The Art of Narration

Reading the chapters from “The Self We Live By” about narration allowed me to think about all the components that go into telling a story. When narrating an incident, the effect of the story on the audience is not produced by simply the content of the story, it also has to do with how the speaker tells it. A speaker’s gestures, talking pace, and tone of voice can all influence how an audience interprets a story. “The Self We Live By” states that “the coherence of a personal story is not a simple matter of internal consistency”(107). For example, if I am narrating a personal incident to a group of people, I know how I feel about the incident and how it affected me. Therefore, I need to convey that emotion effectively to the audience so that they too will understand how I felt about the incident and interpret the situation in the same way that I did. Narration styles can vary depending on the composition of the audience, and on race, ethnicity, and gender. People of certain social or ethnic groups may be able to better identify with the speaker than others, and thus better understand the speaker’s point of view.

This can relate to the topic of my inquiry and convincing paper. At the end of my inquiry paper, I explore how doctors must listen carefully to their patients in order to understand a patient’s perception of his disease and provide the most effective course of treatment. A doctor must do more than simply prescribe pills for bodily ailments. He must understand how the patient’s identity and behaviors influenced the disease. The patient has to narrate his own experiences to the doctor in a way that the doctor can understand. For instance, suppose a patient has a psychosomatic disorder, in which the patient feels physiological pain, but has no bodily dysfunction. The doctor cannot physically treat what he cannot see, so he must interview the patient extensively. The patient will then describe his experiences, and what led him to feel the way he does, from which the doctor can deduce what is causing the true “pain”. Sometimes, being able to open up to a doctor, not a therapist, can alleviate psychosomatic symptoms. The patient must use effective narrative techniques to relate to the doctor on a personal level. I think this communication between doctors and patients is important because it ensures mutual trust and patient comfort, therefore leading to a healthier patient. This is something I am hoping to look more into when I write my convincing paper.