Quite simply put, narrative is the general term for telling a story.
If I may, I would like to make this discussion semi-personal and hopefully something of
worth may come out of it. I am an English Major. My entire undergraduate career has been
dedicated to reading narratives of different forms and analyzing them. In my analysis, I
have used the primary text, whether it be a poem, a play, a novel, short story, or any
other genre of story and made some claim about what it means. I have created a secondary
text, but also a narrative. My original thoughts were spawned by the stimulus of another
narrative and now I have created a potential hypertext link to the greater work. But I
digress. . .
Not too long ago, my mother-in-law (who considers herself a writer) asked me what my
purpose was for studying literary criticism. "Why," she asked me, "do you
have to criticize another person’s story?" I struggled with that question
for some time and finally came out with an answer that must have appeased her eccentric
mind. I told her that literary criticism was not to criticize another’s narrative,
but to analyze why they told the story, how they told it, and then decide if it was told
effectively or not. As we all know, certain narratives last much longer than others. There
is an obvious reason for that. My job as a student of narrative is to find that reason
out. So, in order to make sense of the original question, I have to understand what it is
I‘m doing.
Narrative is a term associated with telling a story. Perhaps the most commonly known
association in literature with this term is "narrative poetry." Narrative poetry
is easy enough to define, poetry that tells a story. Of course, all poetry tells some sort
of story or another, but not all poetry is considered narrative poetry. Hence, we must
clarify a bit. Narrative poetry uses a specific style to present its message. Narrative
poetry is generally longer in length and follows a bit closer to the established rules of
syntax and language. (Perhaps I’m completely full of crap here, but I’ll let it
go.) The idea that we are attempting to portray through this website is that narrative is
available in several other forms of media than the book, play, poetry, etc. We all have
stories to tell, narratives within us, and very few people have the ability to express
their narrative in a way that leads them to the top of the best-seller list, or even to
the elite association of Nobel laureates. How can we all be heard? Is it important for us
all to be heard? Perhaps this is my ultimate question as I near the end of my college
career. How can I be heard? Does it matter that I am heard?
This brings me closer to the second question that I am going to attempt to tackle.
"Do other creatures also have narrative capability?" I am a firm believer in
animal’s ability to communicate, but do they actually create narratives? I am
more than skeptical about this. I believe that to create a narrative, we must have some
sort of reason to do it. People create narratives when they create an original story. We
see this every day in the grocery store. Formula novels abound. Everybody recognizes the
name Steven King, Everybody has seen the paperback stands that grace the front of every
other checkout aisle. These fiction novels are the product of someone’s imagination.
Some stories are entirely fantastic, some are more centered in reality, but all of them
were created by someone. In a less obvious location, we can find other forms of narrative.
Biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, and other factual historical accounts also provide
a narrative for us to consider. These were not created by imagination, but were real
events transcribed by someone willing to create the narrative. They all involve a certain
element of creativity, an ability to express an event or an idea after having taken the
mental steps of higher thinking in order to produce a narrative that will draw a response
from an audience. Do animals tell narratives? An animal marks his territory and uses that
scent to return to a site that provides food, water, shelter, or sex. Insects (like bees
or ants) find a source of food and then lead the rest of the colony back there. I suppose
the question to be addressed here is the way in which they communicate their find with the
rest of the colony. Does the "bee’s dance" constitute a narrative? I
don’t believe so.
