It was not a visible creature that brought evil into the world. It was The Voice, on the shoulder of humankind. The Voice whispered temptations to humankind so quietly that it almost went unnoticed. Almost. The only competition for its intoxicating messages came from The Other Voice, which pleaded earnestly from humankind’s opposite shoulder. The first time that The Voice won its never-ending battle with The Other Voice was when evil was brought into the world.
The Voice manipulated the words of humankind when it won, twisting lies and accusations and malevolence into the very fibre of the story of humankind. Every time The Voice won, humankind fractured slightly. Bits of humankind broke away. Different elements of humankind turned on each other. However, when The Other Voice won, the fractures were stitched back together slightly and humankind’s words became authentic and good again. But, of course, it was too late. The scars of The Voice remain. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in humankind.
…
When deciding how to approach my retelling of this story, I tried to identify a story about evil entering the world that I was familiar with. The most obvious one, which I learned very early in my life, was the story of Adam and Eve. This is the story of how Adam and Eve gave in to the devil’s temptation and ultimately cursed humankind with original sin.
This story differs from the story that King relays in his first chapter in a couple ways. Firstly, it is a gendered story. In the story of original sin, it is the woman (Eve) who the devil tempts first. She gives in before convincing Adam to do the same. However, in the story from Leslie Silko, “no one knew… if the witch was male or female” (King, 9). A second difference is that the story of original sin attributes evil to temptation from an outside entity (the devil), while the other story describes outside entities (witches) releasing evil, almost accidentally.
I wanted to challenge myself to draw inspiration from something other than the story of original sin and remembered being introduced to the amusing idea of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other by cartoons (most notably, The Emperor’s New Groove). It was this idea that I based my story on.
I found that when telling my story orally, it varied slightly each time. I ended up referring to the voices as “the good voice” and “the bad voice” without the ability to create distinctive capitalized names in written text in order to try to make the story clear for listeners (rather than readers). Often I either rattled on for too long or missing a couple details. Despite this, I found that oral storytelling helped me to develop my story better. I think that the final draft of my story had improved drastically after sharing it verbally to my small audiences. I think that oral storytelling informed the way that I ended up writing my story in this post. I kept sentences shorter, trying to imitate the flow that the story had when I spoke it.
Overall, I found this assignment fairly challenging. I am quite a practical, logical person and feel that I am slightly lacking in the area of creativity but I certainly think that being forced out of my comfort zone resulted in my greater appreciation for the relationship between oral and written storytelling.
Works Cited:
“Genesis 3:1-16 The Fall.” Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3:1-16&version=NIV.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2010.
“Western Animation / Good Angel Bad Angel.” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GoodAngelBadAngel/WesternAnimation.
Hi Eva!
I really enjoyed your story and its creative reinterpretation of the “angel on your shoulder” motif. I’m curious about why you chose “the Voice” to be the evil influence, and “the Other Voice” to be a holy or good influence. Why is it that goodness is “other” in your story, not evilness?
Regarding the mixing of written and oral forms, do you think that when creative writing in the future you will continue to read your story aloud? Do you think that a requirement for a good story is its ability to be engaging when read aloud, or do you think a well-written story should remain independent from its oral version? I’m curious to hear your thoughts!
Although you noted that you found this assignment quite challenging, I think you did a great job! It spurred my thoughts for sure 🙂
Hi Georgia,
Thanks for your comment and interesting questions!
I knew I didn’t want to call them the Good Voice and Bad Voice because that felt too binary and obvious. I wanted the assignment of the good/evil to be a little bit more obscure and arbitrary. As well, I imagined that there wasn’t a need for a “good voice” until there was temptation from the “bad voice”. Therefore, the good voice was “other” simply because it came secondary to the bad voice. I thought that if the good voice had appeared first, there wouldn’t be as much of an incentive for another voice to counter its influences.
I really like your question about potentially continuing to read my stories aloud. I hadn’t considered it before. I think it would depend on the story and on my intended audience. I certainly will consider it more than I would have before this assignment.
As for your question about whether a good story should be engaging when it is read aloud or whether it can remain independent from its oral version is also very thought-provoking, I think it cannot be answered without considering whether a requirement for a good oral story is that is must be engaging when written. I suppose my answer would be no, it is not a requirement. It seems unlikely that a good oral story that has spanned generations could be condensed into written text in a way that shows the true depth of its significance and history. Likewise, a large complex written narrative (I’m imagining the Lord of the Rings series) would be difficult to convey in as much detail when shared verbally. I am sure there are stories that are effectively shared through both mediums but I don’t think that it is a requirement for a text to be deemed good.
Eva
Hi Eva
First I wanted to say that I thought your story was very well-written, I found it very poetic! I thought you definitely elevated the Emperor’s New Groove portrayal haha. Besides in the realm of creativity did you find anything else particularly challenging? Did you find it difficult to stick to King’s purpose as opposed to garnering your own idea of evil? I was curious as if you had any stylistic approach to not naming the said voices! Thank you 🙂
Hi Lisa,
Thanks so much! I think what made the creativity aspect particularly difficult was trying to write something that I felt was original enough. That is why I didn’t use the story of original sin; I wanted to avoid “piggybacking” off of it. And I did find it difficult to stick to King’s connection between evil and the inability to retract stories once they are told. I had to work hard in order to feel that I had portrayed that same idea in a different (and once again, original) way and connected that idea to my story. In the first paragraph of my reply to Georgia’s comment (above) I talked about my approach to the names of the voices! I hope that answers your question.
Thanks again!
Eva
Hi Eva,
I found your adaptation of the story to be very interesting particularly in the way in which you made the story about the collective experience of humanity as opposed to a story of a specific individual like in the original story. Your commentary on the lack of gender of the characters in the Silko story, especially in comparison to the biblical story of Adam and Eve is very interesting. I was wondering what you think the difference in meaning is when a story of humanities temptation to evil is gendered and when gender is specifically removed.
Hi Sophie,
I think there is a lot of historical significance to a story of temptation and evil being gendered or not. Historically, it was much easier for women to be labelled “sinners” than men due to patriarchal structures and ideologies. Remnants of those structures still exist and we still see cases of women being condemned more often than men. I tried to make my story genderless and about evil interacting with humanity as a whole, rather than an individual to try to counter this idea. I believe that all humans are equally suspectable to temptation, regardless of their sex (or, in fact, their skin colour, sexuality, etc) and wanted to try to articulate that in my story.
Thanks for your comment and question!
Eva
Hello Eva,
I was so excited to read your story about the angel on your shoulder. I also surprised that you used Adam and Eve as a motive and changed it into genderless voices. You said, “However, when The Other Voice won, the fractures were stitched back together slightly, and humankind’s words became authentic and good again.” How will the Voice win again to make humankind bad? Also, you said The Voice manipulated humankind with his/her oral languages. Will it be possible to manipulate humankind with written words?
Thanks
JuYeon Roh
Hi JuYeon,
When writing my story I pictured a sort of back-and-forth between The Voice and The Other Voice. I did not want it to seem that one was dominant over the other and so I tried to tell a story in which there is an ongoing battle between good and evil.
I think your question about written words manipulating humankind is very insightful. I believe that written words do have the ability to manipulate humans, just as oral languages do. Hitler comes to mind as an example of evil being expressed through both verbal words (he was said to be a very skilled orator) as well as written words (in his book Mein Kampf).
I hope this answers your questions!
Eva