It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a single story, may be at risk of misperceptions and misunderstandings. The same could be said for an incomplete story or even, an evil story…
She looked out into the dark night through the water streaked window. The crisp air was beginning to creep in, but there was still time before it would surround her.
The letter in her hand was soft. She had gripped it too tightly, too often.
How could she have been so foolish?
The light flickered, and a chill went up her spine. She gripped the letter once again.
She thought back to the night they first met. She had been meeting friends at the local arts festival. He was there when she arrived, had come to visit her best friend’s new boyfriend, who had been his friend since university. He was proud, and shared his opinion too freely. Offended her too often.
For the next month, her opinion only worsened. He was conceited, standoffish, and did not hesitate to edit his thoughts before speaking the accompanying words. She did not hold back either. She freely shared her own opinions – not to him, but to anyone who would listen. One person listened too well. One person shared a story about him in return. A dark story. An evil story.
This story took root and grew. Like a wild vine, this story invaded every impression, every thought, every interaction with him. She loathed him.
She thought her feelings were apparent. Apparently, not.
His profession tonight caught her off guard. He loved her?! In response to his profession, she noe spoke words without thinking, with unabashed vitriol, passion; she held nothing back.
She thought she would never see him again when he left. How wrong, again, she was.
The words he wrote in the letter shared the other half of the evil story. The story that now seemed even more evil, as he contradicted it entirely.
I have been so blind, so wrong. What a horrible way to learn this lesson. How much did I miss, allowing that story to guide my opinions? How many of my actions were based on the perceptions I formed from those evil words? I have always been proud of my intelligence. How could I have let my actions be shaped by only a few words?
The cold had finally consumed her.
How many others have been drawn in by this evil story? She began to wonder. How many other stories over the course of history have impacted actions, caused confrontations and conflicts? How is it that once a story is told, and takes hold, it perseveres?
The light went out.
Once a story is out in the world, it cannot be called back.
Pride and Prejudice has, for a long time, been my moral guide. It taught me about the power of cognition, and the implications rumour and gossip can have on an opinion. Just like words, our thoughts have power. Over the course of human history, there have been countless stories told to convince others that their way is the right way. That the other is wrong. If we aren’t careful, they will shape our perception into darkness and corrupt our view of the world.
In 1963, Stanley Milgram showed the world the danger of listening to a story; he showed the world how evil works its way into society.
Upon completing this story re-write, I thought of the question King asks us:
Do the stories we tell reflect the world as it truly is, or did we simply start off with the wrong story? Like Silko’s witches in the cave, conjuring up things to impress each other.
Making magic.
Making faces.
Making mistakes. (47)
King compares stories to souvenirs; he considers them “[s]napshots of a moment” (39). Things that we can make tangible – like a tapestry or blanket. Things we might throw away once we are finished. However, he also warns that once we have heard a story – or shared a story – it is part of us. We cannot just throw it away and pretend it has not had some sort of impact in our own lives and others.
What I have come to understand is that story tellers have the power to build relationships, and influence others to see the world a certain way. When I shared my story, I was nervous. There is a certain confidence that comes with being a story teller. We have those who – like myself writing this adaptation of King, Silko, and Austen – may not quite have enough confidence; who second guess their story, wonder if it should be shared (is it good enough to be shared?). Then there are the others, who have perhaps too much confidence. Who tell a story without thinking everything through.
Storytellers have a responsibility to the written word as well as their listeners/readers. How they choose the path of the story, how they present, and how they edit. As a storyteller, it is important to remember that once a story is out in the world, it cannot be called back.
Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger Of A Single Story”. Youtube,
uploaded by TED, 7 October 2009. https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg.
Accessed 2 February 2021.
Austen, Jane. “Pride and Prejudice”. The Complete Novels of Jane Austen:
Seven Great English Classics. Penguin Books, 1996.
Jhangiani, Rajiv and Tarry, Hammond. “Affect, Behaviour, and
Cognition”. Principles of Social Psychology, 1st International Ed. BC
Campus, N.d., https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/affect-
behavior-and-cognition/. Accessed 3 February 2021.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. eBook. House of Anansi Press Inc.,
2011. Halifax Public Libraries.
Mah, Hailey. “Sharing The Art Of Musqueam Weaving: Leila
Stogan”. Museum of Anthropology UBC. 2 May 2019.
https://moa.ubc.ca/2019/05/sharing-the-art-of-musqueam-weaving-
leila-stogan/. Accessed 2 February 2021.
McLeod, Saul. “The Milgram Shock Experiment”. Simply Psychology. 2017.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html. Accessed 3 February
2021.
Silko, Leslie. Ceremony. Viking Press, 1977.
“Storyweaving (2012): The Inspiration For Weaving Reconciliation: Our
Way”. Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way. N.d. http://weaving-
reconciliation-our-way.ca/storyweaving/. Accessed on 1 February
2021.
Wonderful post! I love Adichie’s Ted Talk – I studied it in a seminar I took about life narratives and autobiography – we were examining the implications of self-narrative and the memoir genre as blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction, life and character. Your story is about just that – about the contradictions between story, the dangers of focusing so exclusively on a single narrative (or even a single interpretation of a narrative) until miscommunications arise.
Jane Austen’s work is often concerned with just that – failures of communication and a convergence and divide between different forms of communication. I’m thinking now particularly of Persuasion’s letter scene. Wentworth can only write his feelings even when he is in the same room as Anne.
We can also examine the differences in orality and literacy in your story (and, by extension, in Austen’s stories) in the symbol of the letter, a most powerfully intimate expression of the written word. Letters are a highly detached form of dialogue, moreso than today’s forms of instant digital communication. And yet one could argue letters are in fact *more* intimate than the online written word – letters require a great deal more care to be put into them as a physical extension of the writer, and as inward recreations of the storyteller’s life narrative, the epistolary form is prized by authors for its ability to create a unique form of intimacy between reader and narrator. And nowadays the epistolary novel is being taken to in new directions through its digitalization – the inclusion of text messages, blog posts (like ours!), emails, etc. More and more we’re seeing a breakdown of traditional boundaries between the written and spoken word, between old forms of writing and new forms, and these exercises of writing blog posts with hyperlinks and dialogues are great examples of this.
A Writer’s Mag page about the epistolary novel in the modern era, by Jan Petro-Roy: https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/fiction/epistolary-novels/#:~:text=Novels%20written%20in%20an%20epistolary,character%20and%20presented%20as%20memories.
Hi Leo, thank you for your response! Your thoughts have been wonderful to read.
The seminar sound like it would have been great to experience. I have a big interest in autobiographies, autoethnographies, and self-portraits (they offer one such excellent insight to the self through story!)
I have thought the same of Jane Austen: she explores well the trials and tribulations of interpersonal (and intrapersonal) relationships. I also particularly like your connection to orality and literacy; I did not make this connection with the letters (which I agree are frequent in Austen’s work) but as you mention, it is a great example.
The epistolary – like fan fiction, which Victoria mentions within her 1.3 blog – is a fun way to explore the roles of storyteller and reader/listener. The more modern examples that you mention are also excellent (thank you for the link to ‘The Writer!), and I particularly love these versions for the middle and secondary classrooms, as it helps students to connect more with the story; helps to connect them with the storyteller.
Hi, Samantha! This is a very cool re-imagination of the “Pride and Prejudice” story. I appreciate how you zeroed in on this idea of cognition, and the power of stories to affect our perception of the world, for better or worse. This aspect of stories is double-edged, as can be seen in your narrative. Reading it made me think about how stories don’t always take the form we might expect them to–they may even be insidiously disguised as the truth, as in with gossip and rumours. At the same time, “hidden” narratives can be positively generative; what is society, after all, but a series of stories we have naturalized, told ourselves about the world and humanity? I think what differentiates “good” and “bad” stories, in this case, has less to do with truth or deception and more to do with intention and consequence.
All this makes me wonder how best to develop “story literacy,” or perhaps more generally, critical thinking skills… In today’s world, the ability to detect mis/disinformation is more vital than ever!
Hi Grace, thank you for your feedback! Double-edged stories is exactly what I was going for.
Your wondering about developing ‘story literacy’ is really something great. Within the various education programs, there is often the discussion of developing critical literacies and helping students to achieve this. This term – story literacy – is definitely an important one to develop! It is also one that is not often mentioned (or at least has not been in the most recent resources I have read). Like Chamberlin mentions in chapter six, his mother would say that the place of story and song is “where things happen that don’t”. He continues on to talk about this being a border, and warns that we may sometimes miss the border when hearing/reading another culture’s story or song (ch. 11). We may miss determining what is real or not real. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!