A narrative is the process of telling something to someone. The process includes senders and receivers of the narration as all the communicating process does. A narrative is the core element of a human life, as Barthes points out in his article that “there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative”. [1] Indeed, human beings depend on narratives in understanding what is happening around them. Abbott agrees with this by stating that without narratives “we often feel we don’t understand what we see”. [2] It must be noted as well that a narrative comes before a discourse, because “the story only comes to life when it is narrative”. [3] How can a story exist if it is not told? The question reveals the essential feature of a narrative.
Narrative happens in the every aspect of human life, so it can take infinite numbers of forms. Language, art works, history, and gestures are only a few of those examples. [4] The function of the narratives varies as well, though all the functions are to construct a “plot as a mapping in time and space”. [5] A narrative, therefore, is the necessary process for human in order to make sense out of the world.
[1] Barthes, Roland. “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. New Literary History. Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (Winter. 1975), p. 237. Print.
[2] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.Cambridge. Second Ed. University Press. p. 10. Print.
[3] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.Cambridge. Second Ed. University Press. p. 20. Print.
[4] Barthes, Roland. “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. New Literary History. Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (Winter. 1975), p. 237. Print.
[5] Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 64. Print.
Takane Kobayashi
I am afraid to disagree with you because your writing style reflects a surprisingly high level of delicacy and intellect along with writing experience, but I personally believe that a narrative does not require a sender. Since a sender has to be biological or mechanical in nature to be considered an entity, natural disasters and the like can also tell narratives for others to see.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I meant by "sender" that narratives/stories need someone to tell the stories, like a storyteller. I think that events like natural disasters cannot be recognized by people (if they live far from the actual place a event happens) if there is no one to tell about the event (=story).
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