Veiled aspect is seamy
By Prof Dr Sohail Ansari ““God’s curse
be upon the infidels! Evil is that for which they have bartered away their
souls. To deny God’s own revelation, grudging that He should reveal His bounty
to whom He chooses from among His servants! They have incurred God’s most
inexorable wrath. An ignominious punishment awaits the unbelievers.” Quran
2:89-2:90
People are too immature for reality
·
The seamy side of
every holy person is veiled because of the simple reason: people are too
immature to accept reality.
Narrative
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A narrative or story is any report of connected events, real or imaginary,
presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images.[1][2]
Narrative can be organized in a number of
thematic or formal categories: non-fiction (such as definitively including creative non-fiction, biography, journalism, transcript poetry,
and historiography);
fictionalization of historical events (such as anecdote, myth, legend, and historical fiction); and fiction proper (such as literature in prose and sometimes poetry, such
as short stories, novels, and narrative poems and
songs, and imaginary narratives as portrayed in other textual forms,
games, or live or recorded performances). Narrative is found in all forms of
human creativity, art, and entertainment, including speech, literature, theatre, music and song, comics, journalism, film, television and video, radio, gameplay, unstructured recreation,
and performance in general, as well as some painting, sculpture, drawing, photography,
and other visual arts (though several modern art movements refuse the narrative in
favor of the abstract and conceptual), as long as a sequence of
events is presented. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to tell",
which is derived from the adjective gnarus,
"knowing" or "skilled".[3]
Oral storytelling is the earliest method for sharing
narratives. [4] During most people's childhoods,
narratives are used to guide them on proper behavior, cultural history,
formation of a communal identity, and values, as especially studied in anthropology today among traditional indigenous peoples.[5] Narratives may also be nested within
other narratives, such as narratives told by an unreliable narrator (a character)
typically found in noir fiction genre. An important part of narration
is the narrative mode,
the set of methods used to communicate the narrative through a process
narration (see also "Narrative Aesthetics" below).
Along with exposition, argumentation,
and description,
narration, broadly defined, is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined,
it is the fiction-writing mode in which the narrator communicates directly to the reader.
Human nature[edit]
Owen Flanagan of Duke University, a leading
consciousness researcher, writes that "Evidence strongly suggests that
humans in all cultures come to cast their own identity in some sort of
narrative form. We are inveterate storytellers."[6] Stories are an important aspect of
culture. Many works of art and most works of literature tell stories; indeed,
most of the humanities involve stories. [7] Stories are of ancient origin,
existing in ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek, Chinese and Indian cultures and their myths. Stories are also a
ubiquitous component of human communication, used as parables and examples to illustrate points. Storytelling was probably one of the earliest forms
of entertainment. As noted by Owen Flanagan, narrative may also refer to
psychological processes in self-identity, memory and meaning-making.
Semiotics begins with the individual building
blocks of meaning called signs; and semantics,
the way in which signs are combined into codes to transmit messages. This is part of
a general communication system using both verbal and
non-verbal elements, and creating a discourse with different modalities and
forms.
In On
Realism in Art Roman Jakobson argues that literature exists as a
separate entity. He and many other semioticians prefer the view that all texts,
whether spoken or written, are the same, except that some authors encode their
texts with distinctive literary qualities that distinguish them from
other forms of discourse. Nevertheless, there is a clear trend to address
literary narrative forms as separable from other forms. This is first seen in Russian Formalism through Victor Shklovsky's
analysis of the relationship between composition and style, and in the work of Vladimir Propp,
who analysed the plots used in traditional folk-tales and
identified 31 distinct functional components.[8] This trend (or these trends) continued
in the work of the Prague School and
of French scholars such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes.
It leads to a structural analysis of narrative and an increasingly influential
body of modern work that raises important epistemological questions
·
What is text?
·
What is
its role (culture)?
·
How is it
manifested as art, cinema, theater, or literature?
·
Why is
narrative divided into different genres, such as poetry, short stories, and novels?
Literary theory[edit]
In literary theoretic approach, narrative
is being narrowly defined as fiction-writing mode in which the narrator is communicating
directly to the reader. Until the late 19th century, literary criticism as an academic exercise dealt solely
with poetry (including epic poems like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, and poetic drama like Shakespeare). Most poems did not have a narrator distinct from
the author.
But novels, lending a number
of voices to several characters in addition to narrator's, created a
possibility of narrator's views differing significantly from the author's
views. With the rise of the novel in the 18th century, the concept of the narrator (as
opposed to "author") made the question of narrator a prominent one
for literary theory. It has been proposed that perspective and interpretive
knowledge are the essential characteristics, while focalization and structure
are lateral characteristics of the narrator.[according to whom?]
Types of narrators and
their modes[edit]
A writer's choice in the narrator is
crucial for the way a work of fiction is perceived by the reader. There is a
distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, which Gérard Genette refers to as intradiegetic and
extradiegetic narrative, respectively. Intradiagetic narrators are of two types:
a homodiegetic narrator participates as a character in the story. Such a
narrator cannot know more about other characters than what their actions
reveal. A heterodiegetic narrator, in contrast, describes the experiences of
the characters that appear in the story in which he or she does not
participate.
Most narrators present their story from one
of the following perspectives (called narrative modes):
first-person, or third-person limited or omniscient. Generally, a first-person narrator brings greater focus on the feelings,
opinions, and perceptions of a particular character in a story, and on how the
character views the world and the views of other characters. If the writer's
intention is to get inside the world of a character, then it is a good choice,
although a third-person limited narrator is an alternative that does not
require the writer to reveal all that a first-person character would know. By
contrast, a third-person omniscient narrator gives a panoramic view of the world of
the story, looking into many characters and into the broader background of a
story. A third-person omniscient narrator can be an animal or an object, or it
can be a more abstract instance that does not refer to itself. For stories in
which the context and the views of many characters are important, a
third-person narrator is a better choice. However, a third-person narrator does
not need to be an omnipresent guide, but instead may merely be the protagonist
referring to himself in the third person (also known as third person limited
narrator).
Main article: Multiperspectivity
A writer may choose to let several
narrators tell the story from different points of view. Then it is up to the
reader to decide which narrator seems most reliable for each part of the story.
It may refer to the style of the writer in which he/she expresses the paragraph
written. See for instance the works of Louise Erdrich. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a prime example of the use of
multiple narrators. Faulkner employs stream of consciousness to narrate the story from various
perspectives.
In Indigenous American communities,
narratives and storytelling are often told by a number of elders in the
community. In this way, the stories are never static because they are shaped by
the relationship between narrator and audience. Thus, each individual story may
have countless variations. Narrators often incorporate minor changes in the
story in order to tailor the story to different audiences.[9]
Aesthetics approach[edit]
Narrative is a highly aesthetic art.
Thoughtfully composed stories have a number of aesthetic elements. Such
elements include the idea of narrative structure, with identifiable
beginnings, middles and ends, or exposition-development-climax-denouement, with
coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality including retention of the
past, attention to present action and protention/future anticipation; a
substantial focus on character and characterization, "arguably the most
important single component of the novel" (David Lodge The
Art of Fiction 67); different
voices interacting, "the sound of the human voice, or many voices,
speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms and registers" (Lodge The Art of Fiction 97; see also the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin for expansion of this idea); a
narrator or narrator-like voice, which "addresses" and
"interacts with" reading audiences (see Reader Response theory); communicates with a Wayne Booth-esque
rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at times
beneath the surface, forming a plotted narrative, and at other times much more
visible, "arguing" for and against various positions; relies
substantially on the use of literary tropes (see Hayden White, Metahistory for expansion of this idea); is often
intertextual with other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward bildungsroman,
a description of identity development with an effort to evince becoming in character and community.[jargon]
Psychological approach[edit]
See also: Narrative
therapy
Within philosophy of mind, the social sciences and various clinical fields including
medicine, narrative can refer to aspects of human psychology.[10] A personal narrative process is
involved in a person's sense of personal or cultural identity,
and in the creation and construction of memories; it
is thought by some to be the fundamental nature of the self.[11][12] The breakdown of a coherent or
positive narrative has been implicated in the development of psychosis and mental disorder,
and its repair said to play an important role in journeys of recovery.[13] Narrative Therapy is a school of (family) psychotherapy.
Illness narratives are a way for a person affected by an
illness to make sense of his or her experiences.[14] They typically follow one of several
set patterns: restitution, chaos, or quest narratives. In the restitution narrative, the person sees the illness
as a temporary detour. The primary goal is to return permanently to normal life
and normal health. These may also be called cure
narratives. In the chaos narrative,
the person sees the illness as a permanent state that will inexorably get
worse, with no redeeming virtues. This is typical of diseases like Alzheimer's disease: the patient gets worse and
worse, and there is no hope of returning to normal life. The third major type,
the quest narrative,
positions the illness experience as an opportunity to transform oneself into a
better person through overcoming adversity and re-learning what is most
important in life; the physical outcome of the illness is less important than
the spiritual and psychological transformation. This is typical of the
triumphant view of cancer survivorship in the breast cancer culture.[14]
Personality traits, more specifically the Big Five personality traits, appear to be
associated with the type of language or patterns of word use found in an
individual's self-narrative.[15] In other words, language use in
self-narratives accurately reflects human personality. The linguistic
correlates of each Big Five trait are as follows:
·
Extraversion - positively correlated with words
referring to humans, social processes and family;
·
Agreeableness - positively correlated with family,
inclusiveness and certainty; negatively correlated with anger and body (i.e.,
few negative comments about health/body);
·
Conscientiousness - positively correlated with
achievement and work; negatively related to body, death, anger and
exclusiveness;
·
Neuroticism - positively correlated with sadness,
negative emotion, body, anger, home and anxiety; negatively correlated with
work;
·
Openness - positively correlated with
perceptual processes, hearing and exclusiveness
Social sciences
approaches[edit]
Human beings often claim to understand
events when they manage to formulate a coherent story or narrative explaining
how they believe the event was generated. Narratives thus lie at foundations of
our cognitive procedures and also provide an explanatory framework for the
social sciences, particularly when it is difficult to assemble enough cases to
permit statistical analysis. Narrative is often used in case study research in the social sciences. Here it has
been found that the dense, contextual, and interpenetrating nature of social
forces uncovered by detailed narratives is often more interesting and useful
for both social theory and social policy than other forms of social inquiry.
Sociologists Jaber F. Gubrium and James A.
Holstein have contributed to the formation of a constructionist approach to
narrative in sociology. From their book The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity
in a Postmodern World (2000), to more recent texts such as Analyzing Narrative
Reality (2009)and Varieties of Narrative Analysis (2012), they have developed
an analytic framework for researching stories and storytelling that is centered
on the interplay of institutional discourses (big stories) on the one hand, and
everyday accounts (little stories) on the other. The goal is the sociological
understanding of formal and lived texts of experience, featuring the
production, practices, and communication of accounts.
Inquiry approach[edit]
In order to avoid "hardened
stories," or "narratives that become context-free, portable and ready
to be used anywhere and anytime for illustrative purposes" and are being
used as conceptual metaphors as defined by linguist George Lakoff,
an approach called narrative inquiry was proposed, resting on the
epistemological assumption that human beings make sense of random or complex multicausal experience by
the imposition of story structures."[16][17] Human propensity to simplify data
through a predilection for narratives over complex data sets typically leads to narrative fallacy.
It is easier for the human mind to remember and make decisions on the basis of
stories with meaning, than to remember strings of data. This is one reason why
narratives are so powerful and why many of the classics in the humanities and
social sciences are written in the narrative format. But humans read meaning
into data and compose stories, even where this is unwarranted. In narrative
inquiry, the way to avoid the narrative fallacy is no different from the way to
avoid other error in scholarly research, i.e., by applying the usual methodical
checks for validity and reliability in how data are
collected, analyzed, and presented.[citation needed]Several criteria for
assessing the validity of narrative research was proposed, including the
objective aspect, the emotional aspect, the social/moral aspect, and the
clarity of the story.
Mathematical sociology approach[edit]
In mathematical sociology, the theory of
comparative narratives was devised in order to describe and compare the
structures (expressed as "and" in a directed graph where multiple causal links incident
into a node are conjoined) of action-driven sequential events.[18][19][20]
Narratives so conceived comprise the
following ingredients:
·
A finite
set of state descriptions of the world S, the components of which are weakly
ordered in time;
·
A finite
set of actors/agents (individual or collective), P;
·
A finite
set of actions A;
·
A mapping
of P onto A;
The structure (directed graph)
is generated by letting the nodes stand for the states and the directed edges
represent how the states are changed by specified actions. The action skeleton
can then be abstracted, comprising a further digraph where the actions are
depicted as nodes and edges take the form "action a co-determined (in context of other
actions) action b".
Narratives can be both abstracted and
generalised by imposing an algebra upon their structures and thence
defining homomorphism between the algebras. The insertion of
action-driven causal links in a narrative can be achieved using the method of
Bayesian narratives.
Bayesian narratives
Developed by Peter Abell,
the theory of Comparative Narratives conceives a narrative as a directed graph comprising multiple causal links
(social interactions) of the general form: "action a causes action b in a specified context". In the
absence of sufficient comparative cases to enable statistical treatment of the
causal links, items of evidence in support and against a particular causal link
are assembled and used to compute the Bayesian likelihood ratio of the link.
Subjective causal statements of the form "I/she did b because of a" and subjective counterfactuals "if it had not been for a I/she would not have done b" are notable items of
evidence.[20][21][22]
In music[edit]
Linearity is one of several narrative
qualities that can be found in a musical composition.[23] As noted by American musicologist,
Edward Cone, narrative terms are also present in the analytical language about
music.[24] The different components of a fugue —
subject, answer, exposition, discussion and summary — can be cited as an
example.[25] However, there are several views on
the concept of narrative in music and the role it plays. One theory is that of
Theodore Adorno, who has suggested that ‘music recites itself, is its own
context, narrates without narrative’.[25] Another, is that of Carolyn Abbate,
who has suggested that ‘certain gestures experienced in music constitute a
narrating voice’.[24] Still others have argued that
narrative is a semiotic enterprise that can enrich musical analysis.[25] The French musicologist Jean-Jacques
Nattiez contends that ‘the narrative, strictly speaking, is not in the music,
but in the plot imagined and constructed by the listeners’.[26] He argues that discussing music in
terms of narrativity is simply metaphorical and that the
‘imagined plot’ may be influenced by the work's title or other programmatic
information provided by the composer.[26] However, Abbate has revealed numerous
examples of musical devices that function as narrative voices, by limiting
music’s ability to narrate to rare ‘moments that can be identified by their
bizarre and disruptive effect’.[26] Various theorists share this view of
narrative appearing in disruptive rather than normative moments in music. The
final word is yet to be said, regarding narratives in music, as there is still
much to be determined.
In cultural storytelling[edit]
A narrative can take on the shape of a
story, which gives listeners an entertaining and collaborative avenue for
acquiring knowledge. Many cultures use storytelling as a way to record histories, myths,
and values. These stories can be seen as living entities of narrative among
cultural communities, as they carry the shared experience and history of the
culture within them. Stories are often used within indigenous cultures in order to share knowledge to the
younger generation.[27] Due to indigenous narratives leaving
room for open-ended interpretation, native stories often engage children in the
storytelling process so that they can make their own meaning and explanations
within the story. This promotes holistic thinking among native children, which
works towards merging an individual and world identity. Such an identity
upholds native epistemology and gives children a sense of belonging as their
cultural identity develops through the sharing and passing on of stories.[28]
For example, a number of indigenous stories
are used to illustrate a value or lesson. In the Western Apache tribe, stories can be used to warn of
the misfortune that befalls people when they do not follow acceptable behavior.
One story speaks to the offense of a mother's meddling in her married son's
life. In the story, the Western Apache tribe is under attack from a neighboring
tribe, the Pimas. The Apache mother hears a scream. Thinking it is her son's
wife screaming, she tries to intervene by yelling at him. This alerts the Pima
tribe to her location, and she is promptly killed due to intervening in her
son's life.[29]
Indigenous American cultures use storytelling to
teach children the values and lessons of life. Although storytelling provides
entertainment, its primary purpose is to educate.[30] Alaskan Indigenous Natives state that
narratives teach children where they fit in, what their society expects of
them, how to create a peaceful living environment, and to be responsible,
worthy members of their communities.[30] In the Mexican culture, many adult
figures tell their children stories in order to teach children values such as
individuality, obedience, honesty, trust, and compassion.[31] For example, one of the versions of La Llorona is used to teach children to make safe
decisions at night and to maintain the morals of the community.[31]
Narratives are considered by the Canadian
Métis community, to help children understand that the world around them is
interconnected to their lives and communities.[32] For example, the Métis community share
the “Humorous Horse Story” to children, which portrays that horses stumble
throughout life just like humans do.[32] Navajo stories also use dead animals as
metaphors by showing that all things have purpose.[33] Lastly, elders from Alaskan Native communities claim that the use of
animals as metaphors allow children to form their own perspectives while at the
same time self-reflecting on their own lives.[32]
American Indian elders also state that storytelling
invites the listeners, especially children, to draw their own conclusions and
perspectives while self-reflecting upon their lives.[30] Furthermore, they insist that
narratives help children grasp and obtain a wide range of perspectives that
help them interpret their lives in the context of the story. American Indian
community members emphasize to children that the method of obtaining knowledge
can be found in stories passed down through each generation. Moreover,
community members also let the children interpret and build a different
perspective of each story.[30]
Historiography[edit]
In historiography,
according to Lawrence Stone,
narrative has traditionally been the main rhetorical device used by historians. In 1979, at a time
when the new Social History was demanding a social-science model
of analysis, Stone detected a move back toward the narrative. Stone defined
narrative as organized chronologically; focused on a single coherent story;
descriptive rather than analytical; concerned with people not abstract
circumstances; and dealing with the particular and specific rather than the
collective and statistical. He reported that, "More and more of the 'new historians'
are now trying to discover what was going on inside people's heads in the past,
and what it was like to live in the past, questions which inevitably lead back
to the use of narrative."[34]
Some philosophers identify narratives with
a type of explanation. Mark Bevir argues, for example, that narratives
explain actions by appealing to the beliefs and desires of actors and by
locating webs of beliefs in the context of historical traditions. Narrative is
an alternative form of explanation to that associated with natural science.
Historians committed to a social science
approach, however, have criticized the narrowness of narrative and its
preference for anecdote over analysis, and clever examples rather than
statistical regularities.[35]
Storytelling rights[edit]
Storytelling rights is most notably important in
the genre of personal experience narrative in English academics.
Academic disciplines such as English, performance, folklore, literature, anthropology, Cultural Studies and other social sciences are interested in exploring storytelling rights, because
storytelling rights hinges on ethics.
The storytelling rights of retelling other people’s stories is
explored by asking a few questions;
like whose story is it, what is the story being used
for, what does the story promise (empathy, redemption, meaning), and at whose benefit? [36] The ethics of storytelling rights—
includes empathy and representation— helps people, organizations,
the media, and government agencies clearly understand stories, One way in
which personal experience narratives achieve the status of the authenticity is
with representation.[36] Violating the representation of
storytelling rights creates negative repercussions on not only the individuals
who are engaging in the storytelling process, but also damages the social order like the communities, institutions,
and the networks that people are involved in because “voice” is used as a
powerful tool for agency and advocacy.
This misrepresentation of voice often leads
to the misunderstanding and exploitation of storytelling rights. An example,
would be the stories of abused women, because women are told by government
agencies that by telling their stories they will be heard and helped. But, in
truth, the irony is that domestic violence has become ‘big business' because the law system does not listen to the voices
of these battered women.[37] This example illustrates how women
reshape their stories to gain assistance from shelter and charities. But women reshaping their stories
violates the ethics of storytelling rights, because this fuels the “big
business” of domestic violence.
There was another study on Hurricane Katrina survivors where the media
misrepresented the voices of the survivors, and manipulated the public in a
negative way. The media and press turned the whole country against a community
that desperately needed help because journalist reshaped the stories of the survivors
in television broadcasts and newspaper articles. Nevertheless, this study
contradicted the media, and used "voice” to prove that the media
misrepresented their stories of the survivors.[38] At the end of the article, the readers
learned that the media was actually misrepresenting the community of New Orleans,
because the truth was heard in the “voice” of the survivors. In which the
people’s stories revealed that the community was actually helping each other out during
a destructive time.
Empathy is an important aspect in storytelling
rights because if the audience has empathy towards a story, there
will be less of a chance for violating ethics. Empathy presumes the ability to
understand another’s life story: its opposite, the inability to empathize, is
reserved for situations that the normal person cannot imagine,
including, notably unspeakable evils and insanity.
Empathy describes the sphere of the normal and allows us to imagine what any
normal person would do.[36] In other words, the listener of a
narrative will not be able to comprehend a story without empathy. That is why
empathy is an important component concerning storytelling rights.
The examples of domestic violence against
women and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina show how stories are reshaped
either by the narrators themselves or by others, and
highlights an important issue regarding the ethics and storytelling rights in narration.
Such as, that the listener or audience infringes on storytelling rights because
sometimes they are not listening to the “voice” of the teller. Ultimately, when
a narrator reshapes their own story, the “voice” becomes lost and muddled in
the ears of the audience.
Logically, when the narrator’s voice is not being adequately represented, the
ethics of storytelling rights are not honored.
Other specific
applications[edit]
·
Narrative environment is a contested term [39] that has been used for techniques of
architectural or exhibition design in which 'stories are told in space' and
also for the virtual environments in which computer games
are played and which are invented by the computer game authors.
·
Narrative film usually uses images and sounds on film
(or, more recently, on analogue or digital video media) to convey a story. Narrative
film is usually thought of in terms of fiction but it may also assemble stories from
filmed reality, as in some documentary film,
but narrative film may also use animation.
·
Narrative
history is a genre of
factual historical writing that uses chronology as its framework (as opposed to a
thematic treatment of a historical subject).
·
Narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story.
·
Metanarrative,
sometimes also known as master- or grand narrative, is a higher-level cultural
narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge
and experience you've had in life.
·
Narrative photography is photography used to tell stories or
in conjunction with stories.
Examples
of Narratives in Literature
Example #1
“Animal
Farm” by George Orwell is a modern narrative example that aim at extending a
writer’s political views. It is a form of narrative known as a political satire. It uses
animals on a farm to describe the overthrow of the last of the Russian Tsar
Nicholas II and the Communist Revolution of Russia before WW II. The actions of
the animals on the farm are used to expose the greed and corruption of the
Revolution. It also describes how powerful people can change the ideology of a
society.
Example #2
Poetry
written in the style of a narrative is known as narrative verse.
“Faerie Queen” by Edmund Spenser is an example of such poetry. It narrates the
adventures of “The Red-Cross Knight” to help “Lady Una” rescue her parents from
the evil “Dagon”. On a symbolic level it narrates the mission of the Holiness
is to help the Truth, fight Evil, and thus regain its rightful place in human
hearts.
Example #3
Charlotte
Macleod’s “The Withdrawing Room” is an example of a thriller or suspense narrative. Augustus Quiffen, a lodger at
Sarah’s Brownstone home, is killed by falling under the train. It seems to be
an accident until “Mary Smith” tells “Sarah” that it is a murder but she is not
sure of the identity of the murderer. “Sarah” and “Max Bittersohn” investigate
the matter and find that the killer has planned the death beforehand.
Example #4
“Don Quixote” by Cervantes is a parody of Romance narratives that dealt with the adventures of a valiant
knight. Unlike serious Romances, in “Don Quixote” the narrative takes a comical
turn. . We laugh at how the Quixote was bestowed a knighthood in his battle
with the giants [windmills]. We enjoy how the knight helps the Christian king
against the army of a Moorish monarch [herd of sheep]. These and the rest of
the incidents of the novel are written in the style of Spanish romances of the
16th century to mock the idealism of knights in the contemporary romances.
Function of Narrative
Storytelling and listening to stories are part of human
instincts. Therefore, writers employ narrative techniques in their works to
attract readership. The readers are not only entertained but also learn some
underlying message from the narratives.
Moreover, a narrative is set in specific cultural contexts.
Readers can get a deep insight of that culture and develop an understanding
toward it. Thus, narratives can act as a binding force in uniting humanity.
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