The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms

150 Narrative structure
Introduction (2001); J. Hillis Miller,
Reading Narrative (1998); H. Porter
Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to
Narrative (2002); Martin McQuillan
(ed.), The Narrative Reader (2000).
AMR
Narrative structure Refers most
simply to the shape of a story’s trajectory.
Every story is projected from a state of
rest by a force of some kind in an arc of
rising tension until it reaches the apogee
where it begins to fall towards a point of
impact. This trajectory represents the
‘unity of action’ proclaimed by Aristotle
to be the essential principle of tragedy,
but also applicable to related genres, such
as the epic.
Poeticians and students of dramatic
and narrative forms have tended to take
for granted Aristotle’s division of the
action into ‘complication’ and ‘denouement’
(or ‘unravelling’) around a central
‘peripeteia’ or turning point. Modern
literary theorists, strongly influenced by
Russian Formalism, have often ignored
this unifying structural principle, either
following Propp in focussing on the mere
chaining of narrative functions, or distinguishing
(after Shklovsky) between the
underlying material of the story, fabula,
and its compositional form, syuzhet or
‘plot’. This distinction usually only highlights
the sequential relations between
episodes and neglects the essential
relations of ‘complication’ and ‘denouement’,
such as their mirror-like opposition
in intensity and result, a patterning
which is preserved in the traditional
‘trajectory’ metaphor.
The central point around which
the narrative structure pivots is the
peripeteia, and the nature, placing and
stylistic marking of this turning-point
determines the nature of the conflict,
whether on a physical, psychological or
moral level. As Petrovsky showed in
1925, the central phases of narrative
structure are normally framed by elements
of ‘prologue’ and ‘epilogue’, both
of these having a general phase (i.e. the
total social scene out of which the world
of the story arises and to which it reverts)
and a specific phase (i.e. essential prior
and subsequent information about the
lives of the main protagonists).
Most models of narrative structure
start by assuming a previous state of rest
or equilibrium or normality which is
disturbed by an outside force of some
kind. The condition initiated by this force
gets worse until it reaches an extreme
degree. At this point another force comes
to bear which reverses the process and
allows for the gradual resumption of normality
or the establishment of a new equilibrium.
This homeostatic pattern may
have either a social or a psychological
function, or both. MYTHS in both primitive
and modern societies tend to come into
being as highly formalized, even formulaic,
structures which resolve the society’s
deepest tensions. These may concern
social conflicts, ritual taboos or humanity’s
struggle to come to terms with its
physical environment. The narrative
structure of the myth allows the real conflict
to be projected in dramatized form
and resolved via the peripeteia and
dénouement, thus providing both a ritual
enactment and a magical relief for the
society in question. On the individual
level a similar process may be at work:
tensions are produced by narrative in the
reader/listener which will match in their
variety and diffusion his residual psychological
tensions, but which are specific
enough to be resolved within the context
of the art experience, thus channelling
the residual tensions into a manageable
framework and allowing for their
vicarious relief.