Facing Horror at the Bataclan: Informative, Immersive, and Immersed Narrative

This article is a follow-up to the debate opened in the 30th issue of Questions de communication (2016) on the role allotted to narrative theory in an era that has seen an unprecedented level of interest in narratives embodied in increasingly diverse forms. Rather than entering into a dialogue with each respondent, I will take a concrete example of what I consider to be the specific characteristics of an approach that does not consider narrative theory to be a mere tool and to highlight the benefits that we can hope to gain from theorizing narrative forms. My argument is that there are two opposing prototypes of narrativity, forming two extreme poles between which narrative representations are divided, depending on whether their primary intention is to explain an event or, on the contrary, to immerse the reader (or recipient) in the narrated experience. These two narrative prototypes will be illustrated by two very different reports on the same dramatic event. I will also briefly touch upon a third prototype: narrative immersed in a topical event. Here, the distinction between discourse time and diegetic time is irrelevant. In conclusion, I will return to the prospects for the third generation of narratologists. This English translation has not been published in printed form