Narrative

What is Narrative ?

The word narrative is derived from the Latin word gnarus and the Indo-European root gnu meaning 'to know'. Narrative is a message that tells or presents a story. A story is an account of an event or a series of events, both natural and non-natural, either true or fictitious; an anecdote; a report or an allegation of facts.

Narrative begins in the mind, as each individual conceptualizes their perception of experience. The individual's inner voice formulates a description of life experience as a story. It is an essential human function to externalize experience by sharing anecdotes - brief tales narrating interesting or amusing biographical incidents - with other individuals. Although stories can be a depiction of history, human imagination can also create artificial stories or fiction.

Human beings seem to prefer to organize information as stories rather than categorize data as facts in logical relationships. They retain everyday information as anecdotal narratives with characters, plots, motivations, and actions. It is argued by some that all communication is a form of storytelling. As such, stories become a prime instrument for education. Parents tell stories to their children to transmit what they have learned by experience. Information is shared within a community through narrative.

As humans developed speech in prehistoric time, they must have quickly developed the habit of sharing anecdotal narrations. Through the development of memory, a community accumulated a body of verbal expression including tales, oral history, jokes and proverbs that comprised an oral tradition and the beginning of culture. Folklore developed as a stratum of communal consciousness.