Defining a Narrative

A narrative can be simply described as a human storytelling of a real or imagined world. Most commonly, narratives are thought of as nonfictional, yet inevitably biased, recordings of events. (1) Because all narratives originate from people, they are filtered through the history, personality and ideology of the narrator. Although the lack of complete lack of objectivity may be seen as a fault in a narrator, it is impossible to eliminate the human element. For example, if robots were fed information about a news event, they would relay only the facts. Their rendition of the event would be devoid of any emotion and would not include the context in which the story took place. The problem with a non-human narrator is that it is impossible for them to incorporate creativity, or big picture thinking, as they can generate no new information. However, this bias does not occur only from the side of the narrator; the naratee also perceives the information differently than the original intent, depending on the individual. While humans are naturally attuned to hearing and processing stories, every human is distinct and does so in a different way. (2) This plays out in a particularly interesting way in cyberspace, where the cycle of narrator and naratee never ends, and the narrative is constantly changing and evolving as time passes.

(1) Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Second Ed. Cambridge University press, p13. Print.

(2) Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Second Ed. Cambridge University press, p12. Print.