"Howdy, my name’s Mr. Barber and I’ll be conducting this class today."
"What happened to Professor ________?" one of the students asked.
"I’ll ask the questions around here," Barber responded smartly. Things were getting off to a good start. "Now I want you to tell me the main points in White’s ‘The Burden of History.’" There was silence. Barber glanced from student to student, each dropping his or her eyes in turn as his stern gaze swept over the class.
"Well?" Barber drummed his fingers on the table.
Finally a timid voice to Barber’s left answered. "But we didn’t read that. We read ‘The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.’"
This was Barber’s first teaching assignment and his roommate had assured him that he, Barber, always had to be in charge to retain his class’s respect. "That’s what I meant!" And then sarcastically: "All right, I’ve got a list of s pecific questions here someplace. Let’s see if anyone was paying attention to the reading." Barber fumbled through his papers looking for his question sheet. Before he could find it, one of the students, Mary Ann Evans, spoke up:
"Suppose we begin by defining narrative, at least the way White defines it?"
"Yeah, okay, narrative," Barber grumbled. "Narrative, uh, provides structure, coherence, plot, contest and resolution." Some of the students started to scribble down Barber’s answer. He’d shown them, Barber thought to himself. Now, if he could only find his question sheet.
Then Mary Ann Evans interrupted his reverie. "Contest and resolution, according to White, are an important part of narrative. But they are not sufficient for what White calls historical narrative. On page 19, for example, White contras ts the annalist with Richerus. For the annalist, says White,
It is necessary only to record [events] in the order that they come to notice, for since there is no contest, there is no story to tell.’
"But," Evans continued, "White says that Richerus is not himself considered a real historian and his chronicle not considered real narrative despite the fact that Richerus offers us both contest and resolution. Further on down page 19, White says:
What was lacking for a proper discursive resolution, a narrativizing resolution, was the moral principle in light of which Richerus might have judged the resolution as either just or unjust."
Before Evans had got the last word out of her mouth another student, John D’Alembert, added his voice. "That’s right, that’s really what White insists is the key to defining narrative. I copied down a few things from White on this point. Let me read them," D’Alembert said.
The demand for closure in the historical story is a demand, I suggest, for moral meaning, a demand that sequences of real events be assessed as to their significance as elements of a moral drama. (21) Where in any account of reality, narrativity is present, we can be sure that morality or a moralizing impulse is present too. (24)
"Moral meaning is also related to authority, or so says White." D’Alembert read from his notes again:
narrativity … presupposes the existence of a legal system against which or on behalf of which the typical agents of a narrative account militate. (13)
"Yeah!" shouted another student, Malika Little. "In White’s intro he talked about the same thing. Gimme a second and I’ll see if I can’t find it." While Little quickly scanned the open book before her, Barber wondered if the class wasn’t getting out of hand. And what, he thought to himself, could h e possibly say about White’s introduction, which wasn’t assigned and which he hadn’t read? "Ah, here it is!" Little exclaimed. "It’s the middle of page x."
narrative is revealed to be a particularly effective system of discourse by which individuals can be taught to live a distinctively ‘imaginary relation to their real conditions of existence,’ that is to say, an unreal but meaningful rel ation to the social formations in which they are indentured to live out their lives and realize their destinies as social subjects.
To conceive of narrative discourse in this way permits us to account for its universality as a cultural fact and for the interest that dominant social groups have not only in controlling what will pass for the authoritative myths of a given cultural formation but also in assuring the belief that social reality itself can be both lived in and realistically comprehended as a story.
"So," Little continued, "narrative is more than story and plot, it’s a mechanism by which ‘dominant social groups’ can maintain their definitions of social reality, particularly for the underclasses. Anyway, that’s what White say s."
Barber was searching furiously through his papers for the study questions he’d prepared. To no avail. Another student chimed in:
"Ok. So what, according to White, gives narrative its power?"
"Hah! There’s a good question!" answered Willie Tulin, a prematurely balding student who sat immediately to Barber’s left. "It’s a good question because White gives us an answer to it without ever really raising it as a question. That makes it seem like the answer is natural. And we don’t need to explore alternative answers when no question is asked." Barber did not like this young fellow’s attitude. Tulin began to read, interjecting his own thoughts and emphasizing words as he went along. "Page 4:"
What is involved, then, in that finding of the ‘true story,’ that discovery of the ‘real story’ within or behind the events that come to us in the [Tulin here interjected "Why not: in the apparently?"] chaotic form of ‘historical records’? What wish is enacted, what desire is gratified, by the fantasy that real events are properly represented when they can be shown to display the formal coherency of a story? In the enigma of this wish, this desire, we catch a glimpse of the cultural function of narrativizing discourse in general, an intimation of the psychological impulse behind the apparently universal need not only to narrate but to give the events an aspect of narrativity.
"White conveys his meaning here -- that narrativity’s power for human beings is psychological in nature, almost like the human brain is hardwired to prefer stories -- not only in what he directly says and ‘intimates,’ but also in his choice of the words I emphasized. He also says that the form of narrativity is external to events, and imposed on events. My question is," Tulin concluded, "Isn’t it possible that narrativity has power and is psychologically pleasing not because of some i nnate desire that humans have to be told stories, but because instead narrativity reflects something real about the course of social events, or certain types of social events?"
Little doubt remained in Barber’s mind that the class was really out of control. He was now looking perfunctorily through his notebook, still hoping that his question list would show up.
"I see what you’re getting at," Mary Ann Evans said, nodding to Tulin, "and it’s a good point. In the passage I quoted on page 19, White says outright that if there are no contests there can be no stories. That means that stories are not just something that are imposed on reality and told by the historian, but reflect something real that’s actually going on. In the real world there is coherence, there is causality, there is closure. Narrative reflects tha t reality. I’m not saying we should negate White’s point that moral closure is the point of historical narrative, and especially the use of narrative by dominant social groups, but I think he’s clearly wrong if he does believe that the narrative is a for m that is external to reality."
Malika Little jumped in again at this point. "I think White hedges his bets here, but really comes down on the side of viewing the narrative as a form that’s external to events. Look at the bottom of page 24:
Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories, with central subjects, proper beginnings, middles, and ends, and a coherence that permits us to see ‘the end’ in every beginning? Or does it present i tself more in the forms that the annals and chronicle suggest, either as mere sequence without beginning or end or as sequences of beginnings that only terminate and never conclude? … If it were only a matter of realism in representation, one could make a pretty good case for both the annals and chronicle forms as paradigms of ways that reality offers itself to perception.
"Yeah, White really makes a point of saying that narratives put a conclusion to events while reality doesn’t ever conclude." It was Paula Holbach, who until then had been silent in the discussion. "That’s just anoth er way for him to say that narrative as a form is external to real events. But I think his argument tells against him. Listen to him, page 23 -- right near the bottom:"
I cannot think of any other way of ‘concluding’ an account of real events, for we cannot say, surely, that any sequence of real events actually comes to an end, that reality itself disappears, that events of the order of the real have ceased to happen. Such events could only seem to have ceased to happen when meaning is shifted, and shifted by narrative means, from one physical or social space to another.
"Yes, events continue. That’s true. But there is also closure to real events that happen in the real world. White knows he’s on shaky ground here and he tries to get out of it. ‘Such events,’ he says, ‘could only seem to have ceased to happen < I>when meaning is shifted, and shifted by narrative means, from one physical or social space to another.’" Holbach paused to catch her breath and then continued: "He would not have needed his modifying clause ‘and shifted by narrative means ’ if it was not self-evident that meanings do shift in the real world."
D’Alembert shook his head vigorously. "That’s right. Take the Cuban revolution of 1959. One kind of power over the island was definitively ended and another begun with the revolution’s triumph. Look at the social indices -- health care, infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy, access to higher education. All these indices improved and improved dramatically following January 1959. Compare that with the rate of progress -- or decay -- in the rest of Latin America and then tell me that som ething real did not shift in Cuba with the revolution."
"So closure," -- it was Holbach speaking again -- "occurred in the course of real events and a narrative would reflect and not impose that closure."
D’Alembert again picked up the thread. "And moral closure, closure with meaning. For the rich and the foreign interests in Cuba, January 1959 marked the triumph of evil. But whether or not we accept their moral viewpoint, the relationship they’ d had with the island changed. It was no longer the same. Meaning shifted in reality. The historian’s work would reflect that change, not impose it."
"Look, one more thing on the same lines," Willie Tulin was saying. "White argues that the annals or chronicle forms could be viewed as paradigms for the representation of reality. But does he really think that even the bare listing or description of events can be done in a non-partisan or a non-judgmental manner? Will my annal say: ‘Jan. 1959 -- Revolution triumphs in Cuba;’ or will it say: ‘Jan. 1959 -- Bandits and Outlaws depose Cuban government and commence reign of terror’? The problem is not that we as historians impose moral meaning on reality, the problem is that the world is divided by conflicting interests and no one can stand outside one or another of those interests -- and the moral framework those interests impose on us. "
Barber took the ensuing silence as evidence that the class wasn’t interested in this kind of discussion. "Ok. Let’s get back to the point. How does White describe the origin of the narrative -- you know, that passage from Hegel." B arber fancied himself something of an Hegelian -- when he was younger he’d plowed through about half of Hegel’s Logic, only stopping when he realized that he hadn’t understood a word. He’d be able to provide good direction for the class if he coul d turn the discussion to Hegel.
"Oh yeah, that was a good quote," Mary Ann Evans was saying. (Barber beamed.) "I think what he meant -- where is that? page 12, right? -- was, Hegel, this is Hegel talking, was that historical narrative arose at the same time as thos e kinds of social formations arose which, in White’s view, required narrative for their legitimacy. But Hegel was saying something more complex and closer to what we’ve been talking about than what White draws from him. Here, let me read it:
… it comprehends not less what has happened, than the narration of what has happened. The union of the two meanings we must regard as of a higher order than mere outward accident; we must suppose historical narrations to have appeared contemporaneously with historical deeds and events. It is an internal vital principle common to both that produces them synchronously. … But it is only the state which first presents subject-matter that is not only adapted to the pr ose of History, but involves the production of such history in the very progress of its own being.
"Hegel is talking about two things going on here: the development of historical narrative -- what he calls the ‘prose of History’ -- and the development of a social formation ‘adapted’ to that prose. Hegel was an idealist and so saw reality unfolding in conformity with his Absolute Idea. Consequently, he saw social development as adapting itself to ways of describing that development, as though social events conformed to the manner in which those events could be described. If we drop the idealism I think we get closer to the truth: Soc ial development, becoming more complex, involving to a greater and greater extent the clash of interests, produced a literature that reflected that clash, narrative literature."
"Of course, White is right…" Willie Tulin began, and then paused as a few students giggled. He smiled and continued. "White is correct in seeing most narrative as a tool of social legitimacy and control. Most history is written by the victor. But the problem is not with the form -- the narrative -- but with its use, or misuse. The form only reflects the fact that real contradictions exist in the social structure. Read W.E.B. DuBois’ Black Reconstruction. No historian I know of comes close to DuBois in the depth and the beauty of his narrative. But then what DuBois is doing with the narrative -- standing up for those who’ve been downpressed, telling their story -- is very different than what too many US hist orians do with their narratives."
"All right, it’s getting close to the end of class," Barber began, hoping to re-direct the discussion for the last few minutes, anyway. But it was not to be.
"Oh, wait! One more thing!" Malika Little was talking again. "On page 24 White says outright that his ‘thesis’ is ‘that narrativizing discourse served the purpose of moralizing judgments.’ Yet the beginning of the very next paragraph , which is the last paragraph, says something different:" She emphasized as she read the passage:
What I have sought to suggest is that this value attached to narrativity in the representation of real events arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity, fullness, and closure of an image of life that is and can only be imaginary. The notions that sequences of real events possess the formal attributes of the stories we tell about imaginary events could only have its origin in wishes, daydreams, reveries.
"I think we’re all agreed that White’s demonstrated his thesis. But he’s never demonstrated this point he’s making that narrative arises out of psychological needs. Most of us here have agreed that narrative’s power arises from something real -- that it reflects something going on in social life. But White i s so busy repeating this stuff about wishes and daydreams that he misses the obvious point -- and the point that’s consistent with his thesis: that the conventional definitions and uses of historical narrative are formulated to offer a view of the world consistent with the view of dominant social forces."
A brief silence fell over the class. Barber, looking to salvage something from this first day as teacher spoke: "So let me see if I understand. A number of you are saying that narrative is not an external form but reflects something going on in the real world. True?" The nodding heads in the class indicated that Barber’s swift mind had grasped what was being said. "And that White, in pointing at the relation between narrativity and authority had his finger on something. Yes?" Again the class agreed. "And that meaning and moral frameworks can’t be purged from historical writing because they’re inherent to the world in which we live." Barber was leaning against the blackboard now, his self-confidence soaring into the stratosphere. "I’m not saying I agree with any of this. I’m just trying to see if I understand what you’re saying." The students were hastily packing their bags and leaving the classroom. Barber realized that his shoulders and bac k were completely covered with chalk dust. Being a professor might not be half bad after all, he thought.