Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

Metaphors and metonyms are used in the narrative to signify specific themes, ideas or
conflicts: something abstract is given concrete form that may be conventional (a
tattooed heart is a metaphor of love, a ring is a metonym of marriage) or more
creative (a pinball in the mouth of a woman is a metaphor of ...?) 15 .
”Don’t tell it, show it” is the slogan of playwrights and journalists. The narrative is
not a cognitive report or a reproduction based on reflection, it is experienced as an
immediate, engaging, multimodal expression of emotional motivations, causes and
effects. It invites to identification.
McKee (1999) presents three types of dramatic design:
• The classical design (Archplot) with causality, closed ending, external
conflict, single protagonist, consistent reality and active protagonist
• Minimalism (Miniplot) with open ending, internal conflict, multi-protagonists
and passive protagonist
• Antistructure (Antiplot) with coincidence, nonlinear time and inconsistent
realities.
Only in the classical design, be it a comedy or a tragedy, the ending is experienced as
a release – or in Aristotle’s terminology: a catharsis.
All three designs may be found in the stories people tell about their lives, however a
psychologically satisfactory ending needs a closure, if not within the story then in a
real life ’postscript’. The dialectics between story and experience, plot and
interpretation is the core of Ricoeur’s narrative theory.
3.3.2 Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of mimesis
For Paul Ricoeur metaphor and narrative were not framed in a narrow way in a theory
of literature or history. He considers and discusses both epistemological figures and
devices. The human being uses narrative strategies to make meaning and coherence
out of lived experience. The basic hypothesis is that “time becomes human time in the
15 This image is found in the film Il Postino (The Postman), one of the best introductions to metaphors
known by the present author. It signifies the first meeting of the postman with the woman who later
becomes his wife. The scene is non-verbal so the spectators must indetify the verbal metaphor
him/herself.
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