Key Arguments

• Ricoeur recalls from Time and Narrative that identity at the level of emplotment is 'described in dynamic terms by the competition between a demand for concordance and the admission of discordances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this identity.'
• He defines concordance as 'the principle of order that presides over what Aristotle calls "the arrangement of facts"' and discordances as 'the reversals of fortune that make the plot an ordered transformation from an initial situation to a terminal situation', showing how narrative unity is forged through the tension between order and disruption.
• He names the art of composition 'configuration' and, to generalize beyond Greek tragedy, proposes to define narrative configuration as 'discordant concordance, characteristic of all narrative composition, by the notion of the synthesis of the heterogeneous', thus explicitly making emplotment a synthesis of diverse and even discordant elements.
• He lists the mediations performed by the plot: 'between the manifold of events and the temporal unity of the story recounted; between the disparate components of the action — intentions, causes, and chance occurrences — and the sequence of the story; and finally, between pure succession and the unity of the temporal form', each of which demonstrates how narrative reconciles what appears fragmented at the level of mere events.
• He interprets these 'multiple dialectics' as making explicit 'the opposition, already present in the domain of tragedy according to Aristotle, between the episodic dispersal of the nar-rative and the power of unification unfurled by the configuring act constituting poiesis itself', thereby identifying emplotment as the process that turns episodic dispersal into a unified temporal whole.
• He concludes that 'the narrative operation has developed an entirely original concept of dynamic identity which reconciles the same categories that Locke took as contraries: identity and diversity', directly linking this structure of discordant concordance to a new, narrative notion of identity over time.

Source Quotes

This derivation of one identity in relation to the other, merely indi cated in Time and Narrative, will be clarified here. Let us first recall what was meant in Time and Narrative by identity on the level of emplotment. It can be described in dynamic terms by the com petition between a demand for concordance and the admission of discor dances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this identity. By concordance, I mean the principle of order that presides over what Aris totle calls "the arrangement of facts."

It can be described in dynamic terms by the com petition between a demand for concordance and the admission of discor dances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this identity. By concordance, I mean the principle of order that presides over what Aris totle calls "the arrangement of facts." By discordances, I mean the reversals of fortune that make the plot an ordered transformation from an initial situation to a terminal situation. I am applying the term "configuration" to this art of composition which mediates between concordance and dis cordance.

I am applying the term "configuration" to this art of composition which mediates between concordance and dis cordance. To extend the validity of this concept of narrative configuration beyond Aristotle's privileged example — Greek tragedy and, to a lesser degree, epic poetry — I propose to define discordant concordance, char acteristic of all narrative composition, by the notion of the synthesis of the heterogeneous. By this I am attempting to account for the diverse media tions performed by the plot: between the manifold of events and the tem poral unity of the story recounted; between the disparate components of the action — intentions, causes, and chance occurrences — and the se quence of the story; and finally, between pure succession and the unity of the temporal form, which, in extreme cases, can disrupt chronology to the point of abolishing it.

To extend the validity of this concept of narrative configuration beyond Aristotle's privileged example — Greek tragedy and, to a lesser degree, epic poetry — I propose to define discordant concordance, char acteristic of all narrative composition, by the notion of the synthesis of the heterogeneous. By this I am attempting to account for the diverse media tions performed by the plot: between the manifold of events and the tem poral unity of the story recounted; between the disparate components of the action — intentions, causes, and chance occurrences — and the se quence of the story; and finally, between pure succession and the unity of the temporal form, which, in extreme cases, can disrupt chronology to the point of abolishing it. These multiple dialectics do no more, in my opin ion, than make explicit the opposition, already present in the domain of tragedy according to Aristotle, between the episodic dispersal of the nar- rative and the power of unification unfurled by the configuring act consti tuting poiesis itself.

This necessity is a narrative necessity whose meaning effect comes from the configurating act as such; this narrative necessity transforms physical contingency, the other side of physical neces sity, into narrative contingency, implied in narrative necessity. From this simple reminder of the notion of emplotment, and before any consideration of the dialectic of characters which is its corollary, it results that the narrative operation has developed an entirely original con cept of dynamic identity which reconciles the same categories that Locke took as contraries: identity and diversity. The decisive step in the direction of a narrative conception of personal identity is taken when one passes from the action to the character.

Key Concepts

• identity on the level of emplotment. It can be described in dynamic terms by the com petition between a demand for concordance and the admission of discor dances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this identity.
• By concordance, I mean the principle of order that presides over what Aris totle calls "the arrangement of facts." By discordances, I mean the reversals of fortune that make the plot an ordered transformation from an initial situation to a terminal situation.
• I propose to define discordant concordance, char acteristic of all narrative composition, by the notion of the synthesis of the heterogeneous.
• between the manifold of events and the tem poral unity of the story recounted; between the disparate components of the action — intentions, causes, and chance occurrences — and the se quence of the story; and finally, between pure succession and the unity of the temporal form
• the narrative operation has developed an entirely original con cept of dynamic identity which reconciles the same categories that Locke took as contraries: identity and diversity.

Context

Early in the section, Ricoeur revisits his earlier work in Time and Narrative to restate the concept of emplotment as discordant concordance and connects it explicitly to the problem of identity and diversity in the domain of sameness-identity.