Oldal 15 [15]
14] Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
categories, aggregates their freguency of occurrence, and analyzes the patterns
that emerge.
The narrative approach includes two important elements: temporality and
action (Pléh, 2003). Narration is a specific form of organization of events:
some content is omitted, while other content is highlighted. Ihe narrative
is thus a unigue construct, a specific self-representation which, although it
is a historical and causal representation of external events, still reveals the
narrators organization of content. The narrator selects only the most relevant
elements from memory for the historical-logical structure of the narrative.
Following this logic, the creation of narratives is not only a construction, but
also a reflection and an interpretation.
By examining the relationship between narrative and the narrative identity
of the individual, we arrive at a philosophical approach. Ricoeur (1999)
argues that one’s self-understanding is embodied in narratives - even if they
are fictional. The function (and liberating power) of fictional narratives is to
provide an infinite number of possibilities.
Ricœur’s concept of the relationship between narrative and time leads to the
idea that narrative structure provides the framework for the construction of
human identity since the narrator “[...] constructs himself from the narrative’
of his own past, present and future.” (Orosz, 2003, p. 17) It is through oral
or written self-narration that the narrator becomes aware of who (s)he is.
The narrative identity is the life story of the narrator, which is continuously
constructed from autobiographical memories until death. The themes,
characters and challenges of the developmental process emerge from the
socio-cultural matrix of the individual.
According to Agnes Heller (2015), stories play an important role in
autobiographical memory. Through narration, the consciousness of continuity
is formed in the mind, and thus the ability to think in terms of temporality: the
past, present and future. The sequencing of life events according to a narrative
logic presupposes continuous internal interpretation and narration. This
involves a process of self-interpretation, as memory fragments are arranged
thematically, not by date and time. Heller highlights Proust's autobiographical
novel In Search of Lost Times as an example of the strange interconnection
of memory and narrative. In this case, a single memory fragment reveals a
complex, non-linear narrative.
The autobiographical memories of the past are constructed in the present
and reflect the present. As Heller points out, the self remembering in the
present is not quite the same as the self from past memories. Moreover,
recollection at different points in time allows for different selves and thus
different interpretations. The environment, the interlocutor or the societal
expectations can also influence the interpretation of the memory and thus the
structure of the narrative. The narrator tells a story both through the narration
of past events and through the sharing of memories. Heller argues that in
autobiographical narratives the self defines itself, narrating its journey from