Is a narrative a something or a nothing?

Robert Chodat

pp. 99-129

in: Garry L. Hagberg (ed), Wittgenstein on aesthetic understanding, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This paper examines how Wittgenstein's remark that an inner sensation is "not a something, but not a nothing either" might help us understand certain prominent  theories of narrative. Some theorists argue or imply that "narrativity" is evident in what is depicted, and focus on actions, events, persons, significance, and other textual features. Other prominent theorists define narrative by the impact that an utterance or text has on an audience: narratives are said to induce an emotional or intellectual arc of some kind. What unites these disparate theories is a picture of a narrative as a something, an entity in need of strict definition and clear boundaries, and something that could even be scientifically explained and elucidated. Wittgenstein helps draw us away from the search, evident among both literary theorists and philosophers, for singular definitions of "narrative," and allows us to recognize the sheer diversity of works and utterances to which we apply the concept.  

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig