Narrative Contestion

We have examined many different areas in the field of Narratology, each offering a different perspective in which to study narratives. I definitely would like to explore the idea of narrative contestation. In light of some of our class discussions including courtroom narratives, post-colonialism, and history the study of narrative contestation sounds more intriguing.

Our discussion over courtroom narratives came about after Annette’s critical review detailing a man’s wrong conviction and imprisonment. In the critical review she pointed out facts in the documentary that were never revealed to the jury. These facts if known could have kept an innocent man out of prison. Our discussion of the critical review centered on how lawyers construct courtroom narratives. This interested me greatly and highlights competing narratives on several levels. You have the narratives told by the defense and prosecution, differing narratives of the two defendants, and the narratives of eye-witnesses. All of these competing narratives were used by the jury to make their erroneous decision.  It would be interesting to compare the narratives told in the courtroom all those years ago to the truthful ones told on the documentary. Another discussion that stressed the importance of this area of study is post-colonialism.

In post-colonialism writing there is a clear hegemonic power structure between the colonizer and the colonized. Using this approach allows analysis of narratives that stem from both sides. Highlighting the differences in these competing narratives could emphasize cultural, economic, and ideological issues that are inherently found in this type of writing. This is especially fruitful when the reader may not understand all of the cultural underpinnings that are at play in the text.  Our discussion of the narrative nature of history made me reflect on how narrative contestation can be applied to the study of history.   

In class the phrase ‘the victor writes the history books’ came up to illustrate the aspect of power in ‘who tells the story.’ Who gets to tell the story has a significant impact on the content, how it is told, and who is included.  While talking the class noted several problems in the narrative of our history and how that narrative may shift overtime as we get more perspective on an event. In looking back over I can see the more potential for study in this area. At the time I was too narrowly focused on fictional texts which might have caused me to overlook this area all the ways that this approach could be applied to texts.