Othered temporalities and possibilities: The question of narrative synthesis in Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutics and Anthony Doerr's About Grace

Abstract

This article examines the synthetic function of narrative temporality as presented in Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative. By critically analyzing the applicability of Ricoeur’s conclusions about literary narratives as temporalizing worldhood to contemporary fiction, the author argues that an alternative conception of narrative time is needed to supplement Ricoeur’s homogenizing of the link between the literary treatment of time and historical interpretation. By examining the ways in which multiple scales of temporality intersect and fray against one another in Anthony Doerr’s novel About Grace, the author probe the limitations and possibilities of a Ricoeurian analysis of narrative temporality in terms of a fracturing of existential modes of comportment toward a lifeworld under threat from human exploitation. By reevaluating Ricoeur’s hermeneutical arguments, the author argues that instead of fusion, it is discordance that characterizes both the openness and fragility of contemporary fiction’s treatment of worldhood and temporal experience.