What is "Narrative"?

Narrative, is a "representation" of a certain way in which a series of rupture in time (which are commonly referred to as "events") which have occurred which are mediated through mediums of representation i.e. written language (poetry, article, novel), orally, visually (through film, paintings) etc.
Abbott's point about narrative which I find to be particularly compelling and most explanatory, is that, "It [Narrative] at one and the same time fills and creates gaps...You will find gaps everywhere" (Abbott 44). The process of narrating is akin to how it is that we perceive with the human eye (the way in which the camera captures images), we are always leaving out something in our field of vision, we don't see panoramically. And this is what I find to be the most important attribute of narrative; in choosing to represent events there are always other perspectives/narratives that are not being represented; there are always gaps. Which makes claims such as Fredric Jameson's that narrative is: "the central function or instance of the human mind, " appropriate.

If there is anything that I believe to be "essential" to narrative it is that it is a representation which represents a particular way in which a series of actions/ruptures has occurred. Narration, is innately a hegemonic process, in that it is always leaving out other possible narrations/narrators/narrates/narratives, something that is pointed out in the terms "grand narratives" vs. "counter narratives", but I would argue that just by adopting a "counter narrative" it is then no longer a "counter narrative" but a "grand narrative" since it has been favored over another. The process of narrating inevitably entails that there is a certain favoring of certain particulars over others.

As Barthes points out the form of narrative includes within it a self-serving "logic" that does not represent reality in a wholesome/objective way: "The reality of a sequence does not lie in the "natural order" of actions that make it up, but in the logic that is unfolded, exposed, and finally confirmed in the midst of the sequence" (Barthes 271).

Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.

Barthes, Roland. "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative." Trans. Lionel Duisit. New Literary History 6.2 (1975): 237-72. JSTOR. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. .