Paul Ricoeur of Refigurative Reading and Narrative Identity

Abstract

This paper explores the relation between personal identity and story telling. In particular I examine how Paul Ricoeur links narrative discourse to identity formation. For Ricoeur stories are not simply aesthetic objects disconnected from experience, but are rooted in the very fabric of life and have the capacity to profoundly refigure our world. Narrative discourse and life are for Ricoeur dialectically tied to each other through a "mimetic arc." This, however, poses interesting problems and difficulties. How do stories affect the transformation of experience? According to Ricoeur the identity of the text can be incorporated into my own personal and communal identity through a mode of analogical transfer. This is the art of interpretation , the art of selfhood, the performative process of becoming a self in relationship with others.