Narrative Storytelling
As a Context for Clarifying Values and Creating our Cultures
Robert A. White, SJ
Pont. Università Gregoriana
Telling stories is a central and universal activity of all cultures, but it is a "transparent" activity like breathing. We do it continually and we cannot live without it, but only if a person calls our attention to it do we become conscious that we putting an event into a "narrative structure". By narrative is meant the organization of life activities into a pattern of an initial disturbance or problem to be solved, the indication of resistance in solving the problem or even a personified opposition, the clear choice of a problem-solving person or group, the central confrontation of the problem solvers with the resistance and opposition, and, finally the success of the problem solvers and the celebration of the community that the problem is solved. This simplest of accounts of narrative structure can be enormously varied and made far more complex, but the basic pattern remains the form in which we tend to describe our daily activities, especially when there is a question of values and the affirmation of human creativity (Shaw, 1999). When our own personal identity or the survival of the community is in question or, even more so, when there is a question of affirming the GOOD ACTIONS expected of people in our community, then almost unconsciously narrative pattern comes into play.
In pre-literate cultures, that is, where all of the accumulated knowledge of the past must be transmitted to the next generation by oral accounts, virtually all knowledge is stored in the collective memory of the community in the form of stories (Ong, 1982; Goody, 1987). The studies of poetic recitals in communities of contemporary Macedonia reveal the capacity to recount complex histories over a period of days entirely from memory (Ong, 1982: 57-68). What is remembered is the general structure of the story and this is rooted in the universal deep structure of narrative which may be a foundational part of human consciousness.
With the introduction of writing as a form of communication over time and space, the scanning of symbols on a surface employs the eyes far more than oral communication. To grasp meaning the eyes must move in a systematic order to grasp the meaning because the meaning lies in remembering the symbolic ordering code such as an alphabet and grammar. Writing in cultures that are still oral may conserve many of the characteristics of oral forms of memory and communication, but in literate cultures the foundations of an account become other systems of symbols in ever more abstract and analytical layers. Very abstract ideas which summarize the essential universal characteristics of a vast number of different concrete cases, require the knowledge of codes and codes of codes. Also, the subject matter tends to be broken down into parts. For example, if I wish to discover information in a library about narrative forms of thinking, I must know how a library orders knowledge and under what subtheme narrative is located. The mind can no longer remember all of the data in a library, but it is possible to remember the indices or the indices of indices to finally discover the concrete historical case that is referred to.
The studies of the contrasting oral and literate forms of expression highlight the contrasting structures of meaning (Ong, 1982: 31-77):
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ORAL EXPRESSION
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WRITTEN EXPRESSION
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| 1 |
Mode of linking together ideas: |
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Additive |
Subordination of least important ideas to more important ideas |
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Adding one idea to another with the simply "and", usually in narrative
order. |
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| 2 |
The degree of personalization |
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Ideas and values are summarized in terms of concrete persons in
concrete circumstances. |
Impersonal and abstract. |
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The audience is invited to personally identify with the protagonist
and imitate the protagonist. |
The audience is invited to understand the value and to and follow an
abstract ideal of good. |
| 3 |
The agonistic presentation of ideas. |
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Concrete contrast of good and evil love and hate. |
Abstract symbolic codes goodness and evil. |
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The point of reference is a concrete system of interpersonal relations. |
The point of reference is system of ideas based on based on the
principle of non-contradiction. |
| 4 |
The degree of empathy |
|
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Observer is invited to empathize with the people and personified
forces. |
Observer remains a detached observer. |
| 5 |
Degree of emotional involvement |
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The whole person is involved. |
The more analytic observer. |
|
|
|
|
|
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Our argument is not that earlier oral modes of communication tend to disappear
with the advance of literacy and other more abstract codes, but that the two modes exist side by side with quite different roles in society. The oral, narrative modes tend to be associated more with communication of cultural values, formation of personal character and a fundamental personal relationship to the world characterized by trust, love and creativity. The more abstract modes of knowing tend to be associated with more instrumental means-ends forms relationships and with pragmatic control (Ong, 1982: 74-75). If found in equilibrium, both are important and complimentary.
The psychological research of the cognitive psychologist, Jerome Bruner, has suggested that cognition is characterized by two modes of thinking, propositional and narrative. Propositional thinking is logical, analytical and abstract while narrative thinking is imaginative, intuitive and related to concrete contexts. Most important, narrative thinking tends to develop more creative, exploratory ways of dealing with the world (Bruner, 1986; 1973. cited in Shaw, 1999).
Value clarification in narrative modes of expression
The telling of stories is an invitation to the audience to enter into the solution of a problem which the community is experiencing at this time and to explore how this problem might be solved (Tan, 1996: 85-119). The author of the story may present a possible solution, but at each stage of the development of the story the members of the audience are free to think how the story might unfold (Martin, 1986: 161). Often individual members of the audience follow the time-honored standard interpretation of the community, but all individuals tend to imagine successive steps of solution in terms of one's own history, background and personal identity. Each step in the narrative structure is intended to pose for members of the audience a problem that forces a consultation with one's identity about how a solution might be found (Branigan, 1992: 110). At each step of the story each member of the audience is forced to clarify personal values.
It is evident that narrative structure poses problems at a "moral level", that is the level of concern for the personal well-being of the people of the community. Furthermore, the narrative structure accosts persons in terms of their own responsibility and culpability. That is, the way that the members of the audience respond to the problem will contribute directly or indirectly to the well-being of the community. Even if the story is apparently fictitious or represents a quite selective construction of a real event, it is evident that the story is dealing with real and crucial problems that they community is facing at this moment. The degree of involvement of the audience depends on how close to a real personal problem is the story.
The context of storytelling, usually in a real or implied moment of free time when
pragmatic obligations are less important, is most important. The story is always a fictional context which leaves the members of the audience the freedom to respond with their own fantasy. Although there are implied social controls present, the members of the audience are free to be in contact with their own sense of alienation from their truly felt identities and to respond to the sense of "rebellion" against the community. Thus, the members of the audience are faced with a personal moral dilemma at each stage of the development of the story: "Should I respond according to the implied community norm or should I respond to my own feelings of alienation from my identity? Or, should I perhaps affirm my own identity values and seek a process of social and cultural change in the community?" The story always allows a process of courageous creativity, and, often, the protagonist is a person who not only restores community integrity and values, but brings the community to a new stage of realization of its values. Every protagonist is a "reformer" in some sense and invites the audience to a sense of reform.
There are various models of narrative structure suggested by current theories of narrative. One of the most detailed, that of Vladimir Propp, has some thirty-one moments or points in which the action is moved forward (Propp, 1973). A much more contemporary analysis of narrative structure interacts with contemporary cultural questions and problems is provided by the analysis of a television series by Roger Silverstone applying the Proppian schema (1982). Although Silverstone has numerous observations on how the television narrative evokes possible responses in audiences, the recent studies using the method of "audience ethnography" describe in considerable detail how audiences construct the meaning of different stages of a narrative (Fiske, 1987). For our purposes here it is sufficient to suggest take ten stages of narrative structure and to summarize the kind of value clarification that is likely at each stage. Obviously the possible audience responses at a given stage are vast and it is better to speak of the "value dilemmas" that are evoked. The study of audience construction of meaning of each stage of narrative development is still at a relatively incipient stage so that the constructions which are suggested in the following stages, although they are based on considerable research, are better proposed as good hypotheses at the present time.
STAGE ONE: The presentation of a picture of community harmony and happiness
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA:
The audience is called to affirm the values of the community as the foundation of happiness in life and happiness of the whole community together. Implicitly the values are presented as "commandments" that the community should follow and only if the members of the community respect these values (commandments), is there assurance that all will be well. The harmony is presented as an established moral order that is not just a cultural construction, but is rather part of reality itself that human actors must accept.
Although the story teller invites an affirmation of the community
values, the story is being told in a moment of doubt and questioning. The opening scene of the story affirms values, but presents also the dark cloud of the oppressive community in the background.
STAGE TWO: The introduction of a "moral violation", that is, a violation the clearly established moral order as the disturbance of equilibrium and the introduction of a problem to be solved.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: The action of the story is set in motion by the sense of identification with the person who violates the community norms. The sense of guilt of the members of the audience is awakened. The audience recognizes its own weakness and capacity to violate the norms of the community. The audience begins to ask why the members of the community in the story have violated a norm, and the audience is now facing the mystery of evil. The sense of confusion grows and the audience realizes that this internal moral weakness requires some outside help which uphold the harmony and happiness of the community.
3. STAGE THREE: Once the violation of moral norms occurs, the sense of conflict, confusion and despair begin to grow. People are accusing each other of being the cause of the malaise in the community.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: Some members of the audience defend themselves with the argument that in a situation of such moral confusion, there can be no certainty of right and wrong. Others question the values of the
community. The righteous remnant of the community feels bewildered, and uncertain.
4. STAGE FOUR: In the context of confusion there is introduced into the story the personification of the opposition of the values of the community, the
villain. The villain sets out to rally those who reject the values of the community and to accuse the righteous of being the real cause of the problem.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: In a well-constructed story which is close to the reality of the audience, the villain is a truly attractive and convincing
character who represents a very plausible solution to the community problems. The villain appeals to the desires of creative change, progress, rationality, compassion over rigidity, and a sense of humanity. Every member of the audience must feel the pull of identification with the villain. Yet, a deeper sense of morality
suggests the evil of the villain. A deeper discernment reveals the absolute destruction of the community in the plan of the villain. This is the moment of deep uncertainty which forces the members of the audience back on their traditional rules of discernment about the causes of good and evil in the situation.
Whatever the feeling of the audience regarding the villain, the
villain clarifies the anti-values that are within the community and within the personalities of the members of the community. At least regarding the problem with which this story deals, the members of the community see with greater clarity than ever before the real dilemma of values and the choice that must be made. The evil begins to be apparent, especially as the members of the audience see the development of the evil actions of the villain.
5. STAGE FIVE: A prophetic remnant of the confused community experiences a mysterious and profound sense of discernment and clarity regarding the true values of the community. This remnant selects a person who represents as far as possible the values of the community or, at least, an unwavering commitment to fight for the values of the community and to face the villain with unflinching courage. There may be a dispute
in the prophetic remnant regarding who should be the potential hero and
doubt remains, but there is certainty that somehow the evil, the confusion
and the desires of the villain to destroy the community must be removed.
In this context of uncertainty but also hope against hope, the hero sets
out with the solemn mission of the prophetic remnant.
The person chosen to be a hero is often of lower-status background, even physically weak. On the one hand all in the community can identify with the hero, and, on the other hand, any victory of such a paradoxical hero can only be attributed to moral strength.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: At this point the audience must feel the greatest suspense and uncertainty. Somehow this hero must help us solve our real problems in the real world. There is deep identification with the hero for several reasons. The hero represents the deepest values of the members of the audience, the desire to restore community and to live in community. The audience identifies with the weakness and imperfection of the hero, but also with the courage and loyalty to the community exemplified by the hero. In the hero the audience discovers its own sense of hope even with the realization of sinfulness and transgression.
6. STAGE SIX: The hero has the first direct encounter with the villain, but in the encounter the weaknesses of the hero are revealed and the hero is almost defeated. The hero retreats or, perhaps, the hero is trapped, imprisoned and falls into the power of the villain. At this point, the power of the evil kingdom is at its highest, and there even seems to be a loss of hope. The only hope that is maintained is the fidelity of the hero to the mission received and the fidelity to the values of the prophetic remnant of the community. At this point, the hero recognizes his or her own weakness, and, in a sense, cries out for help to the spirit of the community. It is at this point that the protagonist of the story undergoes a powerful cleansing experience. The anti-values of the community are fully recognized and there is, in some sense, a full sense of repentance or, at least, a sense of repentance of the community as a whole. The original violation is recognized. At this point the evilness of the villain is fully revealed and this confirms the belief of the prophetic remnant in their own intuition of values.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: At this point the audience lives the experience of weakness, repentance and recognition of the need for help beyond the natural human strength of the of the audience and beyond the culture. This is the most truly religious moment of the experience the audience. At the same time, the audience is confirmed in its fidelity and loyalty to the community. The audience now realizes that the root of the problem and disturbance lies in its own weakness and incompleteness.
7. STAGE SEVEN: At this point the cry of the hero and the cry of the whole prophetic remnant for help is heard and the "spirit of the community" in the form of a wise person or intermediary or perhaps a person of superior magical powers comes to the help of the hero. The intermediary may give some physical help to defeat the villain, but above all the intermediary represents wisdom and clarity of values that remedy the remaining doubts, and moral weakness of the protagonist. The wise person counsels fidelity to the values of the community and explains to the protagonist why he or she is weak and discouraged...why the hero was almost defeated. The intermediary is the most clearly "religious" figure of the story because this person comes from beyond the culture and represents transcendent values. By this contact with the intermediary, the hero and all of the community return to their religious, transcendent roots and begin to draw power from this source.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: At this point the audience enters into a mystical, transcendent moment. There is a moment of "prayer" and communing with the religious depths of the human spirit as the audience is united with the "spirit of the community". The audience feels a mysterious injection of deep faith in the values of the community. The audience, along with the protagonist makes a great "leap of faith" in the power of the transcendent to overcome the evil that has been let loose in the community and which is personified in the antagonist. The audience is now open to a transcendent voice and drinks in the wisdom of the intermediary as the solution to their own problems. But this is a "leap of faith" on the part of the audience, and there is part of the feelings of the audience of skepticism or even fear to make this move. There is now the awareness on the part of the audience for the need for conversion. For those who move ahead with the protagonist, the path is clear, but for all some doubt.
8. STAGE EIGHT: The definitive encounter of the protagonist with the evil personified. In this moment, morally reinforced by the understanding of his or her moral deficiency, the hero encounters the villain and discovers the weak point of the villain in the moral perversity and evil. The apparent power of the villain is shown to be weakness because there is no real sense of community and love there. The villain has power only because of fear, falsity, and the ability to cover over the evil with a mask. All of the superior physical power of the villain is shown to be weakness, and it simply collapses the face of the goodness of the protagonists and the true values of the prophetic remnant. The final battle between the protagonist and the personification of evil is a moral battle in which the certainty and clarity of the values of love and community shine forth with absolute brilliance.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: At this point their should be no doubt in the audience regarding the values of the community. The audience may still have some doubt about the power of their values as the protagonist goes into the final battle with evil. There may be some consternation in the audience as the realization dawns that something of the evil of the villain is in the members of the audience and that this evil is now fully revealed as weakness and villainy. If there was some doubt, there must now be a fully humble recognition of how wrong some of the members of the audience were in the moment of confusion.
9. STAGE NINE: The hero returns to the fearful prophetic remnant triumphant and totally purified to give courage to the community. The issues of struggle are now, at last, fully clear and the hero is able to explain to the community why he had to suffer and why this terrible episode happened. There is now far more clarity regarding the weakness of the community but also regarding the values of the community. The community has been immensely strengthened through it all, and the bonds of community are re-established better than ever before.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: At this point the audience must feel vindicated and quite triumphant, but many people and part of all people will still be, mysteriously, doubting Thomases. Typically, many people will not have quite "seen the point" of the story, in part, because of their own moral and spiritual blindness. It is at this point that discussion among the members of the audience is often very beneficial (Brown, 1994). The plot of the story, after the final encounter, now seems much clearer.
10 STAGE TEN: With the return of the hero and the purification of the community the bonds of the community are symbolically celebrated in a great banquet. In the classical folktale, the hero is married to the princess. The hero has triumphed through moral integrity. The princess represents the long line of the community. In this marriage, the community moral strength and the beauty of this community's values are united. We now see the community united and purified, far more wise after this terrible lapse and terrible moral battle. Often, the greatest change portrayed in the community is the greater humility of the community and recognition that through the help of the intermediary the bonds of community have been strengthened.
AUDIENCE VALUE DILEMMA: The audience has passed through the catharsis of the story with far more internal integration. There is general satisfaction that the values of the community have been vindicated, but also tested and made much more clear. As the members of the audience leave the atmosphere of the story and return to everyday pragmatic life, they have much more clarity regarding values. The image of the purified hero remains the consciousness of the audience. There is a renewed commitment to give one's energies to building bonds of community.
Storytelling as a context for renewal of personal responsibility to community
This analysis of the personal experience of storytelling has so far emphasized the interaction between the textual structure of narrative and the psychology of the audience. The context of story telling, namely leisure time away from work, is also a factor in the experience of story both in personal lives and in the formation of cultures.
In the initial section of this paper, the distinction between narrative and analytic modes of thought suggests that narrative tends to be related to leisure-time when the person or the community withdraws to reflect on life more generally while analytic modes tend to be related to contexts that require more pragmatic control. The thought of Victor Turner on the ritual experience in moments of leisure helps to clarify this distinction (1969). Turner found, in a lifetime of research on the nature of ritual, that virtually all cultures define certain "ritual spaces" in which people withdraw from the more pragmatic routines of life to renew the bonds of community, renew the great utopian goals of a society and to regain a sense of one's own personal identity and vocation. Whereas the pragmatic spaces of a culture stress the mobilization of persons in tight organization and rational means-ends efficiency to achieve the pragmatic goals of a society, ritual moments provide a symbolic context in which everyone becomes equal and the poetic, imaginative side of human existence comes into play. Turner called these ritual spaces the experience of liminality, from the Latin limen or threshold, implying that ritual creates a threshold between the world of work (which he termed societas) and the more utopian world (communitas) when communities can renew their deepest values. The liminal spaces are not meant to be a world in themselves, but rather a place of retreat from the context of societas
to an "in-between" symbolic world, in order to return to societas with a renewed vision.
Ritual is a prime means of transmitting cultural values from one generation to another. Turner began his study of ritual with the initiation rites of young men and women and of chiefs in the pre-literate societies of Zambia. As young people approached adulthood, they were taken to the forest (the site of the sacred) to be instructed in the great stories of the founding of the community in order to return to the community with a sense of responsibility for carrying on the community into future generations.
Story telling in various modes forms an integral part of the experience of liminality. In his book, From Ritual to Theatre, Turner shows how all religious rituals include a recounting of the great mythic stories of a community and the invitation of the community to see itself on the stage of this history created in the alliance of this people with the divinity. Through ritual the community become co-creators of this history with the transcendent. All rituals include an element of drama, singing and story telling. In more complex cultures, the drama tends to become more elaborate and more differentiated from the religious ritual as such. Drama, storytelling, poetry retain, however, the original meaning of bringing the community onto the stage of history and inviting them to be the co-creators of the community. Theatre is an exploration of the problems of meaning in a more complex culture in relation to the ultimate parameters of meaning in that culture.
The little stories of folktale may be related more to the comic, entertaining moments of life, but all folktales are rooted in the great mythic story that recounts the origin and destiny of a people. In one of his final essays, Turner wrote about television as a type of liminal experience but what he called "liminoid". That is, popular film and television are spaces to explore the meaning of our lives and our cultures, but on a much more limited scale. What television gains by being closer to the everyday problems it looses by not giving as much attention to the grand overarching questions of meaning of a culture.
Silverstone, in his application of Levy-Strauss's concept of myth-making to television, suggests that the primary cultural function of television is very much like the role of myth-makers in pre-literate cultures in that it takes the strange, the new and what seems to be transcendent and weaves this into the structure of common sense (1982). The purpose of myth is to help us make sense out of the world and to tie all knowledge into the great history of our people.
Storytelling as a means of renewing our cultures
A culture may be described as an organized system of meanings that helps us to make sense out of the situations in which we live. All cultures, pre-literate and literate, are constantly facing changing situations which presents new problems of meaning. For the human person, a situation without meaning is truly terrifying.
Story telling, in the context of ritual spaces, is the site where we are able to pose the questions of meaning and, through the explorations of the characters of our stories, make sense out of the world in which we live. Thus, storytelling is important not only in the socialization of the young into the culture, but also as a means of making more systematic our explanations of the world we live in. Indeed, the most important sites for the creation of satisfying cultures may not be the world of pragmatic industry and government, but in the relaxed poetic and dramatic context of our storytelling.
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Bruner, Jerome (1973) Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing ed. Jeremy Anglin. New York: Norton.
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Goody, Jack (1987) The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge: Cambridge
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