What Is Narrative?

Roland Barthes begins his essay "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" by stating, "There are countless forms of narrative in the world. First of all, there is a prodigious variety of genres, each of which branches out into a variety of media, as if all substances could be relied upon to accommodate man's stories. Among the vehicles of narrative are articulated language, whether oral or written, pictures, still or moving, gestures, and an ordered mixture of all those substances; narrative is present in myth, legend, fables, tales, short stories, epics, history, tragedy, drame [suspense drama], comedy, pantomime, paintings (in Santa Ursula by Carpaccio, for instance), stained-glass windows, movies, local news, conversation."

While this is not a cut-and-dry definition of narrative, it's where I felt best to begin explaining how I understand narrative. When I think about narrative, or a story, I often think about the things that Barthes listed, such as movies, pictures, history, or the news, as examples of a narrative.

For a more formal definition of narrative, I have turned to Marie-Laure Ryan.

Spatial dimension
(1) Narrative must be about a world populated by individual existents.
Temporal dimension
(2) This world must be situated in time and undergo significant transformations.
(3) The transformations must be caused by non-habitual physical events.
Mental dimension
(4) Some of the participants in the events must be intelligent agents who have a mental life and
react emotionally to the states of the world.
(5) Some of the events must be a purposeful action by these agents.
Formal and pragmatic dimensions
(6) The sequence of events must form a unified causal chain and lead to closure.
(7) The occurrence of at least some of the events must be asserted as fact for the storyworld.
(8) The story must communicate something meaningful to the audience.

Because narrative exists in so many different forms, I believe that Ryan's lengthy but systematic definition most directly corresponds to my own ideas of what a story is.

Works Cited:


Barthes, Roland. "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative." New Literary History 6.2 (1975). Print.
Ryan, Marie-Laure: Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29.