• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 454 0

unconnected events. The risk of such a desire, unfortunately is, “that we often deceive others and ourselves by leaving out the details of our past life that don’t fit the version of the story that we want to tell.”7 But on Arrested Development such willful self-deception appears to be second nature for most of the characters. Notice for instance Gob while he attempts unsuccessfully to annul his marriage:

Gob: Well, we did have sex . . . and I’m not a great liar.

Narrator: Both things he just said were lies. [“Motherboy XXX”]

In truth, “None of us wants to tell stories about ourselves that are dull or ugly,”8 and as a result different versions of ourselves are created through the stories that we tell. And yet, there is something intrinsically valuable in thinking about ourselves in such narrative terms—we come to realize an evolving sense of self over time, what matters most to us, and why. There’s always a version of the story to be told. But how do we go about deciding the right version, for us or for others? Who would be in a position to decide whether our version of our story is right or wrong?

“And That’s How You Narrate a Story”—What We Tell, What We Are

At least in the universe of Arrested Development, the narrator provides us with a version of the story that has an appearance of objectivity. The narrator, as both observer and interpreter, is in the privileged position to observe how “action reveals itself fully only to the storyteller . . . who indeed always knows better what it was all about than the participants.”9 When we think about it, a story’s narrator can represent very different philosophical outlooks. An all-knowing, authoritative narrator can give the impression of a world that is comprehensible and inherently knowable. But, a story with a limited or unreliable narrator can suggest the unpredictability of a world that we can never fully hope to understand.

For an example of the way Arrested Development provides a semblance of narrative certainty, we might recall the episode “Amigos” in which the Bluths head south of the border. During a very confused conversation, the narrator comments that: “At no point were Michael and Maeby talking about the same person. And there were only four people in their group.” The narration of Arrested Development reminds us that without comic misunderstandings the whole story of the world around us would be pretty boring. Some moments in the show typically (and in a very funny way) depict what the world looks like without that measure of narrative certainty. Even the most straightforward of communications can take dramatically different turns. Take for instance the following conversation between Gob and his then-wife:

Wife of Gob: I’m in love with your brother-in-law.

Gob: You’re in love with your own brother.

Wife of Gob: No, your sister’s husband.

Gob: Michael? Michael.

Wife of Gob: No, that’s your sister’s brother.

Gob: No, I’m my sister’s brother. You’re in love with me. Me.

Wife of Gob: NO! I’m in love with Tobias.

Gob: My brother-in-law?

Wife of Gob: Anyways, I’m enlisting in the army.

Gob: To be with your brother?

Wife: No! [“Whistler’s Mother”]

Just as the narrator plays a very prominent role in Arrested Development, we likewise must act as narrators of the stories that we live everyday: “We are constantly adopting the narrator’s position with respect to our own lives and also the lives of others.”10 This storytelling impulse is ingrained in our thinking. It’s a crucial part of how we identify with ourselves and others: “Our own existence cannot be separated from the account we can give of ourselves. It’s in telling our own stories that we give ourselves an identity. We recognize ourselves in the stories that we tell about ourselves.”11 Stories also allow us to grapple with the mundane objects of the world—to place them in contexts that allow us to make sense of them. In this respect, narrative is “indispensible to human cognition generally.”12

The stories we tell about ourselves result