- 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?
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I am not very well versed in the subject of Philosophy, so perhaps some students who have a background in this could extend my examples, or correct any of my misconceptions. King’s use of the dichotomy of the two stories reminded me of the philosophical idea that concepts only exist in opposition to another; we only know “up” because there is a “down”, and we know “dark” because we have “light”. The theory of Unity of Opposites is credited to Heraclitus, who suggested that opposites are, by virtue, the same thing in a changing form. We are asleep until we are awake; the two are entirely connected, yet stand in opposition to one another.
This theory even appeared in some of our stories about the creation of evil in the world. For example, in Susie’s story the creation of evil came from the need of opposites: “My sisters gifts are all good, I do not know how to add to them other then to give the gift of knowledge. May man only know each one of these things by knowing what the opposite of it is” (Carter, Blog Three). Perhaps the idea of creation through opposites is what King was trying to suggest. There are oral traditions as well as written ones, monotheistic religions as well as creation through collaboration. He warns us against believing one and ignoring the other, because it is at the intersection of these binary visions that we come to an understanding.
It is interesting to note that even in these two completely different stories we have the idea of dichotomy. In the “Water World” creation story there are twins, one black, one white, when one builds something, the other breaks it down to give it character. It is in the opposite views of these two twins that something is created. There is a similar dichotomy in the “Genesis” story. Even though there is one Creator, the only way he knows how to create is in binary form. This is good, this is evil. This is allowed, this is forbidden. I suppose the difference between the two stories is that by adding the morality in the “Genesis” story readers are taught to believe that a choice must be made. We are never asked to choose between the twins, but we must choose between good and evil in “Genesis”.
By using a different tone to tell the “Genesis” story, King attempts to make it appear as fact, rather than fiction. He attempts to make us choose which we believe is “right” and which is “wrong”. He then warns us against this choice, reminding us that we should be aware of making such a black and white judgement. After all, creation is made in the intersection of visions.
Works Cited
Carter, Susie. “Blog Three: The Stories We Tell (U1:L3)”. I’m all aboot those books. UBC Blogs. 26 Jan 2015. Web. 6 Feb 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/susiecarterenglblog/2015/01/26/blog-three-the-stories-we-tell-u1-l3/>
Graham, Daniel W. “Heraclitus”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/#UniOpp>
Hi Charlotte,
Good work breaking down the dichotomies in Kings stories! I would have to most agree with the quote you took from Susie’s blog where “man only know each one of these things by knowing what the opposite of it is”. There are dichotomies in both the “Genesis” and “Water World” stories and we learn of what something is by knowing it’s opposite, but I am not totally convinced that the dichotomies should be our focus. King gives us two different stories of two different spiritual entities to show us the similarity. He is not making us choose one or the other, but rather showing us that we don’t NEED to choose one or the other because, though they are different, they provide the same points.
Sarah C.
Sarah, I think you misunderstood my point, or perhaps I misunderstood yours. I don’t believe that King wanted us to choose between the two stories, but rather showed us the error in choosing one. He presented one as fact and another as fiction, but by doing so it made it obvious how trivial the differences in telling the stories are. One is not more factual than the other, or more correct than the other. He was not asking us to choose THEN, but was showing us that we need to be careful when we subconsciously do choose, as we tend to do when a story is presented to us as fact.
Hi Charlotte,
I really liked your blog post! This was such an interesting way to look at and compare the two stories together. I had not thought about the idea of two dichotomies and now, looking back on the stories, I too believe that is apart of what King’s intentions were. I do however, agree with Sarah in the comment above, that this is not his only focus. Yes there are dichotomies but we are not choosing which one is better, it’s what do these stories say to you following the way these stories are told. I do believe the dichotomies does give us some interesting insights though!
I never grew up being religious, my family never really exposed us to structured religion or church or anything like that so I find the Bible and the Genesis Story to be quite interesting. Do you see any other dichotomies in the Genesis story?
Laura
Hi Laura. I agree that we are not always choosing which dichotomy is better, as I said with the Water World story. We don’t choose which twin is better, but there is no doubt that they are opposites. I was merely suggesting that we do sometimes make choices between opposites, and this is where King warns us not to. We should not make a choice between the Genesis story and the Water World story. They work together to create a greater understanding of the world.
I did not grew up religious either, and I’m afraid I’ve never had the chance to read the Bible. I only know the story from what we learn in our every day encounters with our culture. It is an interesting question, though, and I hope someone is able to give more background.
Charlotte