Craig White's Literature Courses

Terms & Themes

Narrative

Narrative is an adaptable and inclusive term, most often interpreted as "plot" or "story."

But what are they?

One element they all have in common is time--stories happen as a sequence of events in time . . . .

Here are some other approaches:

• Humans are story-telling creatures. All humans create and share stories, true and truer.
   

• "Everybody loves a good story."
   

• People respond, think, and act in terms of stories that express our fears and desires, often in the form of symbols.
   

• Reality, nature, God, and ultimate truth may be greater and more complicated than our stories, but stories keep us going and provide meaning.

• Narratives are both individual and collective; literary and cultural--very inclusive concept.

• Four traditional "narrative genres": comedy, romance, satire, tragedy

• The dominant popular narrative for literature of the future and especially science fiction is "romance."

• In popular use, "romance" means women's stories of true love. Academically, "romance" includes love stories but is not limited to them: adventures, action, and cowboy stories are also usually romances.

• Romance attracts a reader or individual audience member with transcendent meaning and escape from day-to-day reality, but the cost of this attraction can be a sacrifice of reality and a blindness to larger complexities beyond the individual self. 

narrative as mediation of tradition and change

narrative as management of conflict, resolution

narrative moves from past to future

story as desire, drive, vision or ambition that keeps a person going forward; action reflects or grows from character, hero or "protagonist"

but not smooth sailing--stories require conflict, challenges, denials, opposition (sometimes in form of "antagonist")

story ends with resolution of conflict (justice, union, death, escape, satisfaction of ambition)

Aristotle, Poetics: beginning, middle, end

story-telling as teaching, modeling

we tell children stories to teach lessons. As we grow older, the lessons are usually less explicit or direct, but the model of behavior is still there for readers to imitate or reject or aspire to

Aristotle, Poetics: "To learn gives the liveliest pleasure."

But most grown-ups don't want to know they're learning something, or their defenses will go up. Instead, values, judgments, decisions are "built in" to narratives or to literature generally

Roman poet Horace: purpose of literature is to "entertain and educate"

Other ways of thinking about narrative:

journey with trials, setbacks, tests, ultimate success . . .

American Dream story, rags to riches

Old World > New World

Traditional culture > Modern Culture

Big families, connection / oppression > individualism, self-expression

Sometimes (stage 5) a dissatisfaction with the American Dream or homogenized American identity, sense of loss with change

Significance of narrative:

Stories as natural to human existence . . . humans as storytelling creatures . . . everyone loves a good story

Stories or narratives are not just fiction, though they're easier to study that way . . . but stories or narratives control or shape the way we talk about history, destiny, our life-paths

Stories are not just literary but cultural, not just personal but national