The surprising power of the story...

You might not read many stories, and you might not even enjoy reading them, but stories will, for certain, be central to your life: stories inform and shape your thoughts in ways difficult to imagine. But first, what can this Englishbiz web guide offer you?

When you analyse a text for coursework or exam - and you will be asked to analyse many whether poems, stories, extracts, newspaper and magazine articles or other kinds of media text - it's always the subtlety of your analysis that examiners look for and reward most highly. If you choose to state the obvious or focus on routine aspects of a text then this is to take the road to a low grade. But you want a high grade - right? And this demands a different approach, one that focuses on the subtle rather than the routine. This means you need a keen awareness of how linguistic, literary, dramatic, poetic or media related aspects and devices are at work in a text. Well... if you can analyse a text at the level of narrative, you will be analysing at a very subtle level indeed! Such an analysis will always be rewarded with the highest marks.

• TIP! A different but equally subtle way to analyse a text is to use the technique of 'binary opposition'. Be sure to check out the Englishbiz guide on this, too: click here.

NARRATIVE

In all kinds of text - whether for English Literature, English Language or Media Studies - an important and subtle way in which meaning is constructed (and a way that seriously influences the way a reader interprets a text) is through the use of narrative devices. Narrative is a commonly used method that shapes interpretation as well as acts to support and reinforce shared ways of thinking about the world and its peoples (i.e. a society's ideologies). Narrative is subtle to analyse because it hides its presence in a text - it operates on a reader invisibly.

Narrative is, at heart, no more than the way we happen to formulate and construct the stories we tell. Yes... those things we hear, tell or read every single day of our lives. We grow up with stories - and there's the rub: we become so used to the story telling device that we fail to recognise its importance and power in our lives.

We each carry around with us a large fund of shared stories, some of which have their origins in ancient and enduring tales. These old tales work invisibly on us in ways that 'shape' our views of life and the world. The most enduring and powerful of these stories or narratives are said to operate at the level of myth. We pick up these ancient tales not usually as complete stories but more often as passed on to us in the form of fragments during childhood. There power lies in that fact that we only need a snippet of one of these powerful narratives and we then construct and fill in the remainder of the story quite subconsciously. The stories work their way on us in surprisingly complex and subtle ways, not least by informing us about what life should be like - life at its best (and its worst. In this lies the link to binary opposition - take a moment to check this out later).

• These subconsciously understood narratives act to provide the 'framework' we use against which we feel we instinctively know how to weigh up, measure and judge the many ideas, people and events we meet in the world.

The 'Hero Myth'

An example. The 'hero myth' is one of the most powerful narratives. It sits deep in all our psyches. If you were reading a story, a poem or a newspaper article about a 'powerful' and 'good' leader (US President John F Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr perhaps fit the bill for many people in the West), you wouldn't need to have many of the qualities of that person described to you. This is because you already have, in your head, a pre-existing narrative that tells you all you need to know about what 'powerful and good leadership' is. This 'knowledge', derived from ancient narratives and myths, guides you about what it means to be such a person. The power of such narratives is immense. It even creates suggestions about such details such as what kind of life such a person likely leads, what kind of friends they have, what kind of house they would choose to live in and so on.

Similarly, a romantic story (or it might be a magazine ad for, say, a new perfume for these, too, rely on narratives for some of their persuasive power) works by 'cueing' or evoking a memory of a 'femininity narrative'. Such stories involve princesses and princes, for example, who act as powerful 'role models' in surprisingly important ways that often define ideal characteristics against which we measure reality. You do not need to be told what it means to be feminine... or masculine: the answers have already been provided to you and all-but 'hard-wired' into your brain from these ancient and ingrained myths and narratives.

Narratives & Ideology

There are many aspects of life that narratives guide us to interpret and judge in particular ways. What is important to recognise is that these ways are shared with most others within our own culture or society.

The kind of narratives involved here are those that can be easily invoked and very quickly brought to mind, even by a few words or a single image. These words and images act as a kind  of 'shorthand' - a snapshot or 'mini-narrative' - that acts to invoke important aspects of the whole narrative which then guides our response and interpretation to the text in question.

• It's an important to realise that because these narratives are shared ways of thinking they often act at an ideological level. This means that they work by reinforcing certain fixed ways of thinking about life and society. Narratives are an important way in which an ideological 'mind set' can be formed and reinforced.

As has been said, these narratives exist often not as complete stories but as 'snapshot narratives' or 'mini-narratives'. These work at the level of what is called narrative codes (a code is a collection of seemingly connected signs that, together act to signify some larger meaning). These codes work by prompting or bringing to mind a memory of a deeply embedded narrative or myth through a process often called 'cueing'.

• To understand more about signs, codes and signification - click here.

This simple but profound image will help you recognise how narrative codes operate. The image and the text are simple enough, yet, as they say... every picture tells a story; and in the case of narrative, a picture is often worth a thousand words! What kind of narrative is being cued by this image? It is a surprisingly powerful one that affects the way we tend to view the world. It works by cueing the story of loneliness and all the emotional power that this ancient narrative brings in its wake. >> Can you fill in more of this loneliness narrative? It really is a very well-known story - probably working at the level of myth. It's certainly a very sad story and it's something we want to avoid happening to us. >> In part, this particular narrative informs our decision-making processes, for example when we enter into relationships or marriage, or have children and even when we think about old age. It even guides our actions when we choose our clothes, cosmetics and so on... all could be viewed at the level of helping us to avoid loneliness. This is narrative at its most obvious. Can you think of more? There are very many. Remember that the most enduring and ancient have reached the status of myth. A moments thoughts will bring to mind narratives of masculinity, of femininity, of heroism and more. They bring to mind and guide us about what it means to be a good this, or a bad that and so on (for 'this' and 'that' read: boy/girl friend, son, daughter, wife, husband, student, president, leader, manager... and so on).. Remember that these narratives are not really 'stories' of the kind you could necessarily write down or tell; but they are still, very much, just stories - and they act powerfully to reinforce and support particular ways of thinking about life. As has been said already, in this sense, such narratives act at an ideological level (and they also often operate through the process called binary opposition). Click on the links to find out more about these two important ideas).

It can be difficult to believe that something as everyday as a story can act so powerfully to shape the way in which we interpret meaning, but by now you should have seen that narratives act powerfully to define and shape who we are - our 'sense of ourselves', our identity.

The following pages will show you how narrative codes can be created and how they work. The analysis you will see could easily be applied to any number of texts in both English and Media Studies.