- Narrative -

Narrative

A narrative is a story, comprised of common character(s), setting(s), and event(s) that is filtered and processed through any number of minds. All have narrative elements acting on them at all times, as “even fixed, silent instruments like paintings can convey the events,” [1] shaping the raw external reality into each personal meaning. Narratives exist in nature as all living things do, perpetually growing and changing around their environments. Abbot claims that events, in order to achieve the classification of ‘narrative’, must “belong to the same chronology from beginning to end and share the involvement of at least one character” [2]. I believe this distinction is generally accurate, because of all the events that take place in the world there are only a certain few that are significant to us as human beings. A series of events directly involving a human character is intrinsically related to on some level by any other human, but since stories about humans are no longer rare, we now commonly require that these humans share our more specific characteristics such as sex, age, and ethnic makeup. While Abbot’s description is certainly relevant to human beings, I find it incomplete overall. The act of kicking a piece of dirt, for example, would not be considered narrative by most people because it is irrelevant to them -- However the colony of ants that was forced to relocate everyone and everything they’d ever known will certainly be telling the story for generations.

Narrative is the most ubiquitous concept innate to mankind. It “is present in all times, in all societies…there is not, there has never been anywhere; any people without [it].” [3]

[1]- Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. pg 15.

[2]- Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. pg 14.

[3] Barthes, Roland. “An introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. Volume 6, No.2 (1975), pg. 237. Print.