Thursday, February 9, 2017

Context when following a story

There is a property of an account that brings context into the narrative as it begins, and is maintained in a sort of equilibrium on the way through such that when the account is over there is a sense of completion that absolutely is quantifiable. [I wish I could convince mathematicians of that.] So for example if something is brought up in one place, its relevance needs to be resolved in another - otherwise there is a sense of a loose end or an irrelevance in retrospect. Or if the topic jumps suddenly there is a sense of  irrelevance that is direct and not in retrospect.
Consider the example: "I was hungry so I repainted the garage". This is a non sequitur but it could be  salvaged if before hand we heard this account:
I came to town penniless and saw a woman and asked her if she had any work I could do. She said she did and that the garage needed repainting. But she couldn't pay me - although she was going to fix dinner later which I could share, if I did the work. I was hungry so I repainted the garage.

A further aspect of what the account brings with it as it begins is whether or not you accept some actor or entity within it. For example, when a story begins with "I" it always has that authoritative context.
Added: When a person is telling a story, the "I" derives its context directly from the person speaking. I suppose "You" must also be a beginning with automatic context as might be anything mentioning the present currently being shared.

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