The Storytelling Animal By Jonathan Gottschall

Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal is a novel full of controversy, fact, anecdotes, and personal experiences of Gottschall himself and his daughters. Throughout the entire story, readers are enlightened and perceive things differently with a new perspective on how fiction and stories really shape our lives and behavior. What Gottschall is constantly trying to tell us is to always read and watch fiction whether it is reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a song. As we read the first couple of pages, we start to doubt the author; however, as we read more, we soon start to doubt ourselves and wonder if reality and truth are really what they are in our lives and past. With so much uncertainty as to what we believe, we also start to question whether or not fiction prepares us for the real world and our personal struggles.
Fiction affects our behavior and how we live out our lives based on what characters in stories do that, in turn, motivate us to be just like them.
As a result, according to Gottschall, we are following the “problem simulation theory” (63) where our brains are rewired and store up information based on fiction that will “prepare us and act as solutions for future obstacles.” (64) As well, he mentioned that we are in a “continuous immersion in fiction problem solving,” (63) which is what he uses to support his theory on problem simulation. Through fiction, we learn of a character’s obstacles and how they overcome them and apply that to our lives to remedy similar issues. With this, we then let different types of fiction play a role in our everyday lives since every day comes with a new struggle and
obstacle. Fiction does not prepare us for real-life situations and problems. Although it does sometimes, it mostly leads people into the wrong direction away from the solutions for their issues. This correlates with the unnamed critics Gottschall mentions who believe that “fiction can make a terrible guide for real life.” (64) A prime example is with the Disney Princess Theory where Disney princess movies influence a girl’s behavior in which they can only date “the one” and have “unrealistic perceptions of love.” In 1980, Mark Chapman killed John Lennon after shooting him. His reason for doing such a heinous act was because he was a Christian who didn’t want children to follow the ways of Lennon who was an atheist. The book that inspired him to save the minds of children from Lennon’s beliefs in atheism was Catcher in the Rye. This book also gave way to two other recorded people who became assassins and said that they were inspired to do what they did through the book. As a result, fiction does not always help us in real life because it creates an idea that we should follow the life of a certain character when real life is not about overcoming an obstacle and then having a happy ending or forever after. As human beings, we constantly have issues in the way of different goals, and fiction fixates us on a small spectrum compared to the grand scheme of it all. Some stories often take an extreme course of action, which is not really needed for today’s situations. Just like literature and technology, obstacles and issues are always changing to adapt to the current times, so stories from long ago might not always have the best solution as to how we overcome an obstacle or how we live our lives.