“Stories… bring us closer to the world we live in by taking us into the world of words.” (1)
One thing all communities have in common is their stories. However, stories are also what often divide us. According to Chamberlin, it’s one of the ways people use to separate the world into ‘Them and Us’ (8). When we don’t understand people’s stories, customs, or language, they become the ‘Other’. It becomes easy to dismiss them as “incorrigible babblers and doodlers” and we use rigid categories like useful/useless and civilized/barbaric, to differentiate us – which is the root of all antagonism (8).
One way we can re-imagine this dualism, Chamberlin believes, is through understanding the way stories and language work. According to him, the heart of language is paradox and stories take us to a place where reality and imagination intersect, where things are both true and false. When children are learning to read and write, they understand that the letters C-A-T is a cat, but it also is not (131). They are comfortable with contradictory realities, and this is what Chamberlin wants us to aspire to.
After all, stories are at their most powerful at a moment of paradox – where “mystery and clarity converge”. Chamberlin says it is when we are the most aware of their “arbitrariness and artifice of form” that we surrender to them (124). I’m reminded of this article I read a while back called The Distracted Globe by Anthony Dawson which examined the interplay between distraction and attention in Elizabethan theater. (Unfortunately, there’s no e-version of it, but here’s a preview.) It talked about how playwrights had to work to engage the audiences in a time when the distractions of the rowdy playhouse were a spectacle themselves. They did this by purposely creating meta-theatrical awareness and this is especially true of some of Shakespeare’s death scenes – where the audience’s attention is directed to the ‘dead’ characters on stage (who are obviously very much alive). Drawing attention to the artifice, Dawson argues, actually creates engagement of the audience.
These moments of paradoxes seem to serve as a signal for the reader, listener (or theater-goer) to use their imagination and believe, so that at that moment, it can be both an artifice and reality. This pushes us to be less rigid and to widen our perspectives.
I think riddles and charms work in a similar fashion. Riddles – which include nursery rhymes, metaphor, trickster tales – present themselves as being true and untrue and to ‘get them’, we need to re-adjust our understanding of language (161). Whereas charms – such as national anthems, creation stories and elegies – are often comprised of contradictions. However, in the moment we sing or read them, we believe in them, even if we wouldn’t otherwise (180). Both of these devices again, expand our perspective and make us more flexible.
Our world is full of contradictory ideas and viewpoints. Understanding the way language and story work and being comfortable with believing and not believing makes us feel closer to the world we live in. This is the common ground Chamberlin envisions – a new state of mind where we can accept stories without delegitimizing the others (239).
WORKS CITED
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.
Dawson, Anthony B. “The Distracted Globe.” The Culture of Playgoing in Shakespeare’s England: A Collaborative Debate. Ed. Anthony Dawson & Paul Edward Yachnin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 88 – 111. Print.
Stuart, David. “Metatheatre.” Metatheatre. Web. 16 Jan. 2015.
Hi Tarana!
Nice to formally meet you online! I just read your two blogs and I too am in my fifth year. How excited are you to be graduating? I too am hoping that this course will help me figure out some of my national identity and what is “truly” means to be Canadian. I was born and raised here in Vancouver and I may be humiliating myself by saying this, but I don’t know what it means to be Canadian other than maple leafs and hockey. Hopefully that will change!
I am really intrigued in your comment regarding how stories divide us. It seems so simple, yet I’ve never even thought about stories like that. I’m interested in your original thought on stories, have you always thought of stories and diving us or was that just after you thought about it for a bit. I guess in my opinion I’ve always seen stories as things that connect us and put us in the same categories as others. To me, stories act as a way to connect with other’s lives and a way we can interact with each other without seeming to awkward or for lack of a better term, “in your face”. It seems like stories are a way of connecting or sharing, as Chamberlain mentioned we share our beliefs with our stories.
The idea of the other is quite insane isn’t it? It’s very true though. To be honest, I even find it while reading articles that are too wordy or articles about content I don’t necessarily understand. These articles automatically become the “other” to me as well. As Chamberlain mentioned, we tend to dismiss certain areas of content when we do not understand or comprehend this. Now realizing this, I totally recognize myself doing this, a lot in my everyday life. How about you? Do you find yourself dismissing certain context if you are not interested in it or if you just do not understand the material?
It was really nice to read your blogs and I look forward to reading more soon!
Jessica Ramsey
Hi Jessica,
It’s nice to meet you too. (And yes, I am really excited to be graduating this May!) To answer your question, before this class, I don’t think I’ve ever consciously reflected on the nature of stories and their power. I’ve certainly felt their influence – which is why reading Chamberlin was so interesting, I felt he was often bringing up points about stories and storytelling that I subconsciously knew all along, but never really articulated or thought much about. The power of stories to divide was one of them. And you’re right – it’s a very simple statement. Upon first reading the introduction, I wondered if it wasn’t too simplistic, especially as Chamberlin states that this is what is at the heart of most of our current conflicts (2).
But when you think about it, it rings true. We believe in the stories we live by, and this separates us from people with different stories. I think it was ingenious of Chamberlin to get us thinking about our traditions and religion as types of stories – because I feel that by defining something as a story, it automatically makes you think about whether it’s true or not. I mean, if you look it up in a dictionary, a story can mean both an account of facts and also a falsehood. It can be both contradictory things. I feel like this can give us insight, perhaps let us see the contradictions in our own story and realize it is belief that sustains it – like it must be for everyone else. When we can see that, maybe it becomes easier to empathize with people whose stories we don’t agree with or understand (like you pointed out, we tend to dismiss things we don’t know about – I totally agree.)
Hi Tarana, thank you for this insightful answer to my question – and a couple of interesting links indeed. As you know, my background is in theatre, so I can very much relate to your analysis – thanks. I look forward to reading some comments on this post. Enjoy.
Hi Dr. Paterson,
Thank you for your comment. I have to say, I quite enjoyed answering your question, it was challenging but definitely gave me lots to think about!
Hello, Tarana!
Your analysis of the ways in which literature can be both true and untrue to readers in order to work was perfect, and helped me understand the concept better. I had not realized just how many situations the ‘true and untrue’ idea can be applied to, and how often it pops up in my own life without my realizing it. This duality plays a big part in my family as there is a fairly equal split between Protestant Christians and Atheists. The difficulty that faces the Atheist members is playing a part within the Christian oral traditions, such as saying grace, without attempting to delegitimize them. When they participate in saying grace they must undergo that feeling of something being both true and untrue, as they don’t believe really in what they’re saying, but I suppose they still feel the spirit of the words, and wish to respect the traditions of others.
Thank-you for offering this insight!
– Christie Smith
Hi Christie,
Thank you for sharing! I found your analogy very interesting, I never thought of it that way. I do agree with you – for an atheist, saying grace must be a moment of contradiction. Like you pointed you, they must feel the essence of the sentiment, that they are thankful – that part must be ‘true’ enough, even though they don’t believe in the deity they are giving thanks to. I also feel like it’s a wonderful example of what Chamberlin wants people to aspire to, being broad-minded enough to accept a tradition of a story that they don’t necessarily believe or agree with.