Content Summary

Intro - Why a Narrative Analysis might Matter to You Too

Life is full of good stories. One of the most exquisite joys in life is the act of collecting and sharing good stories, whether those stories belong to ourselves or others. I believe that I, too, have a story to tell, a message to share about the values, frameworks, events, and actions I observe in others around me, whether real or fictional, that are worth passing on.

In this post, I will introduce the topic of “Narrative Analysis” by describing many of its properties and using many examples. I will develop on this concept in future posts in order to analyze challenging stories, literature, and video games. I will use these pieces of content to derive their building blocks such as plot, themes, references, and (my favorite of all) memes. I will be free to use these memes or building blocks to invent new narratives and frameworks that are suited to telling the stories of modern-day life.

I really enjoy performing this kind of thinking. Being able to examine narratives and take command of the effect they have over us is highly entertaining and fun, but it does have its uses in preparing more memorable presentations, more heartfelt communication, and deeply resonant persuasion.

Narrative Analysis is a special type of analysis, the process of breaking some object down into parts. The process of analysis is better explained in my previous post “What is an Analysis?”. Now we can deepen our exploration into one set of techniques in particular.

Definitions for Narrative Analysis -  You Gotta Start Somewhere

First, let’s have a definition for Narrative Analysis, which is quite an abstract concept. There is a remarkably concise summary that appears when searching the topic “Narrative Analysis” on the site ScienceDirect.

“Narrative analysis refers to a cluster of analytic methods for interpreting texts or visual data that have a storied form. A common assumption of narrative methods is that people tell stories to help organize and make sense of their lives and their storied accounts are functional, and purposeful. Different approaches to narrative analysis are categorized on the basis of whether they focus on the narrative content or structure, with the thematic version interrogating what a story is about, while the structural version asks how a story is composed to achieve particular communicative aims. To this basic typology, according to Kohler Riessman (2008), one could also add the dialogic/performance narrative analysis, which focusses on the context and view of narratives as being multivoiced and coconstructed and the visual which links words and images in a coherent narrative.”

This definition was quite the doozy with many subtle details and qualities. I will call out the elements that are most important to my interests.

- Narrative Analysis is the “toolkit” and is itself made up of various “tools” which take the form of applied techniques and methods.

- When performing a Narrative Analysis, we examine stories, which are told through text data or visual data. (The choice of the term “data” is rather interesting.)

- We assume that people tell stories with intention for the sake of making a point. This definition describes the stories as “composed to achieve particular communicative aims.” Therefore, we can analyze these stories more closely and try to infer what the supposed function, purpose, and impact must be.

- This definition closes with some particular terms around being “multivoiced” and “coconstructed.” I believe this is meant to include some special narratives which involve the audience in some way. As a simple example, consider the movie series “The Hunger Games,” which included a memorable 3-fingered hand gesture for protestors of the tyrannical government. It’s no surprise then that this gesture was also adopted by real-life anti-coup protestors of their local governments in Thailand and Myanmar. When performing an NA, we will sometimes want to talk about audience reactions such as these.

I wish to add a caveat not present in the original definition. Narrative Analyses can be conducted to perform a sort of “proof by contradiction.” That is, we can assume that a particular piece of content has some “particular communicative aims” in order to get the ball rolling on an NA, but then we may end up supporting a case that there is no apparent communicative aim (even ironic or absurdist ones) so the content is really just amateurish, “cheap”, or “click-baity.” That still seems like a valid use for the term Narrative Analysis, because it can be surprisingly hard to argue that a particular piece of content does not achieve any “particular communicative aim.” Even content that is regarded as “trolling”, “click-bait”, or “avant-garde” can show a surprising amount of intent in its production and impact in its release.

Application - Narrative Analysis as used in Sports Psychology

To round out our understanding of “Narrative Analysis,” let’s review one more definition. Consider this passage from a paper on applying Narrative Analysis to sports and physical culture. This was a very interesting application of the narratives athletes use to motivate themselves and get their head in the game. The definition at the top was equally well-written.

“Narrative analysis is an umbrella term for an eclectic mix of methods for making sense of, interpreting and representing data that have in common a storied form (Smith & Sparkes, 2009a, 2009b; Sparkes, 2005). It takes stories and/or storytelling as its primary source of data and examines the content, structure, performance or context of the story or storytelling as a whole. The analytical interest is not simply in what is said in a story in terms of content. The language and telling itself is also examined along with the environments that give shape to narrative content, structure and performance. That is, in a narrative analysis the interest moves between what is being said and how and why a person or group tells and performs the story as they do in certain places under specific conditions. For example, the narrative analyst is interested in how a story is put together to convey meaning, namely, to make particular points to an audience. For whom was this story constructed, and for what purpose? What particular capacities of a story does the storyteller seek to utilise? Why is the sequence of events structured that way, and not another? What narrative resources from the cultural menu does the storyteller draw on, take for granted or ignore? Where do these resources derive from, and under what circumstances and conditions? Are there gaps and inconsistencies in storytelling that might suggest preferred, alternative or counter-narratives? What does the story say and do on, for and with people? How do listeners or readers respond to a story, with what affects and on whom (Riessman, 2008)?”

This description reinforces several points about what an NA is, and we can add a few more detailed properties to our running list.

- We see further confirmation that NA refers to a toolkit or “eclectic mix of methods”

- The chief quality for the narrative analyst is “meaning,” a term that is itself laden with significant meaning. This seems fundamentally true to me, that “meaning” is a safe bedrock to lay below any endeavor at analysis. I will explore this more in future posts.

- Both the "story" and the "storytelling" are fair game for analysis, as well as the "environments that give shape to narrative content, structure and performance." These can each be fruitful places to draw from.

- “What narrative resources from the cultural menu does the storyteller draw on, take for granted or ignore?” - I find this to be a really cool question. In many situations, a piece of art or a message will clearly reference popular memes, mottos, or values. It can also be quite interesting if a particular work excludes any references to an obvious elephant in the room, or political taboo, or otherwise.

The Legend of Narrative Analysis - More Thoughts about Thoughts than you Ever Thought Possible

We can take the questions posed in the previous passage and use them to further refine our intuition about NA into a proper analytical framework. We will not be applying this cumbersome framework later in applied examples, but we will be exploring every step of it today as an educational exploration. It is helpful to be aware of all the levers we can pull when performing abstract forms of analysis. Each of these points could lead to an effective train of thought when evaluating some narrative, message, or work of art. (The following questions are paraphrased from above and lightly edited to fit my preferred explanatory style.)

1. Audience - Who is the intended audience for this, and for what purpose was this audience selected?
2. Features - What story-telling features does the storyteller use?
3. Timeline - When considering the sequence of events of the story, why is the sequence structured that way, and not another?
4. Artist Intent - Consider the “cultural menu” which provides narrative resources or memes to the story-teller. Is there any meaning in the story-teller’s choices to draw on, take for granted or ignore particular resources?
5. Aesthetic and Impact - What are the cultural sources of the narrative resources used in the story? Under what circumstances and conditions would someone receive the intended impact of these resources?
6. Narrative Uncertainty - Are there gaps and inconsistencies in either the story or the story-telling that might suggest the artist’s preferred narrative, or that help define a space of alternative narratives or counter-narratives?
7. Message to Humanity - What does the story say about people, using the examples of which voices of people? What does the story do for people, using which efforts of people?
8. Audience Reception - How do listeners or readers respond to a story, with what affects or emotions or stances, and on whom they project these?

Those points went by quite fast, but they each have a dense amount of meaning to unpack. I would like to comment on each point with some examples and observations of my own. Each question alone is a starting point for a startlingly long inquiry into the many potential sources of meaning.

1. Audience - Who is the intended audience for this, and for what purpose was this audience selected?

Many marketing programs are often based on a target audience based on identifying the preferred lingo, styles, and expectations.

In many genres of movie, there will be commentary making fun of or otherwise responding to other works that the audience would readily recognize from that genre. In the marketing space, some brands will identify themselves as not having some notable features of their competitors (slow customer service, an uninspiring brand image, etc.)

2. Features - What story-telling features does the storyteller use?

This is a nice place to start for a basic analysis of any medium or work. Perfect for people just starting an examination of a target work.

There are many canonical concepts here that could be used for further exploration of literature, such as themes, foreshadowing, suspense, etc. A more advanced look may include looking for common tropes such as the “2 Brothers” motif or foil characters.

The features of a story can also be analyzed by their data type such as text, text + images, visual content, dynamic content (where the user clicks will move things), and much more.

In this category, we can also include many advanced features from innovations in visual novels, websites, and video games. These sometimes include basic immersion techniques where the experience uses your name, avatar, or choices in the experience. Some such games will even encourage their audience to leave the medium and engage through supporting content (such as other documents, social media access, or special communities)

3. Timeline - When considering the sequence of events of the story, why is the sequence structured that way, and not another?

Sometimes this is for aesthetic choices. There are many examples of books or movies involving a loss of memory or use of flashbacks to spice up the story. One of my personal favorites is the movie “Memento,” which tells the story of a man investigating his wife’s murder, but he has severe short-term amnesia (forgets all memories every ~20 seconds) and the movie tells its story in backwards order so you resolve mini-mysteries every couple of minutes!

‍This is a clip of the movie's trailer describing its very interesting and unusual plot.

Sometimes a timeline may be used for functional purposes. In many video games, the story is broken into a multi-act story with a “Prologue” section that is well-suited as training or a tutorial. In some games, this is the last chance for a character reset, and any choices made after that point may have ramifications for the entire game.

4. Artist Intent - Consider the “cultural menu” which provides narrative resources or memes to the story-teller. Is there any meaning in the story-teller’s choices to draw on, take for granted, or ignore particular resources?

I love noticing the memes and characters used in stories or messages. The following scene from the movie “Deadpool” cracks me up and is our next example. The final joke in this YouTube clip is a quip where the movie makes fun of itself! They’re drawing on an observation about the X-Men series overall and how none of the famous characters from the series are in this particular movie. In other words, the cultural menu for this movie includes observations that the audience would recognize about the universe.

You can also identify an inauthentic or poorly performing narrative when it omits obviously relative memes, events, or characters. For example, a movie is undermined severely if we spot a plot hole coming from some well-known characters that were ignored. A similar experience sometimes occurs when a series’s community feels that the publisher has ignored some well-known request or critique on the direction of the story.

5. Aesthetic and Impact - What are the cultural sources of the narrative resources used in the story? Under what circumstances and conditions would someone receive the intended impact of these resources?

All memes come from someplace, and identifying them more precisely may help us define the style or form of a narrative.

I used “intended impact” here to match the language used in the source of the definition, but I prefer the term “hermeneutic circle” to elaborate on this aspect of NA. To further explain this concept, note that every meme communicates some set of messages, but it may have a distribution of actual impacts to its audience. As an example, consider the image below from The Simpsons (one of my favorite sources of memes!). Astute viewers will notice that the name of the cereal is “Jackie O’s.” From here, the audience members watching this image on TV can be divided into a few different “hermeneutic circles” based on the impact this scene has on them.

1. The members who identified that the cereal name is likely a spoof on the popular cereal brand “Cheerios”
2. The members who identified the cereal name as a reference to the historically significant figure Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (also known as Jackie O) who was former US President JFK’s wife
3. The members who spotted both of these references
4. The members who spotted neither reference

Even this is not a full accounting of the hermeneutic circles created by this simple still-frame. Those members who are more familiar with Jackie O's social impact as a fashion figure will probably get an even bigger laugh out of looking at the cereal box's association with stretch pants!

(Basically, there's an extra joke in that someone as fashionable and stylish as Jackie O would never be caught dead with something as tacky as stretch pants. I'll admit. I didn't get this reference until l dug deeper, so I was not in this circle.)
Analyzing the hermeneutic circles of a narrative or meme can be a fascinating place to continue understanding any particular work of art. It’s much harder than it sounds, because we ourselves (the analyst) are in a particular hermeneutic circle ourselves based on our current understanding. We can move to other circles we like better by applying our skills in aesthetics and narrative analysis, but it may take quite some work to develop the skill and nuance required to belong to a particular coveted hermeneutic circle. These include fans who are familiar with the whole series or are aware of more subtle themes and nods to the audience.

6. Narrative Uncertainty - Are there gaps and inconsistencies in either the story or the story-telling that might suggest the artist’s preferred narrative, or that help define a space of alternative narratives or counter-narratives?

I sometimes like stories that involve an unreliable narrator in some way. Usually the narrator has memory problems due to an illness or drug problem, and sometimes there are even more shocking explanations or plot devices used to set up this condition. These usually require a bit more work from the audience to use reason and inference to reconstruct the actual events.

I also like stories that involve some amount of subterfuge or deception. These can lead to plots where the true events are not fully known and open to endless debate by the audience.

I claim that there we can usually infer the "artist's preferred narrative." In most cases, there is exactly one coherent narrative, so this is not a difficult inference. Sometimes, the plot will have major issues, but there is still an implied ideal that serves as the artist's preferred narrative (this is what makes some political movies feel very preachy). This is more challenging to do for narratives with significant uncertainty. Even in these cases, there is sometimes a narrative that "fits best" once you consider more about the story's themes or the artist's biases. As an example, consider the movie "Inception" and its well-received ending scene. Because the movie cuts to black before we see whether the top falls over or not, the movie's ending is completely up to the audience! However, I personally believe that the director Christopher Nolan made it clear that his canonical interpretation is that the ending is not a dream sequence.

7. Message to Humanity - What does the story say about people, using the examples of which voices of people? What does the story do for people, using which efforts of people?

Let's tackle the first question first, which is about the humans inside the story. Virtually all stories are about events that happen to humans and are told through their voices. The point of this question is to look closely at the choices of these humans and the story's apparent judgement on their choices. The YouTuber Videogamedunkey puts this well when analyzing the role of actors in video games and movies. "Whether you're making a movie about talking cars, talking bugs, talking toys, or talking fish, we, the audience, still expect them to talk and act like human beings."

A work of art may lean into or deviate from typical human behavior, which highlights the missing characteristic as a potential comment on humanity.

The second question is about the humans outside the story. Excellent stories will lead us to think differently about human history, political events, current issues, and future conflicts. They lead us to be more optimistic or pessimistic about human potential, and they often lead us to seek out new information, communities, or activities. This question has us ask about the humans whose lives will be different because of the existence of this story, as well as identify the members of the audience who will be the ones to embody that.

8. Audience Reception - How do listeners or readers respond to a story, with what affects or emotions or stances, and on whom do they project these?

This can be a good place to start when analyzing a narrative that is confusing, harsh, or paradoxical. For example, many religious texts can be hard to read directly, unless you already have some high-level sense of the text in advance. One way to prepare this high-level sense is to inquire into or research the typical responses others have had to the work of art. This method can be risky and backfire, because the Audience Reception to any work of art may vary the entire range of approval or disapproval, from sacredness to profanity! If you can learn to filter other people’s opinions for relevancy or insight, this can still work.

I included the use of “stances,” which is a technical term I’ve adopted from David Chapman’s online book and philosophical system Meaningness. In this sense, a “stance” is a combination of actions, thoughts, and emotions. Narratives, stories, or other artistic media often evoke different combinations of these. Some may invoke particular thoughts through their dramatization of real-world political events, or ongoing societal debates over moral values, or educational focus on skills and disciplines. They may also incentivize or coordinate certain actions, such as forms of exercise or physical movement, forms of digital activity like communicating or navigating in interfaces, and forms of gameplay such as betrayal or cooperation. They may also invoke a range of emotions in us, such as triumph at accomplishing a worthy challenge, or despair at facing impossible odds, or sadness from observing human misery. Each narrative primes its audience towards “stances” or certain combinations of these 3 factors. This framing is an effective way to represent the Audience Reception to any particular work.

"On whom do they project these" is my attempt to fairly distinguish that what is "true" in a narrative does not necessarily correspond to the "truth" of an external reality. Each narrative has a particular logic and universe. Ideally, this feels so close in realism to our own reality in some particular characteristic that the audience will make some inference or association. In many cases, narratives will brand their characters by having them identify with philosophical stances, political movements, countries, or other identity groups. Audiences understandably will associate these characters' qualities with these groups.

What you should Remember about a Narrative Analysis

This has been a thorough exploration of many of the questions and considerations that come up when performing a Narrative Analysis. This is not an exhaustive list of questions but more like a map of the territory. It's up to each of us to explore narratives in our way based on our particular knowledge and perception.

The framework and questions I described above are not the only way to perform a narrative analysis. Like in my post "What is an Analysis?", we need to distinguish between 2 subtly different meanings of analysis. The list of questions above may be a particular procedure for analysis, but we're performing narrative analysis any time that we reflect on a story that moved us and look for the parts, moments, themes, or characters that most affected us. The questions above are a tool to sharpen our lens, and then we can see more whenever we look.

If we wanted to further develop our abilities in Narrative Analysis, we could look up frameworks or sets of questions that are used by practitioners, like critics, writers, and academics. I expect these would have specific features or questions that are related to the field of study, such as the vintage of a wine or the Triple-A status of a video game. Instead, I expect to use the general framework above and learn through deliberately exploratory writing, without much consideration to what's practical.