The Idyllic Village
I have a great story to tell. A long time ago, there was a small village – this village was far away from any other village. The village, nestled in mountain ranges and bordering the large ocean, was warm all of the time and the sun never stopped shining. The village people were kind to one another, they helped each other. It was the type of place where something like locks did not have to exist and where neighbours helped their neighbours. In this village lived a family: two parents and their five-year-old son, David. This family was the happiest family you have ever seen, they were always dancing, singing, and laughing. They were a perfect family. This village was a happy place – you can think of it like modern-day Disneyland – the “Happiest Place on Earth”.
You will never believe what happened to the village. One day, a new man, with matted hair, a long beard, and dressed in all black, arrived in the village. He did not look like the villagers – his face held a scowl, much different than the usual smile all of the villagers had on their faces. But, the villagers, kind as they were, welcomed him. They fed him, bathed him, and housed him. They cared for him. Until, one day, the sky became gloomy, something the villagers had never seen, and the man quickly gathered all of the villagers’ food and ran off in the distance. The villagers could not chase him, for he was far too fast for them. They had no food left.
The family and the other villagers were shocked. They had never known anything like this to happen. David, hungry for dinner, tentatively asked his mom “Why did the man take our food?”. She replied, slowly and carefully, “David, my dear, I do not know. It seems that some people do bad things.” David, confused, asked why people to bad things. His mom replied that “she would never know.”
As David grew up, he always remembered the man who had done bad to his family. He grew up to wear all black and a scowl on his face, for he wished he could do something to hurt the man who hurt him. When he was a man and he had his own son, he journeyed to the nearest village, far, far away. When he arrived in the village, the sky went dark, and he took the villagers’ food.
David’s son watched him steal the food. When he grew up, he journeyed to another village and stole their food. When David’s grandson was born, something changed. David’s son, knowing the wrong that he had done, told his son, his, and his father’s story, and cautioned that he should not repeat it. His son asked him, “but Dad, can’t you make it like this never happened so I don’t have to worry about it?” His dad quietly told his son, “I cannot take it back. Neither can your grandfather. We cannot stop the evil now that we have started it.”
What did I learn from writing and sharing my story?
This was a very fun exercise for me! I am by no means a frequent or polished writer, it was a lot of fun to take a moral and construct a brand new story around it. Sharing the story was equally enjoyable, as I love performing a good story and seeing the reaction(s).
The first thing I learned through this experience was how powerful morals are. While my story is completely different from the story King shares (King 12), I believe it holds the same moral, illustrating how you can say the same thing through a very different story. Similarly, when I shared my story, one listener interpreted it quite differently than I had written it. The listener said he took the story to be about how in families, patterns of behaviour, especially negative ones, can be passed down like a cycle, and only when the cycle is broken will something change. He said he thought the story could be about alcoholism. This wasn’t something I had not thought about at all when writing or telling the story, but I think it makes a lot of sense. I think his different interpretation shows how the story resonated with him in a different way than it may with anyone else, which is something very special about stories.
The second thing I learned was that telling the story was a great editing tool – I caught lots of sentences that could be phrased better. The first time I told it, I realized that I had changed the name of the main character in the middle of the story (I think because of the fact that the story is plot rather than character-driven).
The third thing I learned is that I am still learning to be a storyteller, especially in written format. Listening to King present the Massey Lectures, he is an eloquent storyteller, and I hope I will learn skills to be more like this throughout this course.
Finally, the fourth thing I learned is how significantly the tone of the story and whether you are reading or listening to the story changes the interpretation (King 22). After this experience, I would strongly agree with King’s statement that “oral stories are so much more”, as I found the listener understood and interpreted my story more deeply than the reader.
Works Cited
“Beautiful Mountainous Village.” Wikipedia Commons. May 2015. Web. 19 Jan. 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beautiful_Mountainous_Village.jpg
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2010. CBC Massey Lectures. Web. 19 Jan. 2020.
King, Thomas. “The 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, “The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative.” CBC Radio. 2003. Web. 19 Jan. 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-2003-cbc-massey-lectures-the-truth-about-stories-a-native-narrative-1.2946870
Noyes, Dan. “Disney Marketing Strategy.” Zephoria. Zephoria Inc, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2020. https://zephoria.com/disney-marketing-strategy/
Wilson, Jordan. “Another Interview with Thomas King.” Canadian Literature. Oct. 2009. Web. 19 Jan. 2020. http://canlit.ca/resources/interviews/21/
grace owens
January 22, 2020 — 4:46 pm
Hi Katarina,
I enjoyed your story adaptation a lot. I think you did a great job of sticking to the moral and theme as well as putting your own spin on it.
Your reflection was very in depth and thought you expressed well what you learned through this assignment, many of which I discovered for myself as well. My question for you is how did you find that sharing a story orally with your friends and family was different from sharing one thats written, say in an email and a text? Did you find they reacted differently? Did you see a difference in telling a story orally such as this, a legend style that is inherently made up versus when you tell them a story about your real day to day life? How was this reaction different?
I noticed some differences for myself in these things so curious what your thought are! Good luck at your conference 🙂
Grace
Katarina Smith
January 23, 2020 — 6:39 pm
Hi Grace!
Thanks for your compliment – I wasn’t completely sure it stuck to the moral so I’m glad you think it did.
I think with the oral sharing, there was more chance to put emphasis and pauses around parts I felt were particularly important, so I think the story was better conveyed than when people just read it. The biggest difference I found was the response: to the digital versions, most people just said: “interesting, good story” or something like that. Whereas when I shared it orally, I got the interpretation response I wrote about in my post. I think this is because it’s easier to share a response orally (because most of us don’t like to type long messages).
As to your question about this story vs. regular day-to-day story I think the response is definitely different. I’m not sure if it’s the content of the story though, I think it’s more the fact that I announced I was sharing a story for a class and wanted him to listen – so there was that understanding of the context that doesn’t exist when talking about day-to-day stories.
Thanks!
Katarina
LisaHou
January 23, 2020 — 2:35 pm
Hi Katarina,
Good luck at your conference! I thought you wrote a great story! I agree with Grace that I thought you really kept King’s original morality for the story. I was wondering about what you said in your second point in the reflection. Besides grammatical or logistical problems, do you feel as though you needed to change a lot of things stylistically? I thought I read your story much like as I were to read a fable of sorts. I also found it interesting that the only name you chose to use was David. Was that an initial choice? I thought it added to my interpretation of the text when I was reading it. It felt purposeful as the story seems to portray the origin of evil or hereby single origin, which passes down through lineage.
Thank you!
Katarina Smith
January 23, 2020 — 6:47 pm
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your good wishes, it’s going well so far!
I didn’t really have to change much stylistically, actually. I wrote the story with the intention for it to be read out loud, so I think it had that style and tone intentionally.
To only use one name was the initial choice. I actually originally wrote it with no names but it got too confusing. This was because it wasn’t supposed to be about the characters, but about the events. So, I used one name to help the reader/listener through it, but the name itself doesn’t have any significance (I thought using a generic name would be good).
The purpose of the origin of evil being related to the lineage was the intention, so I’m glad it came across.
Thanks!
Katarina
Steph
April 17, 2020 — 9:58 pm
Hi Katarina,
Reading your story was an enjoyable experience! In your reflection, you mentioned that one of your listeners understood your story as a reflection of negative behaviour patterns. This is something that resonated with me as well when I read your story. I thought that rather than just about the birth of evil, your story was far more an intricate image of the perpetuation of negativity that is bred through resentment. I have a question for you, why did you include a chance for David’s descendants to right their wrongs? Is there a larger story about that? Did you consider writing an ending where Davids descendants did not repent but rather thrived in their evil acts?