In King’s novel The Truth about Stories King goes through two different creation stories. One about how God created Earth using words and how he put Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden where Eve eats the forbidden fruit. The other story is about Charm who falls down from the sky while pregnant with twins. She creates the world out of mud with help from a bunch of different animals from the water. I think that King creates dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories because of how different the stories are and how widely known the “Genesis” story is. There is also a very big difference between both stories. The “Genesis” story has a lot to do with power and punishment whereas the story about Charm and the animals is about coming together to create something beautiful. I think that King emphasizes the believability of the “Earth diver” story over the genesis story to further show the difference in components that make up the stories. The “Earth diver” story is about diversity and coming together whereas the “Genesis” story is about one almighty being, this is is a great example and use of a dichotomy. I believe that King used a story telling voice when talking about Charm because it makes the story sound more magical even though it does not seem believable in my mind. I also think he did this because the story itself is more about collaboration which is more upbeat and lively. I think that King puts both stories into a tidy row to show us that even though people do not hear about the “Earth diver” story as often as we hear the story of the “Genesis” it does not mean that what is more popular is more right than what is not heard as often. I think King is trying to show us different perspectives and different ways to think about creation and how we became on his Earth.
Works Cited:
Creation Stories, www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSSummation.html.
Hodge, Bodie. “Was the Forbidden Fruit an Apple?” Answers in Genesis, 29 June 2010, answersingenesis.org/adam-and-eve/was-the-forbidden-fruit-an-apple/.
Hi Megan,
I enjoyed reading your perspective on King’s two creation stories, as I chose to write on that myself this week as well.
In your response I notice that you mentioned multiple times about the Genesis story being one with an almighty leader, that is punishing and not as “magical” as the “Earth Diver” story, however then you also go on to say it’s less believable. My question for you is do you think if the “Earth Diver” story had been told in the same way and less magically that you would have found it more believable? Do you think that is a frequent problem in our society around first stories?
Interested in your response,
Grace 🙂
Hello, I do think that a the way creation stories are told helps make the story more believable. However, I do not think I would find the Genesis story any more believable if the Earth diver story was told the same way. I am not a religious person by any means, the Earth Diver story felt more believable because the creation came from the land and came from collaboration rather then one mighty being being the creator of all.