The Power of Stories
Many people tell stories to inform others about themselves. Throughout my life people in my family have told me many stories, and behind each story there is a purpose. The stories I was told growing up were about experiences that people in my family have had or things that I have done. These stories mean a lot to me because through these stories different family members reveal many things about themselves. They want me to understand their ideas, beliefs, or feelings about a certain subject. They want people to praise or admire what they have done or accomplished. Funny stories are told to humor or embarrass someone, usually me. Other stories express that we are not alone in the world, and there are other people, like my aunt, that have had similar experiences.
The first stories that I remember being told were from my mom. She told us stories about her childhood and her times before she had us kids because she wants my siblings and me to know things about her and what she’s done in life so far. My mom loves to tell us stories about her life, and although we tease her every time she starts another story, we like to hear them because it lets us know what she’s all about. Every time we would pass a place where she had lived, we knew we were in for another story that we had already heard a million times before. Then when I went to college she started telling me stories about her college life. She talked about the places she had lived, like her sorority house, and the things she had done while she was there. She mentioned one story about how she and the other sisters would sit out one the roof of their house and listen to their music while out there. The other stories my mom would tell me were about how her...
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... black and blue mark on the tip of it, and had to walk around for a week embarrassed by it. This was a very humiliating thing for me, which they all found very humorous. All of these stories embarrass me to an extent. I am used to them being told but I still cringe when they start in on another story.
As you can see, the stories I was told while growing up did have lessons involved, lessons such as I have a good life and I should be thankful for that, and that I’m not alone in my experiences. Other lessons about how I should approach life and treat others. Some of the stories were just to inform me of things that have happened to people in my family and finally stories to amuse and humor the listener at my expense. They told the stories to pass on what they know, but they know that I have to find things out for myself. Maybe one of their stories can help me out.
In Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, the narrator who is the main character goes through many trials and tribulations.
Stories told to show the past are important because they make people remember the past so they don't repeat it. When there was a console to get the sickness out of Luo by wiping him with “two Branches, one from a peach tree, the other from a willow.” They said to Luo “Only these trees would do”(p34). This shows that they if they had been told that wiping wouldn’t help a sickness, then they mite not of beaten Luo. This also shows that they have lost some civility by not being able to learn form history. Another story told is used to invoke emotions.
The point of stories it to tell a tale and inflict certain emotions onto the reader. Tim O’Brien uses this in his novel The Things They Carried. These stories were fictional but true, regaling his experiences of war. In the last chapter he writes that stories have the ability to save people. He does not mean “save” in a biblical sense, but as if a person saved the progress on a game they have been playing.
Mitchell, Barbara. Between Two Worlds A Story About Pearl Buck. New York: Carolrhoda Books, 1988
In “The Truth about Stories”, Thomas King, demonstrate connection between the Native storytelling and the authentic world. He examines various themes in the stories such as; oppression, racism, identity and discrimination. He uses the creational stories and implies in to the world today and points out the racism and identity issues the Native people went through and are going through. The surroundings shape individuals’ life and a story plays vital roles. How one tells a story has huge impact on the listeners and readers. King uses sarcastic tone as he tells the current stories of Native people and his experiences. He points out to the events and incidents such as the government apologizing for the colonialism, however, words remains as they are and are not exchanged for actions. King continuously alerts the reader about taking actions towards change as people tend to be ignorant of what is going around them. At the end people give a simple reason that they were not aware of it. Thus, the author constantly reminds the readers that now they are aware of the issue so they do not have any reason to be ignorant.
Storytelling was an important way for Native Americans to understand the world around them and help them understand their past. Native Americans of all the tribes passed stories down generation to generation through their words and songs known as oral tradition. Stories were a way to pass their tribal history, customs and the struggles they faced along the way. . They described a strong bond between the Indian and nature, linking the spirit of dead relatives to animals like
Throughout Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, the main character dealt with collisions and contradictions, which at first glance presented as negative influences, but in retrospect, they positively influenced his life, ultimately resulting in the narrator developing a sense of independence. The narrator, invisible man, began the novel as gullible, dependent, and self-centered. During the course of the book, he developed into a self-determining and assured character. The characters and circumstances invisible man came across allowed for this growth.
Barnes, D. W. (2011). Congestible intellectual property and impure public goods. Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, 9(8), 533. Retrieved from http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=njtip
Invisibility serves as a large umbrella from which other critical discussion, including that of sight, stems. Sight and Invisibility are interconnected when viewing Invisible Man. Essentially, it is because of the lack of sight exhibited by the narrator, that he is considered invisible. Author Alice Bloch’s article published in The English Journal, is a brief yet intricate exploration of the theme of sight in Ellison’s Invisible Man. By interpreting some of the signifying imagery, (i.e. the statue on campus, Reverend Bledsoe’s blindness, Brother Jack’s false eye) within the novel, Bloch vividly portrays how sight is a major part of Ellison’s text. The author contends that Ellison’s protagonist possesses sightfulness which he is unaware of until the end of the book; however, once aware, he tries to live more insightfully by coming out of his hole to shed his invisibility and expose the white man’s subjugation. What is interesting in Bloch’s article is how she uses the imagery of sight in the novel as a means to display how it is equated to invisibility
Callahan, John F. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Casebook. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 134-300. Print.
One great story my family has told me is my family's history. My maternal grandmother's parents came to the United States from Ukraine by boat around 1906 or 1907. They initially settled in Export, PA, because they had relatives and friends living there. My grandmother was born in 1921 and was the seventh of eight children. A year after she was born, they moved to Warren, OH, where they stayed until my grandmother graduated from high school. The family's religion was Ukrainian Orthodox. My grandmother grew up speaking Ukrainian and English. Ukrainian was spoken in the home, and English was spoken at school. My grandmother started kindergarten at the age five knowing no English. She picked up the English language from her classmates. My grandmother's family did not own a car. Every Easter, they walked about seven miles to go to church. My grandmother grew up during the depression. She was the only girl in her family to own a doll from a store. All of her sister's dolls were homemade.
Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like."
It’s a known fact that stories are generational. According to Shannon Smith (Author of Native Daughters), she contends “The storyteller would pass down religious motifs and origin stories, building pride and understanding in children. This central power to shape and form the
A time that someone had a single story about me is when I had seen a childhood friend after four months of not meeting them. It was the first months of our ninth grade year and we didn’t attend the same school so when she had asked me what school I attended and I had answered her “ I attend Arlington Collegiate High School.” That's when I saw her face change to an exiled and questioning face my childhood friend had said something that made me feel two emotions “Oh to that smart people school?”.
A personal narrative tells the true story of something that happened to you. Personal narratives is a form of writing in which the writer narrates one experience, event from his/her life. Personal narratives also allow the writer, to share his/her life with others, feeling the things you describe. As a writer, your job is to put the readers in the focus of the action, allowing them to live through an incident or experience.