Narrative Structures

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Memories in Narratives

Lots of the texts in the Paris Anthology are written from memory or as a reconstruction. This means these accounts are:

Partial - not everything is remembered; what are we being told/not told? Why?

Subjective - own, personal view, everyone approaches and interprets events differently

Unreliable - cannot trust the narrator; exaggeration, lying or leaving too many details out

Selective - cannot present all information about events - selected parts are chosen because of partial and subjective memory, as well as consideration of the audience the text is written for

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Telling Stories

Stories are normally only worth telling if they involve some sort of complication or something out of the ordinary happening.

Why do we tell stories?

to entertain

in response to a situation; e.g. relevant conversation

to instil morals; warning/teaching others

to inform; as a way of remembering

to persuade; presenting political points of view e.g. The Handmaid's Tale

Labov collected a large number of stories from different people during the 1960's, and identified the six different stages of narrtive common to most stories:

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Role of the Teller

The teller always has an active role in the narrative, even when his/her voice seems to be silent. For example, this may be found in the form of evaluative adjectives and adverbs.

The term 'story' becomes insufficient, because it could refer to one of two things:

events as they 'really' happened

events as they are told by the teller

e.g. a car accident may have really happened, but what you say about it is a representation of it using language

This news article is an example of a story.

'adventurer' - actor is going beyond ordinary life, stimulates interest from readers

'Simon Milward, 38' - factual

'more than 30 miles,' - evaluative

'no energy source other than the sun' - evaluative, makes the achievement seem impressive

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Point of View

Story = actual event

Teller = witness of the event

Discourse = representation of the event

Internal perspective is provided by protagonists.

External perspective is provided by second-hand accounts.

The teller's position can be revealed through use of deixis;

'Millions of tourists come to Thailand every year.' - teller is in Thailand

'Millions of tourists go to Thailand every year.' - teller is outside of Thailand

Similar to going 'up/down to London'.