Re: narrative
BPenuel who-is-at aol.com
Fri, 3 May 1996 15:03:04 -0400
I'd agree with Deborah's suggestion about a "participatory" approach to
narrative I think would underlie any conception of the discursive
construction of identity. My own take on life stories and other narratives
are that they be analyzed in terms of particular "tellings" in particular
places. In this regard, the forms of narrative (or any other genre, such as
argument) _and_ the situated uses to which they have been put in the past act
as cultural tools in the construction of identity. In this respect, today's
world affords not only some of the more modernist forms of narrative (Frye's
romance, comedy, irony, tragedy), but also so-called postmodernist forms
(e.g. the architectonic novel). These resources in all likelihood afford
different situated tellings with different meanings.
Deborah's point about the construction of character in the
literary-philosophical sense, in this regard, could also be related to the
historical use of forms to tell life stories. Dan McAdams (1985, _Identity
and the life story) for example has looked at whether people appropriate the
forms of tragedy, irony, comedy, or romance in telling their own life
stories. And while my list might be more broad, particular life stories also
involve appropriations and therefore transformations of these cultural
resources for identity formation.
Bill Penuel
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