Question: “First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?”
In a Classical Studies course that I took in second year on Greek mythology, my professor said something along the lines of: “…then Christianity came to Greece. It soon became the dominating religion in Greece because in the face of a new and perfect God, who could believe in the ancient deities with all their many humanistic flaws?” Creation stories, or origin stories, seem to impart the message that there was one beginning, and perhaps that is why we feel the need to choose only one as sacred, dismissing all others as stories. It is in the nature of all stories to set the stage, but by setting a stage, you eliminate (for the most part) the possibility of other settings. Genesis begins: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” King points out that the Bible’s narrative possesses a more authoritative voice than “The Earth Diver,” but both have firm, distinct beginnings. Note that Genesis has “In the beginning” – there is no ambiguity about whether or not there are several other beginnings out there. What follows, God’s creations, is a very specific stage set-up. Likewise, “The Earth Diver” also starts with a description of the setting: “Back at the beginning of imagination, the world we know as earth was nothing but water, while above the earth, somewhere in space, was a larger, more ancient world” (King 10). Again, we have the specific “at the beginning”; both stories claim to talk about a singular beginning, but both beginnings are seemingly distinct. The perception of needing to choose between stories in order to establish an origin of existence stems may stem from these differing settings. Why the need to choose? Why not have several settings? Perhaps it is our desire to have certainty in our lives, free from the ambiguities that follow when attempting to reconcile differing origin stories.
Yet are they that different? Both stories are about creations: the world was empty, but then someone came and put things where they are. What we view as a series of choices (what King refers to as dichotomies) are actually different perspectives of the same stage. Perhaps one storyteller had a balcony seat, front-and-center, and the other had a floor seat off to the side. Stories are perspectives – if we choose one side of the dichotomy, we ignore the other half that is also part of our world.
Works Cited
King, Thomas. The truth about stories: a native narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.
Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genre 98A May 2014. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl47098amay2014/unit-2/lesson-2-2/>.
I think you have some really interesting observations. This post really got me thinking about wide the story telling spectrum actually is- there are countless stories, but so many parallels in morals and undertones of these stories. King emphasizes the function of stories as dichotomous, but I think you did a great job of pointing out a contradiction of stories seeming distinct, but not necessarily being distinct. I’m not sure if this was King’s original intention, but after reading your post I began to think more about how contradictions work in story telling. Perhaps he is trying to show us that factors of the story (plots/characters/setting) don’t necessarily make stories different. There is more emphasis on the function of the story and what it attempts to get out of its reader.
Thanks for such an intriguing post!
Oh, yes! I did look at each story in terms of specifics, but by looking at functions, I do see King’s point now. Thanks for pointing that out!
I really appreciate that you ask “why not have several settings?” This really reflects a seemingly human need to be certain of something in such an uncertain world. If you are certain of your creation story, how can another exist? What is this other culture trying to say? That your certainty is false? Perhaps this is why there is such tension over these discrepancies. Isn’t having multiple stories just a way of looking at the same thing from multiple perspectives? But how is that possible when all we know is what we can see and think in our own existence. It seems that we are slowly starting to accept multiple narratives for the same thing, but that is also just my perspective. I didn’t grow up with a creation story so it is easy for me to see and appreciate multiple stories, I never built my world on a certainty that it was created a certain way. What is your personal relationship to (a) creation storie(s)?
“But how is that possible when all we know is what we can see and think in our own existence.” I think you’ve identified what some people forget is the main aspect of perspective, and in forgetting (or disregarding) this point, they assume a need for certainty in one view of the world. Storytelling bridges the gap between these perspectives – all that’s left is acceptance and inclusion of these various stories into our own perspectives.
My parents put me in Sunday school when I was little so I grew up knowing the Biblical creation story. That being said, I also knew that other creation stories were out there, each with their group of believers (eg. Greek mythology, Indigenous stories, Big Bang theory, etc.) so despite my family’s beliefs, I don’t see the Bible as the absolute word on how the world was created. I’d like to think that each group’s beliefs had some sort of influence, no matter how small, in creating our world.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Hi Bonny
When you write:
“Both stories are about creations: the world was empty, but then someone came and put things where they are. What we view as a series of choices (what King refers to as dichotomies) are actually different perspectives of the same stage. Perhaps one storyteller had a balcony seat, front-and-center, and the other had a floor seat off to the side. Stories are perspectives – if we choose one side of the dichotomy, we ignore the other half that is also part of our world.”
You are answering my question about what King is “doing’ – right? He is dichotomizing in an effort for his reader to recognize how dichotomizing leaves you with having to make a choice — which as you realize (as King wants you to realize) is a choice that eliminates possibilities and perspectives. Thanks
Hi Professor Paterson,
Yes, I was trying to recognize the existence of that choice while acknowledging the other possibilities out there that make up the whole.