Something exciting has just happened to you, what do you immediately want to do? Share the story with someone, right? The skill of story telling as well as striving for story hearing is a human condition.1 The story is what has just happened, an event that is pre-existing. The sharing of, or re-representing the story, which occurs afterward is the narrative. Narratives convey a story. 2 The narrative is a representation…of one or more real or fictive events communicated by one, two or several…narrators…to one or several narratees. It is something that moves through time, not only externally (the duration of the medium), but also internally (the duration of the sequence of events that constitute the plot)3 As aforementioned, a narrative is a re-representation of a story, thus, it is possible that a narratee hears multiple narratives that originate from one story. The qualitative differences amongst the narratives rely on the reliability, and sensibility of the narrator. There are narrators who are a part of the story, while some are simply bystanders. The latter tend to be more reliable, and deploy objective, third-person narrations.4
Within the cyber-realm one narrator has the capability to communicate with a numerous amount of narratees; who are able to quickly endow the original narrative, which creates layers of narratives that remain visibly connected to the original(s).5
1 Fischer, Annemarie. "Defining Narrative." Binghamton University, Vestal, NY. 24 Feb. 2011. Lecture.
2 Abbott, Porter H. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative: Narrative and Life. University of California, Santa Barbara: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print. 2nd edition.
3 Ryan, Marie-Laure. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative: Toward a Definition of Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
4 Ryan, Marie-Laure. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative: Toward a Definition of Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
5 Fischer, Annemarie. "Defining Narrative." Binghamton University, Vestal, NY. 24 Feb. 2011. Lecture.
Remonde,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your take on the "reliability" and "sensibility" of the narrator as cited in your blog? How could we begin to define "reliability" and "sensibility" in terms of a narrative. Can they be defined objectively? As people's perspectives differ, so too, will their stories, but how do we begin to qualify what is reliable and what is sensible and to what degree?