Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

chapter 3
Narrating about Narrative
We are now ready to close this introductory section with a discussion of
narrative, a critical aspect of semiotic readings.
A narrative is a story, the sort of tale we tell one another about our world
and ourselves. Most narratologists, those who study narrative, would agree
with this short and simple defi nition. That consensus, however, evaporates
as soon as the discussion moves to more substantive issues, such as origin,
structure, and meaning. Some defi ne narrative strictly as novels, short stories,
or other specifi c literary forms. Others take a broader approach and accept
most forms of communication, from the most sophisticated literature
to bedtime stories, jokes, and songs, as narrative. Not surprisingly, they
often equate it with discourse: being around us all the time and constructing
our visions of the world and ourselves in it, yet not necessarily under
our control. As you might have guessed, narrative interpretation has become
a point of contention in the debates between modernists and cultural
theorists.
Modernists tend to view narratives from a scientifi c perspective, believing
them to be composed of fundamental elements, such as plot, setting,
character, narrator, and tone, among others. They also tend to insist that
narratives follow universal patterns, having a beginning, middle, and end,
or an introduction, climax, and resolution. They believe the best way to understand
a narrative and to gain access to its inner truths is to break it down
into individual pieces, not unlike a biologist taking apart a cell.
Modernist narratologists focus on cause and effect, how a story is told
and constructed. If an essentialistic reading of a story could be represented
as a formula, it might look something like a b c, where a and b