1. NARRATIVE THEORY (NARRATOLOGY)

2. Important Points:
Narrative Theory is the study of narrative structure. It looks at what narratives have in common and what makes one different from another. Exclude author’s biography, reader response, historical context
Like Structuralism it is based on the idea of a common literary language. Theoretical starting point is the fact that narratives are found and communicated through a wide variety of media (oral and written language, gestures, music) and that the “same” narratives can be seen in many different forms.

3. Important Points Continued:
Examines the ways that narrative structures our perception of both cultural artifacts and the world around us.
We order our day-to-day lives through narratives. It is one of our primary tools for making sense of events (traumatic and normal events). Story-telling answers the “why” of our existence.
Narratives are not mimetic (realistic). They do not present life as it actually happens in the real world. Life in real world is often chaotic and meaningless.

4. Narratology seeks to discover
The basic components of stories
How the basic components are arranged (structure)
The various media that are used to create and deliver stories
The uses that different individuals, groups, institutions, societies, and cultures have for stories
The ways that stories and the meanings that stories express change over time and from place to place (history and evolution)

5. MORE Important Points:
 Narratologists must have knowledge of linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, evolution, and media used to create and deliver narratives (oral, literature, film, gestures)
Certain underlying narrative structures are constant (hero is transported to another kingdom) even while personages and details vary greatly
Ethnography (gathering the components of a culture directly from its members) is also important. Need to gather stories from those that tell them.
Freud’s Repetition Compulsion: repeat a traumatic event over and over again. This includes through thinking about the event (memory), dreams, or putting oneself in situations where the event is bound to happen again (patterns of behavior). PTSD is also an example.

6. NARRATIVE THEORY (NARRATOLOGY) Terminology
Story – actual chronology of events in narrative
Discourse – manipulation of that story in the presentation of the narrative
Hermeneutic Code – way of creating suspense in a narrative. Caused by unanswered questions
Proairetic Code – way of creating suspense in a narrative. Caused by anticipation of an action’s resolution.
Analepsis – flashback
In media res – in the middle of things