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Narrative Theory and Criticism: An

Overview Toward Clusters and Empathy
Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman,
Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel & Liliya Yakova
Published online: 09 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman, Canek Phillips,
Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel & Liliya Yakova (2014) Narrative Theory and Criticism:
An Overview Toward Clusters and Empathy, Review of Communication, 14:1, 1-18, DOI:
10.1080/15358593.2014.925960

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 The Review of Communication
Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2014, pp. 1–18

Narrative Theory and Criticism: An

Overview Toward Clusters and Empathy
Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam,
John Nussman, Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez,
Elaine Schnabel & Liliya Yakova
Downloaded by [Laurentian University] at 23:09 08 December 2014

In this article, we overview the contributions to narrative theory and criticism across
four subdisciplines of communication: rhetoric, organizational communication, health
communication and cultural studies. We note that much of this work has focused on
stories as individual artifacts. We propose that future work on narrative should
highlight the complexity of narrative by addressing narrative clusters. Furthermore, an
interpretive method of analysis that relies on extended empathy is suggested for future
research, along with the development of a theory of narrative empathy. In short, we
encourage researchers to explore, interpret and assess narrative and narrative clusters
by way of extended empathy, a goal for expanding horizons toward understanding self
and others.

Keywords: Narrative; narrative clusters; narrative empathy; rhetoric; organizational

communication; health communication; cultural studies

Over the last 100 years, the speech communication discipline has grown and
blossomed into several distinct and yet related subfields. Several of the articles in this
special journal focus on the distinct historical evolution of those subdisciplines. In
contrast, the current article focuses on one form of communication—narrative
communication, which has been theoretically developed and pragmatically applied
across various communication subdisciplines. Specifically, we provide an all-too-brief
overview of the development of narrative theory and practice within the commun-
ication field, thus we offer our apologies to those who have contributed to narrative
theory yet have been omitted from this discussion due to space constraints. For the
same reason, we focus our efforts on only four subfields: rhetoric, organizational

Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman, Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel,
and Liliya Yakova are at Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University. Correspondence to: Robin P.
Clair, Department of Communication, Purdue University, BRNG 2268, 100 N. University Street, West Lafayette,
IN 47907, U.S.A. Email: rpclair@purdue.edu

ISSN 1535-8593 (online) © 2014 National Communication Association

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2014.925960
 2 R. P. Clair et al.
communication, health communication, and cultural studies. In the final section of
this paper, we offer a theoretical and analytical contribution that extends current
theory and critique.
The history of narrative might be traced to the origin of language, to the first
symbolic sound or gesture.1 Yet exploring such an extensive history is far beyond the
scope of this article and would require a lengthy review of oral storytelling, which can
be found elsewhere.2 Thus, we do not mean to give short shrift to early narrative
contributions which range from the Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux to the 2,500
year old epic poetry of Mesopotamia (e.g., Gilgamesh). Suffice to say, it would seem
that stories have existed since the beginning of human time, and although all are
deserving of attention, to the best of our knowledge, it was not until the third century
BCE that scholars undertook a philosophical debate concerning the power and value
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of narrative. These debates are considered metadiscourses (i.e., theory), which

continue to influence rhetorical scholars of the 21st century. Thus, we begin with
Plato and Aristotle’s conceptualization of narrative and argument over the value of
narrative before moving to a contemporary history.

Narrative Theory: The Rhetorical Foundation

In Plato’s dialogue titled Ion, Ion claims that Homer’s epic poetry provides philo-
sophical truth and thus Ion, as a rhapsodist, spreads truth to the audiences who come
to hear him.3 Plato, through the character of Socrates argues against this idea
claiming that art is mere imitation of truth and can never hold the same value as
reality. Indeed, he contended that epic poetry may actually harbor ill effects for the
listener of such tales. Aristotle challenged these concerns and addressed additional
issues on the topic of art and narrative with emphasis on tragedy in the Poetics.4 Art
critics considered Aristotle’s response “the first work in the history of the subject to
treat, in one form or another, virtually every problem with which the theory of art
has subsequently been concerned.”5 Aristotle expounded upon both theory and
practice of narrative as he held it in high esteem and following the Greek tradition
encouraged excellence in its use. His work was followed by Longinus’s detailed essay
that advised writers how to achieve narrative perfection.6 In short, the early Greeks
initiated metadiscussions of narrative.
From this formidable beginning we leap to the contemporary contributions by
rhetorical scholars, but before doing so we remind the reader that current
communication scholars were heavily influenced by their predecessors, including
not only those from the classical period, but also from the modern era. For instance,
Friedrich Nietzsche, like Aristotle, challenged the Socratic view of the world as best
determined solely through rational analysis. He drew from earlier Greek work by
relating his idea on narrative to dialectic. Nietzsche proposed that the dialectical
tension between Apollonian (reason) and Dionysian (art) required a simultaneous
coupling in order to understand human existence. Furthermore, he felt that myth,
especially through the classic Greek tragedies, was the means to affirming human
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 3
7
existence, a notion that went well beyond either Plato or Aristotle’s contributions. In
this sense, narrative gives meaning to our lives.
Nietzsche’s influence was felt far and wide and was carried into the 20th century
by philosophers, historians, and literary and rhetorical critics. Kenneth Burke, for
example, addressed the power of narrative form through literary criticism and was
influenced by Nietzsche.8 In addition, existentialists of the mid and later 20th
century, who were also influenced by Nietzsche, offered contributions to the theory
of discourse that elevated narrative. Existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert
Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, argued that narratives in the form of plays, novels,
and memoirs are a powerful way to express life as well as philosophical and political
theory.9 The postmodernists, who followed the existentialists, portrayed narrative in
a metaphorical way, speaking of societies as guided by grand narratives10 and
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discourses of knowledge and power.11 These philosophical and rhetorical contribu-

tions influenced writers from several fields within the humanities.
In the 1980s, two special journal editions were published on the topic of narrative.
Each journal highlighted the theories of experts in various areas of the humanities
beginning with Critical Inquiry’s 1980 volume titled On Narrative and concluding with
the Journal of Communication’s special issue in 1985.12 On Narrative featured such
well-known scholars as Hayden White, Roy Schafer, Jaques Derrida, Frank Kermode,
Nelson Goodman, Victor Turner, Paul Ricoeur, and Ursala Le Guin, who covered such
areas as narrative history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and literature. In
1985, the Journal of Communication published a special edition titled Homo Narrans:
Story-telling in Mass Culture and Everyday Life, which featured a debate centered on
Walter Fisher’s proposed narrative paradigm. The special issue drew from various
subfields of communication, but primarily relied on the writings of rhetoricians.13
Fisher’s first article on the topic proposed that narration could be considered
the foundation of human communication.14 He argued that reasoning was not
necessarily reliant on logical lines of argument but rather could be achieved through
“all sorts of symbolic action,” most notably through narrative.15 Fisher gave credit to
Alasdair MacIntyre as the first to specifically note that “man [sic] is . . . essentially a
story-telling animal”16 who “enacted dramatic narrative” which is the “essential genre
for the characterization of human action.”17 Fisher expounded and expanded on
MacIntyre’s work by laying the groundwork for a narrative paradigm—a way of
understanding human experience through a “narrative context: history, culture,
biography, and character.”18 The paradigm asserted that narrative is “germane to
social and political life,” not just the moral life as suggested by earlier scholars.19
Most importantly, Fisher agreed with and gave credit to the key figures who
proposed that people are symbol-using animals20 as well as the contributors of the
1980 Critical Inquiry special edition mentioned earlier in this essay. Later, Fisher
provided a more extensive list of philosophers who had influenced his work, and he
further elaborated on the paradigm.21
For Fisher, like others before him, narration could be considered the master
metaphor of human experience. As a master metaphor, narration subsumes the other
proposed models of human rationality. Relying on Kenneth Burke, Fisher noted that
 4 R. P. Clair et al.
stories give meaning to experience, draw people together into communities that
“sanction” their stories and position them in history as a part of humanity.22
According to Fisher, people are storytellers who make decisions based on “good
reasons” that are derived from the narratives people engage by way of historical/
cultural and personal backgrounds.23 Narratives are subjected to tests of “narrative
probability, that is, what constitutes a coherent story” and “narrative fidelity” that is,
what makes a story “ring true.”24 Unlike formal logic which must be taught,
narrative, according to Fisher, is emic; children are socialized at such an early age
into the use of narrative and narrative is so pervasive in society that it goes without
notice. Following the conceptualization and explanation of narrative as a paradigm,
Fisher undertook a case study.
Drawing from Angel Medina, who asserted “human reason is narrative,”25 Fisher
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explored the public moral argument over nuclear weapons via the narrative approach
and concluded that had the rational world paradigm been used to decide the debate,
the general public would have been dismissed as not having the technical expertise to
engage the issue. However, the narrative paradigm gives them a place in the debate
and the story.26 Instead of being ignored, the general public judges the experts’ stories
on the grounds of probability and fidelity. Thus, the expert “becomes subject to the
demands of narrative rationality”27 and that rationality allows people to join “the
quest for the good life.”28
As rhetoricians are wont to do, debates over the legitimacy of the narrative
paradigm followed,29 which in turn gave rise to additional intriguing articles that
addressed the ideological underpinnings of narrative.30 For instance, W. Lance
Bennett and Murray Edelman argued that stock political plots all too often over-
shadow the narrative of possibilities that could change society.31 W. Lance Haynes
addressed Ernest Bormann’s notion of fantasy theme analysis in light of how the
narrative brings a community together.32 Haynes also called upon Burke’s work to
point out that often the community is brought together at the expense of a scapegoat,
an outsider who becomes the enemy.33 William Kirkwood proposed that narrative
holds the potential to help individuals escape beyond their narrow confines and
argued that the narrative conceptualization of fidelity and plausibility needed to be
expanded, suggesting narratives that stir the imagination and offer a rhetoric of
possibilities are the way to the “good life.”34
Albeit a few rhetoricians argued in favor of Fisher’s broad conceptualization of
narrative, most continued to explore narrative as a rhetorical form found within
speeches.35 Nevertheless, the groundwork had been laid for rhetoricians to challenge,
refine, and engage with narrative theory. Although certainly important, rhetoricians
were not the only communication scholars who had been influenced by the linguistic
turn and contributed to the narrative movement.

Narrative Theory: The Organizational Communication Contribution

In the early 1980s, organizational communication scholars encouraged both a
discursive and a political understanding of the construction of reality.36 In 1987,
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 5

Dennis Mumby published an article on the political function of narrative in which he

used critical interpretive methods to address an organizational story. At the surface
level the story was intended to socialize individuals into IBM, in part by character-
izing the CEO as a hero, but at the deeper level the story worked to hide ideological
messages of control and oppression.37 Influenced by Mumby and concerned by the
growing body of literature that depicted narrative as the means to create a shared
community, Robin Clair provided the concept of sequestered stories, which proposed
that marginalized individuals were silenced by the dominant paradigm.38 Clair drew
from philosophy, organizational studies, and rhetoric to provide a framework of
hegemonic exploitation of women. The study focused on sexual harassment, an
understudied topic at the time. Perhaps most importantly to the communication
field, Clair provided the actual narratives of the marginalized individuals as a
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legitimate way of knowing and achieved this through the narrative methodology she
employed.
Inspired by Clair’s work and driven by sexual politics of the day, the Journal of
Applied Communication Research solicited stories of sexual harassment.39 This clearly
exemplified a new way of doing scholarship. Others followed in the collection of
everyday stories about sexual harassment and expanded the study to include men’s
narratives and the intersectionalities of marginalization by way of the lived narrat-
ive.40 A clear example of this type of work in narrative intersectionalities is found in
Brenda Allen’s research.41 Specifically, Allen drew from existing socialization theories
in organizational communication and feminist standpoint theory to describe her
experience as a Black woman becoming socialized in the academic workforce.
Through self-interview as a narrative method, Allen argued that her story lends
support to organizational socialization theory. Additionally, her story provoked a
reflection on problems of patriarchy and hegemony and became influential in the
field.
Narrative research expanded beyond the focus on individual’s stories alone to the
exploration of what postmodernists called the grand narratives. For instance, Clair
explored the narrative construction of society by collecting the stories that surround
the colloquialism “a real job.” This allowed her to assess what the expression means
to people and how it influences the organization of labor.42 Based on the findings,
Clair argued that the colloquialism contains within it the grand narratives of society—
specifically aspects of the ideological tenets of capitalism and communism. The
embedded ideology, in turn, influences the related everyday talk and the everyday
talk supports or challenges the grand narratives.
In a similar vein, Sarah Dempsey and Matthew Sanders revealed that although
social entrepreneurship involves the resolution of grand social problems, meaningful
work is replete with tensions. Mainly, the authors pointed out that achieving the
goals of social change requires a disruption of the work/life balance narrative to be
substituted with a narrative focusing on self-sacrifice, unpaid labor, and compro-
mised familial bonds.43 In other words, the grand narratives influence the personal
narratives we live by.
 6 R. P. Clair et al.
Likewise, Clair and Adrianne Kunkel found that narratives created a way of
attending to heartbreaking or difficult situations experienced as part of workplace
life. They discovered that former teachers created narrative realities in an aesthetic
fashion to deal with the suspected child abuse they had witnessed in their prior
positions as elementary school teachers. In those cases, narratives provided solace.44
Each of the above discussed works contributed novel theoretical and methodological
contributions to narrative studies.
As a whole, scholarship on narratives has been growing with a wide variety of
studies related to organizational life including retirement narratives,45 antisweatshop
stories46 and entrepreneurial narratives.47 Such abundance of recent narrative
scholarship in the organizational context is laudable, but at the same time
disconcerting. While the narrative movement has been evolving rapidly, organiza-
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tional communication scholars have voiced concerns that this scholarship does not
present a uniform theoretical way of understanding organizational narrative and is in
need of an “open architecture” for organizing narratology.48 Nevertheless, these works
have added to the postmodern narrative movement in organizational communication
studies. As David Boje, an earlier contributor to the organizational narrative
movement, put it, narrative is not just a cognitive instrument or way of studying
experience, but a way of being in the world.49 In short, the theorists from this school
of organizational narrative have drawn heavily from philosophy, in particular from
the critical, postmodern, and phenomenological schools. Their general leanings
might be summarized by Martin Heidegger’s statement that “language is the house of
being”50 and for organizational communication scholars, being in the narrative gives
meaning and understanding to the working lives that people live.

Narrative Theory: The Growing Presence in Health Communication

The health communication discipline, an offshoot of organizational communication,
is a considerably younger area of study in comparison with its sibling disciplines such
as interpersonal communication,51 mass communication52 and organizational
communication,53 where each started to expand prodigiously between the years
1950 to 1960. The inception of health communication arose later as a discipline in
the mid-1970s.54 The inaugural launch of Health Communication, the first journal
dedicated to this area of study,55 occurred in the year 1989, and it has had a
consistent and significant impact on the social sciences.56 This timeline serves as a
perfect reference point for establishing who the pioneers in narrative were in health
communication studies.
To be sure, there were other scholars who used narrative in the health context57
prior to the journal launch, but for the purposes of examining narrative in the health
communication field proper, it is perhaps best to use the journal launch as a
reference point. In the very first volume and issue of Health Communication in the
year 1989, David Smith and Jon Nussbaum separately urged fellow researchers to
utilize narratives in contributing to the discipline, though neither writer themselves
used narrative as an application for study.58 Beth Ellis, Katherine Miller, and Charles
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 7

Given used a very short narrative of an interviewee in the fourth issue of the first
volume,59 but it was adapted from Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields’ work for a
closing example instead of application for research.60 It was only in the second
volume that scholars took up Smith and Nussbaum’s call, wherein Patricia Geist and
Monica Hardesty utilized short narrative accounts of physicians and patients to
analyze medical decision making.61 In the following issue, Ronald Chenail et al.
incorporated supporting anecdotes.62 Barbara Sharf, on the other hand, employed the
first fully developed narrative approach to health communication with a theoretical
framework.63
Thereafter, several scholars adopted the narrative approach. During the 1990s,
these scholars primarily focused on patient–physician interaction, but the narrative
accounts were fairly brief. In 1993, narrative application in health research rose64 but
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did not extend beyond the use of short narrative excerpts. This changed during the
turn of the century, when narrative was featured with greater frequency in the health
communication discipline, perhaps owing partly to new journals such as Journal of
Health Communication.65 Since then, the use of narrative grew steadily and had a
continued consistent presence in the health communication field.66
Health communication narrative research grew67 and dealt with multifarious
topics. Examples include Angela Trethewey’s work on women and aging,68 Laura
Ellingson’s study on teamwork in healthcare organizations,69 Lynn Harter, Phyllis
Japp, and Christina Beck’s work on narrative’s role in health and healing70, and
Arthur Frank’s research on the wounded storyteller.71 Although a categorical pattern
might be dauntingly difficult to decipher, one trend is evident: the use of narrative
within studies increased. Before the turn of the century, use of narrative was minimal,
but the more recent articles employ narrative more liberally.72 For instance, Ellingson
utilized narrative embodiment, advocating for the inclusion of reference to the
researcher’s body.73 Taking up this call Clair and Marifran Mattson provided a recent
and rich example as they tell and analyze the story of Mattson’s motorcycle
accident.74 The authors use dialogue to tell the story, including portions where
Mattson is confronted by hospital personnel. They blame her for her condition,
suggesting that she was old enough (at 40 years old) and smart enough (as a
professor) to have known better. The authors identify this as an example of symbolic
violence where the medical professional uses the academic professional’s title and age
against her. Yet, in an interesting turnabout, the authors extend their empathy to the
medical personnel who must face ever growing numbers of young people who arrive
at the hospital emergency doors with life-threatening injuries (or worse, dead on
arrival) due to motorcycle accidents. The authors provide numerous examples
throughout the narrative that explain the functions of narrative and engagement both
during Mattson’s critical incident, the recovery and the engagement period that
follows. They assert that in addition to the symbolic violence, heroic discourse can be
found in narrative healing.
From humble origins in 1989 to more prolific use after the turn of the century,
narrative has found its permanent spot in health communication literature. Today, a
quarter of a century later, the application of narrative theory and method is gaining
 8 R. P. Clair et al.
influence.75 Given its successes in the years gone by, the application of narrative will
likely continue in health communication in years to come.

Narrative Theory: Combining Cultural Studies

When speaking of cultural studies confusion can arise over the definition of the
subfield. We suggest that critical-cultural studies (an offshoot of rhetoric), inter-
cultural studies (an offshoot of interpersonal studies), performance studies (an off-
shoot of oral interpretation once housed in rhetoric, as well as theater/drama) and
ethnographic studies (a combination of interpersonal, performance, and organiza-
tional scholars) comprise research related to contemporary culture. Each of these
areas is so grounded in narrative that it is difficult to suggest that they ever existed
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without narrative. In general, critical-cultural studies are devoted to studying

contemporary textual artifacts from a rhetorical/critical/postmodern perspective.
Intercultural studies focus on interpersonal relationships across various cultures.
Performance studies provide artistic expressions of lives, often calling upon critical
theories for guidance. Finally, ethnographic studies provide moving portrayals of self
and/or self and others in the everyday culture. Owing to the rich intersections of
these areas and their focus on the lived experience through narrative, we have chosen
to weave them together and discuss them in light of cultural concerns, specifically
issues of race, class, education, gender, sexual orientation and the intersectionalities
between these fractionating discourses.
In a published letter to his mother, Kent Ono discussed the intersection of voices—
personal and academic, as well as interracial—in sharing stories within and beyond
the academic sphere.76 Drawing from bell hooks, he examined how one can speak
with his “real voice,” vividly portraying the gulf between academic and personal lives.
The estrangement of his divorced parents due in part to their families’ distinct
ethnicities further demonstrates the differences between racial identities within the
same person. Ono also coauthored with John H. Sloop to emphasize the need to
examine outlaw discourse in their discussion on countercultural responses to
narratives such as those alleging the rape of White women by Black men published
by Atlanta newspapers before the 1906 race riots.77 Other examinations of contem-
porary stories include Bill Yousman’s discussion of the HBO prison drama Oz as
narrative representation of incarceration that legitimizes the expansion of inhumane
prison environments and that expansion’s effects, especially on African Americans.78
Similarly, Norman Denzin79 explored the relationship between narrative representa-
tions of race in movies and popular cultural perceptions of race and violence while
E. Patrick Johnson80 discussed the concept of “blackness” and its embodiment in
performance.
Dana Cloud’s work is informative on the discussion of economic inequality and
the null persona found in slave narratives.81 In additional research, she studied
tokenism in biographies and autobiographies such as those written about Oprah,
scrutinizing the assumption that because Oprah is an African American star, her
story is one which provides resistance to hegemonic discourse. Cloud asserted that
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 9

tokenism does not necessarily challenge the metanarrative of the American Dream.
Amanda Gatchet and Cloud added a critical inspection of the political (and again,
racial) side of narrative in their work on the rhetoric of self-defense in representa-
tions of the Black Panthers and the George W. Bush administration, both of which
crafted stories with themselves as the “David” figure fighting “Goliath” in order to
justify violence.82 Greg Goodale and Jeremy Engels offered some hope of racial
reconciliation in their examination of novels, oral traditions, epithets, and other
discursive traditions to reinterpret narratives of whiteness as examples of America’s
acceptance of its biracial past.83 Finally, we must give high praise to the work of the
late Stuart Hall, who contributed to the understanding of racial identity via his
groundbreaking work on interpolation and hegemony by way of telling his own
stories of what it meant to be Black across different cultures.84 His additional work
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on critical-cultural studies provided invaluable information for students of popular

critical-cultural studies and leant itself to expanding theory on narrative and racial
issues.85
Narrative constructions can both reinforce or challenge socioeconomic status,
which is one of the clearest indicators of position in capitalist societies. An example
from popular culture is demonstrated through a critique of the cultural and economic
phenomenon, “Harry Potter.” Jarrod Waetjen and Timothy Gibson assessed the
series’ storyline and franchise first to look at how the author J.K. Rowling embedded
a critique of capitalism and class within her novels only to have her work fall into the
chasm of marketing excess.86 But narratives do not have to be in the form of books
or movies to succumb to the capriciousness of capitalism. Clair, Pamela Chapman,
and Kunkel’s discussion on the commodification of sensitive narratives pointed out a
cultural practice that can be applied to everyday interactions.87 Studies of sexual
harassment found that women needed to provide a cache of stories to be heard
because one complaint of sexual harassment would be seen as a “freebie.”88
Narrative portrayals of genders and issues of queer identity remains a heated topic
for critical-cultural researchers. Cloud looked at the portrayal of conservative gender
identities and romantic expectations in her study on viewers of The Bachelor.89 Fans’
ambivalence—both ironic disinterest and genuine fascination—does not necessarily
detract from the power of the show’s conservative hegemonic narrative. Sloop dis-
cussed gender performativity in relation to car racing, a historically male-dominated
profession, by problematizing the plot of “boys vs. girls” and the heteronormativity
established by press discourse prior to a race.90 Studying other issues of feminism,
Stephanie Houston Grey examined Ally McBeal as allegory in relation to eating
disorders and feminism.91 Helene Shugart offered an excellent examination of how
Rosie O’Donnell’s “coming out” as a lesbian and gay parent provided insight into the
negotiation between dominant narratives with competing narratives of resistance.92
Though we can only skim the surface of the narrative contributions from critical-
cultural studies scholars because of the plethora of published articles and books, we
would like to point out that not all cultural studies of narrative are restricted to the
subject of marginalization.
 10 R. P. Clair et al.
Besides examinations of such issues as race, gender, and sociopolitical status,
critical-cultural scholars have also applied narrative to understand the framing of
situations. For instance, Todd McDorman wrote of the use of narratives in
establishing and normalizing state supremacy in life and death decisions.93 Fran
McInerney looked into the Australian movement in support of requested death and
discovered heroic frames—melodramatic deaths, fearful villainy of the doctors, rebel
heroes, and heroic victims—used to persuade the general public to agree to legalize
assisted medical death in the late 1990s.94 Bryan McCann discovered the rhetorical
use of “victimhood” in discussions on the death penalty by way of narrative.95 Most
recently, Carolyn Ellis employed narrative ethnography to explore the stories of
Holocaust survivors.96 But cultural studies are not limited to stories of death and
dying. Life is also performed.
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Soyini Madison wrote of performativity as “the labor of reflexivity,” the “demand

for a transparent accountability, skilled artistry, and radical politics from the
researcher.”97 Her work shows the importance of engagement and reflection on the
researcher’s role within culture. Della Pollock contributed important insights to the
discussion of performative studies’ use of narratives when she wrote of living
gendered identities and how story can frame identity through life performances.98
Recently, Shane Moreman and an unnamed student, writing under the pseudonym of
persona non grata accepted this challenge by examining the marginalized voices of
undocumented students, discussing the body as text and the lived story as a critical
voice against the stifling constraints of legally imposed silence.99 Clair provided an
ethnographic study of life and death, sorrows, and joys of people closest to the earth,
farmers in the heartland while telling her own story of loss and love.100 These
ethnographic accounts are often founded on personal narratives that give meaning to
human struggle,101 while also being demonstrative of a “struggle [that] is personal,
cultural, and political.”102 They represent “an autobiographical genre of writing and
research that displays multiple layers of consciousness.”103 Narrative serves many
functions on the critical spectrum, from supporting hegemonic practices to providing
a means for resistance and emancipation.
Owing to space constraints, we are restricted from providing more examples of
cultural contributions to narrative theory. For the interested reader, we recommend a
recent award-winning special journal edited collection where performance artists,
ethnographers and auto-ethnographers, intercultural scholars and critical-cultural
scholars came together to tell stories of self and other under the framework of
narrative reflexivity.104

Narrative Clusters with Extended Narrative Empathy

As we have pointed out, discussions of narrative can be traced to antiquity. In more
recent years, communication scholars from several subfields have contributed to the
conversation in invaluable ways. Based on our current literature review, we feel safe
in suggesting that narratives serve many purposes: to entertain, to educate, to
persuade, to provide catharsis and aesthetic resolution, to create community and
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 11

simultaneously to ostracize, to oppress, and yet to offer resistance, to heal, to

emancipate, and to grant future possibilities. Furthermore, we assert that narratives
represent several genres: ancestral, historical, cultural, organizational, health,
personal, and so on.105 These different forms have led scholars to explore narrative
as different modes, from artifacts to lived experience. As such, the stories might be
analyzed from various theoretical positions for their agency, motive, moral
implications, motivational intent, means to alter time and space, and the ability to
alter the lives of individuals and society.106 They might also be studied as individual
expressions—a single story—or they might be assessed in clusters. We suggest that
future work would do well to address the notion that no one story stands alone, that
stories are connected, sometimes existing in clusters and extend infinitely, crossing
cultures and generations.107
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We are reminded of the 17th-century novel L’Astrée, which is referred to as “the

novel of novels” (It has six parts, 40 stories, 60 books, and a total of 5,399 pages).
One story threads into another and yet another, while other stories digress, and still
an overarching novel exists. Written by Honoré d’Urfé, the novel took 20 years to
publish, and it relied on serial publication with clusters of stories or what was called
fascicle in the 17th century, which was made hugely popular by Charles Dickens’
serial publications in the 1800s. Viewing narrative as an unfolding experience (like
turning the pages of the book) will remind narrative scholars that no story stands
alone, that interruptions and digressions occur, that stories exist in clusters, and that
perhaps one narrative binds us all. Furthermore, L’Astrée not only continues to be
published today in standard form but also is available as a comic book and has been
made into a movie. It lives on.108
Notably, this “never-ending novel” was born from an ancient myth—the Greek
myth of Astrea, the daughter of Zeus, who represents innocence, justice, and renewal.
She left earth when it reached a period of debauchery but is prophesied to return to
bring the new era, the golden dawn. Honoré d’Urfé named the heroine of his novel
Astrée (Astrea). The protagonist, Astrée, travels the many paths of romance. We
believe that Astrea’s symbolization of innocence, justice, and renewal is also a
compelling means to approach analysis of narratives, especially when we are
exploring the vulnerable truths of self and others. Thus, we encourage researchers
of narrative to approach the stories they study as if they could be told and received
from multiple perspectives. That is, we propose a means of critique grounded in
narrative empathy that extends beyond the present story to those stories that might
exist in the cluster of narratives yet may be from another time or place.109 We call
this approach extended narrative empathy.
Extended narrative empathy requires a continual sense of reflexivity for a fuller
understanding to be achieved. In keeping with Hannah Arendt, we suggest that the
way to understanding is by taking as many perspectives as possible.110 And in
agreement with Hans-Georg Gadamer, we believe that this is the means to expanding
human horizons.111 If narratologists are to achieve greater knowledge and practice of
narrative with the hope of creating a better world, then it is time to take on multiple
perspectives in terms of theory, method, and practice. We believe narrative cluster
 12 R. P. Clair et al.
theory coupled with extended narrative empathy, that is, the understanding that no
narrative stands alone and clusters of stories may create an overarching narrative that
can best be understood by way of empathetic reflexivity, may provide a valuable
means to move narrative studies forward. Furthermore, this may be the means to
connect subdisciplines regarding narratology. The extended narrative empathic
approach generates potential not only for wider, deeper, richer interpretations of
narrative within subdisciplines but also across disciplines. As such, narrative cluster
theory and extended narrative empathy could open onto unique interpretative
possibilities and theoretical frameworks of narrative for the entire communication
field. This novel theoretical and methodological approach may move us into the next
100 years of narrative study and provide potentially dynamic insights.
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Notes
[1] Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1966). René Girard, Violence and the Sacred trans. P. Gregory (Baltimore, MD: John
Hopkins University Press 1972/7). Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979): 14. Eric Gans, The Origin of Language (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1981). C. David Mortensen, “Communication, Conflict and
Culture.,” Communication Theory 1 (1991): 273–93. Robin Patric Clair, Organizing
Silence: A World of Possibilities (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998).
Kris Acheson, “Silence as Gesture: Rethinking the Nature of Communicative Silences,”
Communication Theory 18, no. 4 (October 29, 2008): 535–55, doi:10.1111/j.1468-
2885.2008.00333.x.
[2] Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York:
Routledge, 1982).
[3] Plato, “Poetic Inspiration: The Ion,” in Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, ed. Dickie George,
Sclafani Richard, and Roblin Ronald, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 10–19.
[4] Aristotle, The Nature of Poetic Imitation: From the Poetics, eds. Dickie George, Sclafani
Richard, and Roblin Ronald, Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, 2nd ed. (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1989).
[5] Ibid., 6.
[6] Longinus, “On the Sublime,” in The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to
the Present, eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001),
344–58.
[7] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, trans. P. Fadiman. In
The Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1872/1954) 947–1088.
[8] Debra Hawhee, “Burke and Nietzsche,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 85, no. 2 (May 1999):
129–45, doi:10.1080/00335639909384250.
[9] Diedre Bair, Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography (New York: Summit Books, 1990).
[10] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1979).
[11] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, trans. R. Hurley, vol. 1 (New
York: Vintage, 1976); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,
trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).
[12] W. J. T. Mitchell, “On Narrative,” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 1–236, http://www.jstor.
org/stable/i257724. Following On Narrative but prior to the publication Homo Narrans,
William G. Kirkwood posed the argument that storytelling and especially koans and
 Narrative Theory and Criticism 13
parables act as a means of self-confrontation, allowing the listener to reflect on his or her
life. Self-confrontation, he argued, moves beyond the catharsis suggested by Aristotle as it
provides “epistemic and therapeutic” potential 59. In a follow-up essay, Kirkwood pointed
out that parables are more than exemplars of good action and (relying on Funk’s work,
427) that the parable is meant to prod the individual to supply the ending because it
“creates unexpected possibilities,” 448, and a newfound “awareness,” 430. In this respect,
Kirkwood’s idea of a narrative is reminiscent of Aristotle’s reasoning by enthymeme, thus
giving narrative its own form of logic. William G. Kirkwood, “Storytelling and Self-
Confrontation: Parables as Communication Strategies,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69
(1983): 58–74; William G. Kirkwood, “Parables as Metaphors and Examples,” Quarterly
Journal of Speech 71 (1985): 422–40.
[13] George Gerbner, “Homo Narrans,” Journal of Communication 35, no. 4 (1985): 73–171.
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[14] Walter R. Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public
Moral Argument,” Communication Monographs 51 (1984): 1–22.
[15] Ibid., 1.
[16] Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (South Bend, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1981), 200; Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm:
The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 1.
[17] MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 194; Fisher, “Narration as a Human
Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 2.
[18] Ibid., 3.
[19] Ibid., 3.
[20] Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944), 26; Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a
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Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1968), 16.
[21] Walter R. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration,” Communication Mono-
graphs 52 (1985): 347–67; Walter R. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: In the Beginning,”
Journal of Communication 35 (1985): 73–89. Fisher, “Narration as a Human Commun-
ication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 1–22.
[22] Ibid., 6.
[23] Ibid., 7.
[24] Ibid., 8.
[25] Angel Medina, Reflection, Time and the Novel: Towards a Communicative Theory of
Literature (London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1979), 30; Fisher, “The Narrative Para-
digm: In the Beginning,” 10. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration.”
[26] Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral
Argument.”
[27] Ibid., 13.
[28] Ibid., 18.
[29] Gerbner, “Homo Narrans.”
[30] Robert C. Rowland, “Narrative: Mode of Discourse or Paradigm?,” Communication
Monographs 54, no. 3 (September 1987): 264–75, doi:10.1080/03637758709390232;
Barbara Warnick, “The Narrative Paradigm: Another Story,” Quarterly Journal of Speech
73, no. 2 (May 1987): 172–82, doi:10.1080/00335638709383801; W. Lance Haynes,
“Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative as Metaphor,”
Communication Studies 40, no. 2 (June 1989): 109–26, doi:10.1080/10510978909368261.
 14 R. P. Clair et al.
[31] W. Lance Bennett and Murray Edelman, “Toward a New Political Narrative,” Journal of
Communication 35 (1985): 158.
[32] Haynes, “Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative as
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[33] Haynes, “Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative as
Metaphor”; Kenneth Burke, Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose (London:
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Angeles: University of California Press, 1945).
[34] William G. Kirkwood, “Narrative and the Rhetoric of Possibility,” Communication
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[35] Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political
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[36] Peter J. Frost “Power, Politics, and Influence” in Handbook of organizational Communi-
cation: An Interdisciplinary Approach ed. F. M. Jablin, L.L. Putnam, K.H. Roberts, and
L.W. Porter (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1985) 503–48.; Linda Putnam and
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(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1983).
[37] Dennis K. Mumby, “The Political Function of Narrative in Organizations,” Communica-
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[38] Robin Patric Clair, “The Use of Framing Devices to Sequester Organizational Narratives:
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(Atlanta, 1991); Robin Patric Clair, “The Use of Framing Devices to Sequester
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60 (1993): 113–36; Clair, Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities. Ibid.
[39] Julia T. Wood et al., “Telling Our Stories: Sexual Harassment in the Communication
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[40] Robin Patric Clair, “Resistance and Oppression as a Self-Contained Opposite: An
Organizational Communication Analysis of One Man’s Story of Sexual Harassment,”
Western Journal of Communication 58 (1994): 235–62.
[41] Brenda J. Allen, “Feminist Standpoint Theory: A Black Woman’s (Re)View of Organiza-
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[42] Robin Patric Clair, “The Political Nature of the Colloquialism, ‘A Real Job’: Implications
for Organizational Socialization,” Communication Monographs 63 (1996): 249–67.
[43] Sarah E. Dempsey and Matthew L. Sanders, “Meaningful Work? Nonprofit Marketization
and Work/Life Imbalance in Popular Autobiographies of Social Entrepreneurship,”
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[44] Robin Patric Clair and Adrianne W. Kunkel, “’Unrealistic Realities’: Child Abuse and the
Aesthetic Resolution,” Communication Monographs 65, no. 1 (1998): 24–46.
[45] William L. Randall and A. Elizabeth McKim, Reading Out Lives: The Poetics of Growing
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[46] Robin Patric Clair, “Engaged Ethnography and the Story(ies) of the Anti-Sweatshop
Movement,” Cultural Studies<- ->Cultural Methodologies 12 (2012): 132–45.
[47] Martin L. Martens, Jennifer E. Jennings, and P. Devereaux Jennings, “Do the Stories They
Tell Get Them the Money They Need? The Role of Entrepreneurial Narratives in
Resources Acquisition,” Academy of Management Journal 50, no. 5 (2007): 1107–32,
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 Narrative Theory and Criticism 15
[48] Larry Browning and George H. Morris, Narrative Theory and Organizational Life: Ideas
and Applications (New York: Routledge, 2012).
[49] David M. Boje, “The Storytelling Organization: A Study of Story Performance in an
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[50] Martin Heidegger, Letter on “Humanism,” ed. William McNeill, trans. Frank A. Capuzzi
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[51] Mark L. Knapp et al., “Background and Current Trends in the Study of Interpersonal
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[53] W. Charles Redding, “Stumbling toward Identity: The Emergence of Organizational
Communication as a Field of Study,” in Organizational Communication: Traditional
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Themes and New Directions, eds. Robert D. McPhee and Philip K. Tompkins (Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985), 15–54.
[54] Teresa L. Thompson, “Introduction,” in Handbook of Health Communication, eds. Teresa
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[55] Ibid.
[56] Thomas Hugh Feeley et al., “A Journal-Level Analysis of Health Communication,” Health
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[57] M. M. Khan, “Silence as Communication,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 27, no. 6
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[58] David. H. Smith, “Studying Health Communication: An Agenda for the Future,” Health
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Health Communication,” Health Communication 1, no. 1 (1989): 35–40.
[59] Beth Hartman Ellis, Katherine I. Miller, and Charles W. Given, “Caregivers in Home
Health Care Situations: Measurement and Relations Among Critical Concepts,” Health
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[60] Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields, Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving in
to- Day’s Society (Gainesville: Triad, 1987).
[61] Patricia Geist and Monica Hardesty, “Reliable, Silent, Hysterical, or Assured: In Their
Medical Decision Making,” Health Communication 2, no. 2 (1990): 69–90.
[62] Ronald M. Chenail et al., “It’s Probably Nothing Serious, But . . .”: Parents’ Interpretation
of Referral to Pediatric Cardiologists,” Health Communication 2, no. 3 (1990): 165–87.
[63] Barbara F. Sharf, “Physician-Patient Communication as Interpersonal Rhetoric: A
Narrative Approach,” Health Communication 2, no. 4 (1990): 217–31.
[64] Keith Cherry and David H. Smith, “Sometimes I Cry: The Experience of Loneliness for
Men with AIDS,” Health Communication 5, no. 3 (1993): 181–208; Barbara F. Sharf and
Vicki S. Freimuth, “The Construction of Illness on Entertainment Television: Coping with
Cancer on Thirtysomething,” Health Communication 5, no. 3 (1993): 141–60.
[65] Rebecca Weldon, “An ‘Urban Legend’ of Global Proportion: An Analysis of Nonfiction
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[66] Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. and Heather Franks, “Embodied Metaphor in Women’s Narratives
About Their Experiences with Cancer,” Health Communication 14, no. 2 (2002): 139–65;
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Family’s Stories of Cancer Survivorship,” Health Communication 15, no. 2 (2003): 133–43;
 16 R. P. Clair et al.
Amanda J. Young and Keri. L. Rodriguez, “The Role of Narrative in Discussing End-of-
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[69] Laura L. Ellingson, “Interdisciplinary Health Care Teamwork in the Clinic Backstage,”
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[72] Courtney Lynam Scherr and Marifran Mattson, “From Research to Self-Reflection:
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[80] E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity
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 Narrative Theory and Criticism 17
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[90] John M. Sloop, “Riding in Cars Between Men,” Communication and Critical/Cultural
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[92] Helene Shugart, “On Misfits and Margins: Narrative Resistance and the Poster Child
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Politics of Rosie O’Donnell,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2005):

52–76.
[93] Todd F. McDorman, “Controlling Death: Bio-Power and the Right-to-Die Controvery,”
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 3 (2005): 257–79.
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[96] Carolyn Ellis and Jerry Rawicki, “Collaborative Witnessing of Survival during the
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 18 R. P. Clair et al.
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