104 Mark Washofsky

All of the above suggests the futility of drawing clear and distinct lines that separate the practice of law from the activity of narrative. Simply put, law itself is a story. To a great extent law is narrative and would be impossible without it.”

When we recognize law’s deep dependence upon the narrative imagination, we make a descriptive claim about the nature of legal discourse:“this is how the law works.” We do not necessarily make a normative claim, to the effect that narrative is a good thing or a bad thing for law or lawyers. Many practitioners of what is called “narrative jurisprudence,” however, do advance beyond purely descriptive observation to the realm of prescription, which is hardly unusual in legal scholarship.’* Some recommend narrative for didactic purposes, as part of the inculcation of a broader literary sensibility among legal actors. To the extent that those who study and administer the law read and ponder“good literature,” the theory goes, they will develop a literary imagination that will nourish their capacity for empathy and feeling, making law a more just and humane activity.” Others go farther, urging narrative as 2 replacement for many of the standard forms of legal reasoning and analysis. Traditional legal doctrine, they argue, claims objectivity but in fact privileges a single narrative perspective. Indeed, what constitutes“objectivity” in law is simply the narrative assumptions of truth held by the dominant social and political grouping in the society, assumptions that govern what is and is not accepted in legal conversation.’® These assumptions appear to be objective because they are not questioned, and they work to exclude alternative narratives, particularly those that recount the experience of oppressed and marginalized minorities. The remedy is for lawyers, judges, and legal academics to“hear the call of stories,” to use narrative as 3 means of questioning received definitions of“reason,” of opening legal discourse to voices that, until now, it has ignored or silenced.’ Narrativist lawyers accordingly write law review articles that do not