The truth about stories. PDF

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It is about the truth about stories by Thomas King...

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Name: Charles Ayodele Course: ENGL 101 Instructor: David Hewitt Date: 11/19/2020 The truth about stories In the article ‘The Truth About Stories,' Thomas King explains how stories can help us shape and make us understand what we are currently. Again, it helps us interact and understand other people. Through his experiences, historical tales to social injustice, and the propaganda pertaining racist, Thomas Kings investigates in depth through storytelling. He begins by sharing his childhood stories especially those that helped him shape his life. King mostly focused on two myths stories that influenced his way of thinking. Firstly, Judeo-Christian story that is believed to be from Genesis and another one from the Native tale that describes a woman who fell from the sky. Thomas uses visual and narrative strategies to show that the indigenous people are part of the projects. He used the various personal experience to illustrate how in different parts of the Western countries, indigenous people are part of colonialism project. He describes his life as when he was a child in California, again when he was learning in Canada, and in his Native North America using various discussion stories that were told about Indian people. Thomas illustrates that there are so many stories that are told about Indians and in one of his quote, "there is no reason for the Indian to be real. The Indian simply has to exist in our imaginations." (Kings). However, King reminds his readers that whether native or non-native, storytelling when

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read has both responsibilities and moral lessons to the society that we are living. He supported his response ‘Don't say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You've heard it now’ (Kings). Thus, it is always good to read most of the storytelling stories as it carries morals that can be emulated in the society. In another instance, King uses stories from the work of James Fennimore Cooper, such as Choctaw-Cherokee-Irish writer the experiences that Louis Owen gained while working in one farm that was located in California. It is through this story that King shows clearly how stories have changed and shaped how we relate to others in our society. Also, in the comparison between Judeo-Christian and original creation story, King begins with a big picture of comparing the two stories. In the aboriginal tale, the author starts by introducing talking animals. In one of his quotes from the article, ‘What about human beings? Said the animals. Do you think we need human beings? Why not? Said the Twins. And as quick as they could the right-handed Twin created women and the left-handed Twin created men. They don't look too bright, said the animals. We hope they won't be a problem. Don't worry, said the Twins, you guys are going to get along just fine.’ (Thomas King, the Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative) This gives the reader an opportunity to talk about society as sophisticated while aboriginal society being primitive. In comparing the scenario with that of the Judeo-Christian perspectives. Thomas response of the

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two stories is that the first one on aboriginal was implying the social cohesion while the second one represented the Western society whom they believed that violence is unavoidable. In another instance, King creates humor to his readers who were reading the story, and he used sarcasm throughout the story. With the aim of speaking about the western cultures, he used to talk animals. His story creation animals speak of ‘compression, velocity, displacement, and mass' as there was falling of the first women from the sky. His response to this original story is that it does not have real moral lessons that one can emulate them, rather he calls some of the best stories ‘saving stories' which helped him during his time of failure. However, something that is unique of his stories is that they also different each time because people understand them uniquely each time that they are narrated. Again, in a unique way, King pointed out the absurdity of determining validity by using different markers, for instance, tribal enrollment. Towards the end of the novel, King illustrates an example of the government of Canada in which it tried to enroll some few aboriginal individuals as status Indian, claiming that the government is attempting to ‘authorize out of existence' the native people. Therefore, people should always carefully select the stories that they create especially about other ethnicities as it may affect them. King in his sentiments proved this, ‘you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told.’ (King). However, ‘The Truth about Stories’ is such a good book because it helps us understand that we can create a better world if we think and create good stories rather than creating dangerous one as King illustrates it, ‘Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous’. (King) The good

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thing about any given story is that we always get the world that we imagine after reading them. Thus, we can ever get to the world that we still want.

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Works Cited King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: a Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2010, ccbc, ccbcmd-bb.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-10429951-dt-content-rid47353655_1/courses/ENGL101.91514.202091/5.%20King%2C%20You%27re%20not%20the%20Indian %20I%20had%20in%20mind%281%29.pdf....