"Narrative Time" by Paul Ricoeur - Article Summary

Ricoeur, Paul. "Narrative Time." Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frames. Ed. Brian Richardson. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2002. 35-45. Print.

1. Presuppositions

Narrativity and temporality are closely related. Language refers constantly to temporality, and temporality is necessary for narrative.

Time is not, in regards to narrative, simply a linear succession of moments. On a superficial level, time is that "within" which events take place. On a deeper level, time is historicality- emphasis placed on the weight of the past.

Plot is the "intelligible whole that governs a succession of events in any story". As such the plot is characterized by temporal complexity.

2. What occurs happens "in" time

We will present an analysis of time and an analysis of narrativity, and relate them. Time must be considered by what happens "in" it. Time is subjective, according to the importance we attribute to the events that happen at a point in it. The narrative chooses to put varying amount of emphasis on different points in time and this time is thus not a neutral series of abstract instants. The measuring of time is not something inherent in Time but is something humans impose upon time as a need to analyze it and place events in the context of it. A clock is based on the changes that happen in nature and when we regard time in this context it is existential; but it is when we regard time as strictly that which is told by a machine we are thrown back to an abstract representation of time.

Following a plot entails following the causal relationships between events in the narrative, and this is how we deduce the story. The narrative places these events "in" time. Time is pliable and not rigorous. In addition, narrative necessitates that time be "public"- that there be a consensus as to its nature among the characters in the story, and among the readers of the text. The "present" within a narrative continually changes. It changes according to the meaning and significance of the events within time.

Every narrative combines two dimensions in regarding to temporality. One is the episodic dimension, which is the story as a collection of stand-alone events. The second is the plot in which these events are organized into a sensible whole. In addition, every event has both a "within-time" and historicality aspect to it.

As the temporality of the story is subjective, the temporality of the story changes from the first reading of a completely new story to the rereading of a known story. Similarly, the perception of temporality changes if we read a story from beginning to end.

Narrativity thus establishes human action within time, within memory and in juxtaposition to historicality.

Paul Ricoeur