Grand narrative

Metanarratives are thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. They are grand, large-scale theories and philosophies of the world, such as the progress of history, the knowability of everything by science, and the possibility of absolute freedom. Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other 'little stories' within schemes.
According to postmodernism, metanarratives have lost their power to convince – they are, literally, stories that are told in order to legitimise various versions of "the truth" and we now ceased to believe that narratives of this kind are adequate to represent and contain us all. We have become alert to difference, diversity, the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires, and for that reason postmodernity is characterised by an abundance of micronarratives.
We now focus on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience.