A Rhetoric on Literature

Why do humans tell stories? Sure, the historical ones are to understand why things are the way they are today politically and culturally and to help ensure that we don't make the same mistakes as our progenitors (though it doesn't always work out that way, does it?). But why novels? Why weave stories in galaxies far, far away and spin tales of adventure in far distant lands? Why make tell of something so detached from us that it can hardly relate to our own day-to-day occurrences?
Perhaps we want to escape. We think this life is boring. Daily routines and dull safety and surety make us naively long for some excitement. But what is life to be boring? Should we be entertained by our surroundings? Why not take a break from trying to find excitement elsewhere and create our own here? The world isn't entertaining enough for you? Try entertaining the world. Could that be why we create stories?
Or perhaps we like stories because they have problems that, more often than not, get resolved. The future to us worldly mortals is terrifyingly unsure. We are faced with conflicts and decisions and so many "other hands" to get on! We're afraid of looking back and realizing our choice was wrong. So then a story, all orderly written out, gives us assurance that things will turn out alright. Perhaps they give us hope that our own little climaxes will eventually resolve and we, too, can live live "happily ever after."
Then again, it might be the newness of a fleshly woven tale that captures us: new possibilities and never-before-thought thoughts. I believe we, as sapient beings, are alive in order to learn. It's possible we love stories because they offer the chance of a new experience, the opportunity to learn of an artificially experience in distant lands with unfamiliar cultures and ideas. Maybe if this life isn't teaching us enough, then we need some breath of fresh air to reawaken our yearnings to learn something new.
Maybe we write stories because we hope to teach others. We want to convey a truth with a fictional weaving, the "Moral or the story". Maybe we create characters who experience something or act in some way in extreme, vibrantly colored settings to make our point obvious in order to teach people: make them learn a lesson that is too monochromatic in this real life is for them to see it clearly.
Or maybe fictional stories are really shields we use to fend off the real world. We're so dissatisfied with--even afraid of--own problems or mistakes that we'd much rather listen or read of some one else's woes totally removed from our own. Or it could work the other way. Could stories be more like pillows than total shields, meant to soften the harsh realities of this all too real world? If we could just see a fictitious person handle a conflict successfully, we can then use the character as as our crash-test dummy and feel out the possibilities in how to confront a sort of problem and maybe save some face, too.
Which ever the reason certain people decide to compose a work of fiction and for whatever reason people decide to listen to them, I think stories are good and did not write this rhetoric to slam the classic tales (though maybe the writers and readers a little). This is merely my recorded train of thought. But whatever category you or I fall into, I want you, dear reader of aimless blogs, to know that I love stories. One of my own personal philosophies is that the entire world--nay, universe is made of stories, from the shortest of short stories, to the most eloquent of novels, to the utmost dull of tomes, to the most exciting of epics. I refuse to believe that we humans have imaginations for no eternal purpose.
For now, as far as I can tell, I read and write stories because they help me learn about myself and comprehend how I look at the world (I'm not yet totally sure) and how I think of other people. I think my characters are really only pieces of myself, cut and stretched into seemingly different people. I read and write stories because they are an escape, a little, and padding so I can safely experiment on Life's Great Unknown. They let my push the boundaries, both outward and inward. And yes, I write because it is fun. Nothing is funner--and yes, I said FUNNER--than taking a small, seemingly unimportant thought and spinning it into a full-fledged adventure on the spot. It's fun for me, and I hope it's fun for whoever my audience chances to be at the moment. Which is you. I hope you liked it.

Children After Our Own Heart

This little story is one my two nieces, Gwen and Cecily, told together to their their mom and my sister, taking turns adding to it. It's interesting to see how the plot, despites its holes, unwinds, and the interesting imagery. Gwen is five, and Cecily is three.

C: Once upon a time there was a little girl who had jewelry in a jewel box. It was full of beautiful things: diamonds, rings, and lots of jewels and things to play with and things like princesses have.
G: Then a bad witch took her jewelry away. She took the jewelry and the playful stuff and let her pet dragon eat it. And she took the little girl away.
C: Then her daddy said “Girl! Girl, where are you?”
And her mommy said “I think she was taken by a bad witch.”
And her daddy said “Yes!” They needed to have a net and a sharp thing with a pokey thing on it to poke the dragon and the witch.
G: The witch took the girl to her home that was a bad, bad cave. The cave had spiders and spider webs and rats that climbed all over and skeletons.
C: And the witch had a mean cat with sharp teeth and horrible claws. The girl saw the cat and started to scream. The witch started to drink one bottle of wine.
G: Since the witch drank the bottle of wine, she fell asleep and wouldn’t wake up until the next day. Before she drank the bottle of wine she told the dragon to be in charge and guard the cave door so the girl wouldn’t get out. The cat started to eat yucky, yucky fish. The cat and the fish were black. Then the cat started to fall asleep. The dragon started eating meat and then he fell asleep and the girl could creep away.
C: And then her falled down through the sky and she didn’t know what to do. She landed on a roof. It was the roof of her own house. She didn’t know how to get down, but she had the witch’s wand so she could make a ladder appear and then she went down and went inside the door.
G: Her daddy came in the door. And her daddy said “Where have you been?”
She said “It’s a long story.”
The End