ABSTRACT
Narratives are stories. It is now a commonplace to start this sort of discussion by saying that human beings are storytelling creatures: we tell each other stories of greater or lesser complexity and for all sorts of purposes. Practically every statement that we produce about ourselves and the world is, by definition, part of a narrative, a linking of different things together in some sort of order. Charles Taylor has commented on the ways in which instrumental thought has been prominent in modern Western conceptions of the self. The study of emotions enables an extension of the meaning the author has given to bad faith. It is difficult to acknowledge the existence of emotions and try to pretend to themselves that people are objects; objects, to the best of their knowledge, do not experience emotions. Another complexity which emerges from a psychoanalytic understanding is the proximity of strong but opposite emotions.
