Mythical time, historical time, and the narrative fabric of the self

Despite the belief that narrative may serve as an important vehicle for exp loring human experience and selfhood, there frequently exists the paradoxic al supposition that narrative accounts cannot help but falsify life itself: Insofar as time is viewed in fundamentally linear terms and experience, in turn, is viewed as that which simply "goes on" in time, narratives may be viewed as entailing an imposition of literary form upon that which is osten sibly formless. After considering the idea of mythical time, tied to the im age of the circle, and the idea of historical time, tied to the image of th e line, it is suggested that human experience and selfhood are themselves w oven out of the fabric of narrative. In light of contemporary understanding s of the self, particularly those promoted in certain quarters of post-stru cturalist and social constructionist thought, it is further suggested that the narrative fabric of the self has become frayed. By rethinking the inter relationship of time, experience, and self via the idea of narrative, there emerges the opportunity to recognize more fully the profound continuities between myth and history as well as life and literature.