Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the fundamental framework of temporal and spatial order in life-story. The classical model of narrative assumes that all narratives are stories about a specific event that should follow a chronological sequence. Proposing an alternative model, Ricoeur argues of a narrative, which is so organized as to reach toward the anticipated conclusion, resulting in the endowment of retrospective time character to the sequential order of the story. This idea represents a nonchronological time order.
Then, we go on to the spatial frame of narrative. Since we simultaneously experience life in different aspects, we can choose an "institutional," "collective," or "personal" mode of selecting events to recount, corresponding to the manner of depicting the spatial aspects of social life.
Life-Stories are considered to be produced within these temporal-spatial frameworks. However, we witnessed post-modern narratives such as the newly emergent interrupted narratives and narratives without a plot, which transcend the confines of these frameworks. In order to listen to these new voices of postmodern narratives, we need to discern precisely how it is told by reflexively monitoring the social interaction where the narrative in question is produced.
