La carga alar

Perhaps the most essential ingredient of narrative accounting (or storytelling) is its capability to structure events in such a way that they demonstrate, first, a connectedness or coherence, and second, a sense of movement or direction through time (“selectivity” and “movement” are the terms of Scholes and Kellogg, 1966). Yet, it may be asked, how is the narrative able to achieve these ends? Or to put it another way, what is it about a story that enables it to convey the sense of orderly movement? An earlier discussion of literary narratives (Gergen & Gergen, 1984) suggests two related ingredients, which together foster such ends. To succeed as a narrative the account must first establish a goal state or valued endpoint. For example, it must succeed in establishing the value

of a protagonist’s well-being, the destruction of an evil condition, the victory of a favored group, the discovery of something precious, or the like. With the creation of a goal condition, the successful narrative must then select and arrange events in such a way that the goal state is rendered

more or less probable. A description of events unrelated to the goal state

detracts or dissolves the sense of narrative. In effect, all events in a successful narrative are related by virtue of their containment within a given evaluative space. Therein lies the coherence of the narrative. As one moves from one event to another, one also approaches or moves away from the desired goal state. Through this latter means one achieves a sense of directionality.

Although these components seem essential to the narrative there may be others that improve on its sophistication or efficacy. One ancillary component of particular significance is the availability of causal linkages between the various elements making up the story. Each event furnishes the grounds for understanding why the next event occurs. For example, a story in which someone suddenly wins a lottery and becomes wealthy is less satisfying than one in which the protagonist has planned and plotted for months to develop a way of improving on the lottery chances and then wins. The scorn reserved for dramatic endings employing a deus ex machina can be traced to the criterion of causal linkage; it is unsatisfactory by present standards to resolve a tense story situation by an event (such as the sudden intervention of a god or the appearance of a long lost relative out of the blue) with no causal relation to the preceding tale.

Other components of narrative form may be located, and the present analysis could prove more or less accurate across history. The conception of the proper narrative has undergone change over time, and its future alteration is to be anticipated. As Genette (1980) has described, for example, writers such as Proust and Joyce have had a major impact on the contemporary conception of proper fictional narrative. The demand for arranging events in a temporal order relevant to goal attainment is far less powerful in this century than the last.

It is our view that the rules for narrative construction guide our attempt to account for human actions across time. They do so both in informal relationships, where we attempt to make ourselves intelligible to each other (Mancuso & Sarbin, 1983; Bertaux & Kohli, 1984), and in the scientific attempts to describe and explain human behavior. Given such constraints over our attempts to “make sense,” how are we to understand the various forms that narrative can take? What are the constraints on our means of explaining life through narrative explanation? An answer to this question is furnished by elaborating the logic of our preceding account.

That is, if the successful narrative is one that arranges a sequence of events as they pertain to the achievement of a particular goal state, then there are only three prototypical or primitive narrative forms: those in which progress toward the goal is enhanced, those in which it is impeded, and those in which no change occurs. When events are linked in such a way that one steadily progresses toward a goal we may speak of

progressive narrative; if one is continuously moving away from the

valued state it may be called a regressive narrative (see Figure 2.1). For example, the individual might be engaged in a progressive narrative with the surmise, “She is really learning to overcome her shyness and be more open and friendly with people,” or a regressive narrative with the thought, “He can’t seem to control the events of his life anymore.” Directionality is also implied in each of these narratives with the former anticipating further increments and the latter further decrements. The last of these prototypical forms may be termed the stability narrative, that is, a narrative that links incidents, images or concepts in such a way that the protagonist remains essentially unchanged with respect to evaluative position.

As indicated, these three narrative forms, stability, progressive, and regressive, exhaust the fundamental options for the direction of movement in evaluative space. As such they may be considered rudimentary bases for other more complex variants. Theoretically one may envision a potential infinity of variations on these rudimentary forms. However, for reasons of social utility, aesthetic desirability, and cognitive capability, the culture may limit itself to a truncated repertoire of possibilities. For example, of prime interest within this limited set is the tragic narrative. In the present framework such a narrative would possess the structure depicted in Figure 2.2. The tragedy, in this sense, would tell the story of the rapid downfall of one who had achieved high position. A

progressive narrative is thus followed by a rapid regressive narrative. This common narrative form may be contrasted with that of the happy- ending or comedy, as it was termed by Aristotle. The comedy is the reverse of the tragedy: a regressive narrative is followed by a progressive narrative. Life events become increasingly problematic until the denouement, whereupon happiness is rapidly restored to the major protagonists (see Figure 2.2). Further, if a progressive narrative is followed by a stability narrative (see Figure 2.3), we have what is commonly known as the “happily ever after” myth widely adopted in traditional courtship. And we also recognize the romantic saga as a series of progressive-regressive phases. In this case, for example, the individual may see life as a continuous array of battles against the powers of darkness.