I have only just finished reading all your re-tellings of Leslie Silko’s telling of how evil came into the world, and all your dialogues — and, what a read it has been. There are some wonderful writers in this class. Thank you all for your thoughtful and insightful stories – I love this assignment, and I hope you will all see the value of stopping to explore and express your  sense of home in this land we call Canada, before proceeding to explore how this came to be ‘our’ home.

I have some quotes from your blogs and your dialogues that I found particularly interesting. I will be all caught up on my readings by the end of the week – so, you will see lots of smiley faces appearing on your dialogues. Thank you and Enjoy.

“This week, we were responsible for taking Thomas King’s retelling of Leslie Silko’s story of how evil first came into the world.  Silko’s story revolves around Witches, and I was inspired by this mythical aspect of her tale and decided to invent my own type of people, called the Dreamweavers.  I chose to base my story on the ideas of dreams and nightmares because I think they are closely related to stories and are an area that reveal the ways stories can resonate with us on a level past our day to day consciousness.” Dream Weaving and the Birth of Evil.

“Jay was fed up with being told she wasn’t ready yet, so she she called a meeting with some of friends and suggested they think up of their own dreams to weave. New and different dreams that hadn’t been thought of yet. They decided to tell some stories to inspire themselves of what kind of new dreams they could create. As the sun set, and the shadows of animals and plants and trees danced in the dimming sunlight, they were inspired by the darkness around them and thought of some of the most evil and dark stories that ever graced the earth.  They thought up stories filled with blood and tainted with violence, greed and disease, lies, and fear.”  Dream Weaving and the Birth of Evil.

“The End. After writing this story, I decided to attempt to tell it to both my parents and my boyfriend by heart.  Although I hadn’t spent any time attempting to memorize what I had written, I was surprised by how easily I could remember the setting, details, character names, and various other details.  It was a story I had made up, within a short period of time, and yet it had found its way so snugly into my mind and being.  When my boyfriend asked me to clarify a detail about the main character, I answered quickly and confidently. In many ways, the story had become part of my identity, and I was attached to it.

I think this is indicative of the power of stories, and how they resonate with us and influence us in ways we may not even notice.  It’s easy for us to assume we have the power in choosing the stories we tell and listen to, and thats true to a certain extent.  But I think its worth mentioning that these stories have an equal, often overlooked power over us, and for this reason, they are an indispensable aspect of our lives.”  Dream Weaving and the Birth of Evil.

“The connection you made between stories and dreams was interesting. The article that you linked “Dream Interpretation: What do Dreams Mean?” discussed how Freud believed that “the manifest content of a dream,(…) served to disguise the latent content, or the unconscious wishes of the dreamer”. This idea of wish fulfillment can also be seen as a product of gossip. It is a storytelling technique which has a touch of truth while allowing people to reveal their actual feelings and desires providing emotional catharsis much like dreams. We use gossip to discuss how other people are doing as a disguise to really judge how we are doing personally or career wise etc. Furthermore, gossip allows us to talk badly about someone without having to repress guilt, much like how dreams allow the unconscious to freely resolve conflict.” Comments: Dream Weaving.

Following up on Hayden’s comment, I was also very taken with your story and its commentary upon language as giving shape (in your story- quite literally) to our world. What I found most interesting in your story was the way in which you melded the everyday register of casual speech with the technical language of science. I appreciated this amusing juxtaposition, which contributed to the lighthearted and very engaging delivery of your story. I also found this juxtaposition interesting as a sort of implicit commentary on science and its intersection with story, and the way in which a dichotomous understanding of science vs. story reflects a certain cultural ideology and value system.  Dialogue: How Evil Came

Some people didn’t like that not-sloth’s story. Down the ages they tried to fight it. Some had long beards. Some had enormous moustaches. Most had epistemologies. But even with epistemologies, no-one could seem to dislodge it. Evil had its ups and downs, but “evil” kept getting bigger. Because it was a good word, wrapped in a good story.  And once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose on the world. Centers of Mass

I enjoyed the emphasis on language and its role in your story, and it wasn’t until the end of your post that I realized there was a term to describe what you were touching on “language relativity”. Thanks to your hyperlink I got lost for 10 minutes just reading into exactly what the theory of language relativity is and I was fascinated. I think that it is easy to overlook the role of language, as something automatically integrated into the context of words and storytelling, and miss the role it has in a reader’s interpretation of a story. The truth it, we all understand in different ways, influenced by who we are, where we’ve been, our beliefs, values, experiences, cultures, personalities, etc and it’s great to see you touch on that idea of what words mean to each person in your story of how evil was born. Dialogue: Centre of mass

Storytelling was more difficult than I expected. I’m a creative writing major, so I’m used to fine-tuning my sentences before going public. I’m not the most collected speaker, so speaking smoothly was hard. However, I like gesturing, and I used hand motions to accentuate the violence of the fraternal killing. That was fun. How Evil Came Into the World

Your description of the aliens contact with the humans reminds me a lot of colonization in Canada. Although the aliens meant no harm in their story it still had a similar impact on the people that colonization had on the Indigenous in Canada. For example, the missionaries interfered culturally and linguistically by introducing Christianity. The introduction of different stories (origin stories) marked a a new chapter for the Indigenous peoples much like the humans in your story whose “earth had changed drastically”. It is evident that in both cases, lives became the stories that they were told. Dialogue: How Evil Came into the World

Great story! As a former Christian myself who has never tried to find another creation story to fill the void, I can identify with your struggles of coming up with a story. It seems more natural for us modern people to leave things that are unknown, and if we are to explain them, use scientific hypothesis supported by empirical evidence. Otherwise, we are told to inform ourselves first before we speak, or risk being viewed as ignorant. This exercise has certainly been liberating for me. Dialogue: The Stories That we Can hear

I enjoyed this story, its modern setting is unique (most stories of evil veer for origin tales, or creation periods). It was surprising, and realistic how no act was intended to be evil. Despite the alarming nature of the question, the boy managed to find comfort in this realization. It also points out how much of an impact stories have on people, and what happens when a story of identity is challenged. The morality of white lies is really questioned in this story, at their most base level. Should the parents have told their child he was adopted earlier on, so that he wouldn’t have to face the emotional turmoil alone? Were they right in protecting their son by withholding the truth? It’s hard to say. No one part or character in this story alone is evil, but their sum result was. It also demonstrates the capacity for one to move past misdeed, and potentially grow from the experience. Dialogue: Little White Lie