time and chronology; “we are aware of, on the one hand, the time of reading and the order in which things are read, and, on the other hand, the time the story events are supposed to take and the order in which they are supposed to occur” (Abbott 16). This is what differentiates a narrative from a “non-narrative”, such as an essay. While a narrative has its proposed chronology and order in which the reader is to read it in, the chronology of the story can be reversed and still “convey both the timing and the chronological sequence of events” (Abbott 16). On the other hand, a non-narrative, such as an essay, has only the external time, the time required reading the text, and the order, which is the static structure of the essay.

Narrative discourse, as the second part of a narrative, has its own set of time and chronology that differs from the story. The following example resembles that of one Abbott created in his book. Consider the following story: “I took a rock, threw it across the river, and went back home.” Here, the timeline as well as order of the events of the story is set. Now consider the following alterations to the story: “He took a trip down memory lane as he grabbed the unbreakable mementos of his childhood and flung it across the old, familiar river. It was finally time to go home.” In this particular example, the order of events (the timeline of the story) remains intact. However, the narrative discourse has expanded as it elaborated on the actions of this particular character. Moreover, this was also done through a shift in the point of view, from first person to third person, which can only apply to the narrative discourse.

Herman takes “narrative” and delves further into its definition, claiming it requires certain mental operations such as “asking in what order did the represented events occur; what changes did they cause in the depicted world; what do the events (and their results) mean for the characters; what motivates actions and how does the outcome of these actions compare to the intent of the agent” (Herman 33). Thus, in addition to the time and chronological aspect of a narrative, there must be a significant contextual presence with the involvement of natural existences like emotions, interaction, reactions, and meaning. Abbot also lingers around this idea with the following examples: “She ate lunch. Then she drove the car to work,” “Brooding, she ate lunch. Then she drove the car to work.” He points out that the simple inclusion of “brooding,” greatly increases the narrativity of the first statements as now the character is given depth; “she has a mind and there is something troubling it” (Abbott 25).

Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.

Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Print.