Why Narrative Matters: Philosophy, Method, Theory

Why Narrative MattersPhilosophy, Method, Theory Mark Freeman (bio) In providing my own account of why narrative matters, I want to speak to the necessity of narrative—more specifically, narrative hermeneutics—in understanding the human realm. This necessity, I suggest, is threefold: philosophical, methodological, and theoretical. In speaking of the philosophical necessity of narrative, I will address the idea of “alterity,” focusing on the alienation or “otherness” of the experiencing subject and the consequent recourse to narrative hermeneutics. In speaking of the methodological necessity of narrative, I will address the idea of “fidelity,” advancing the argument that there remains no more fitting and appropriate vehicle for exploring the otherness of both others and oneself than through narrative. In speaking of the theoretical necessity of narrative, finally, I will address the idea of what I have come to call “ex-centricity” (Freeman 2012, 2014), exploring that dimension of otherness which serves to orient and frame the stories we tell about our lives. [End Page 137] Note that, for each of these three movements, I have referred to the idea of otherness. I am doing this partly because the idea of the Other has come to be very important in the work I have recently been doing. But I am also doing it because it has helped me think in a different way about the centrality of narrative hermeneutics in exploring the human realm. With that, we can turn to addressing the question of narrative’s necessity on the philosophical plane. Alterity I begin with the most basic reason for narrative’s necessity, having to do with what I called “alterity,” the otherness within, particularly as taken up by psychoanalysis and related pursuits. Following Freud, among others, the central idea is that we are, in significant part, mysteries to ourselves, incapable of truly knowing ourselves straightaway through a sovereign act of conscious reflection. “Reflection,” Ricoeur (1974: 46) writes, “must become interpretation because I cannot grasp the act of existing except in signs scattered in the world.” For Ricoeur, in other words, the hermeneutical dimension of the human situation is unsurpassable; there is no getting around it or beyond it. This is clearly so in the case of phenomena like dreams and neurotic symptoms and other well-known compromise formations. But it is also true when it comes to more ordinary psychological phenomena, such as the effect of an event on a life. In order to illustrate this last idea, it may be helpful for me to present a brief example of just this sort of phenomenon. About twenty-seven years ago, when my daughter Brenna was almost two, something happened that was powerful enough to lead me to write an article, which eventually found its way into a popular American magazine called Parenting. (If there had been a magazine called Bad Parenting, it probably would have been even more appropriate.) The piece is called “After a Fall” (Freeman 1989: 112) and begins as follows: “It’s still too early to tell how much or in what way, but my two-year old daughter changed recently.” I then went on to explain what happened. One evening after dinner, my wife suggested that I take Brenna out on the porch to have dessert, which consisted of some pieces of fruit. I sat her on my [End Page 138] lap, hoping she would try them. But after a while she insisted on getting down and began to walk away, up the sidewalk, knowing that she wasn’t supposed to do that alone. And at one point, she began to move quickly, so I sprang into action. I followed her up the street and eventually reached down to pick her up. But she was still moving, and as I grabbed her around her belly a bit too low she pitched forward, onto the hard ground. “It didn’t really seem like that terrible a fall,” I wrote, “and despite her cries I expected to turn her around and see some cuts and scratches. What I saw instead . . . was blood, all over the bottom of her face and her new yellow T-shirt. Her bottom lip looked like it had been mauled . . . it was in shreds, separated...