What is a narrative? Its something we as a society have been doing forever. Even before the invention of paper, or the printing press, or even with the modern day computer, humans have thrived on the concept of narratives. According to Abbott, narrative is "the representation of events, consisting of story and narrative discourse, story is an event or sequence of events (the action), and narrative discourse is those events as represented" [1]. Narratives require a sender and a receiver, and in today's globalized world, this is most commonly done through the internet. However, narratives can come in many forms. Barthes describes that "among the vehicles of of narrative are articulated language, whether oral or written pictures, narrative is present in myth, legend, fables, tales, short stories, epics, history, tragedy, drame (suspense drama) comedy, pantomime, paintings, stained glass windows...indeed narrative starts with the very history of mankind" [2]. It is truly in our nature to create narratives in order to communicate and record events, stories, or almost anything that is existent.
[1] Bathes, Roland. “An introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. Volume 6, No.2 (1975), pg. 237. Print.
[2] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Second Ed. Cambridge University press. P. 2. Print.
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