We Are The Stories We Tell Ourselves By Madeleine Thien
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Stories are fundamental to how we see; understand the world and essentially ourselves. We are the stories we tell ourselves. Or, as Thomas King puts it: “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (King 2). From stories of creationism to personal experiences, historical narratives, to social transgression, racist indoctrination to works of contemporary Native literature, a piece of who we are lurks in the details. This piece of us, of who we are has the potential to be both dangerous and at the same time wonderful. In Jack Hodgins’ “Over Here” and Madeleine Thien “Simple Recipe” these stories inform a group’s identity and serve to define who the “other” is. These stories are “dangerous” because they compromise …show more content…
Such stories can pit one group against the other, to dehumanize the other group, to silence the voice of the enemy or the marginalized, and to justify the perpetuation of violence. The danger of a single story is that it creates a microscopic constrained idea about a group’s identity. The title “Over Here” suggests a difference between here and there, in the same approach it suggests the difference between “us” and “them”. The narrator is fixated on stereotypes, stereotypes of the Mayans, Incas, what defines a tramp and especially how Native Indians should be both portrayed and act. He has a romanticized view of the Natives as these primitive, barbaric, courageous, savages: “The Blackfoot, the Iroquois. Burning missionaries at the stake, cutting out hearts, peeling off a living man’s skin. Putting on parties where they gave away everything they owned” (Hodgins 256). The narrator through his ignorance had one story of who the Native Indians were, a single primitive story. The downfall of such stories is that they seek to reinforce the boundaries between us and them, and in doing so there is no possibility of similarity. Merely, if you were to peel the bark back, it would reveal and expose a possibility of a connection as equals. Nettie has been just as much a human and had the right to dream and become who she wanted, without constraint or pressure to follow her roots. Behind all those layers of tradition and history, a single fact remains an undisputed fact that we are all
Stories are fundamental to how we see; understand the world and essentially ourselves. We are the stories we tell ourselves. Or, as Thomas King puts it: “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (King 2). From stories of creationism to personal experiences, historical narratives, to social transgression, racist indoctrination to works of contemporary Native literature, a piece of who we are lurks in the details. This piece of us, of who we are has the potential to be both dangerous and at the same time wonderful. In Jack Hodgins’ “Over Here” and Madeleine Thien “Simple Recipe” these stories inform a group’s identity and serve to define who the “other” is. These stories are “dangerous” because they compromise …show more content…
Such stories can pit one group against the other, to dehumanize the other group, to silence the voice of the enemy or the marginalized, and to justify the perpetuation of violence. The danger of a single story is that it creates a microscopic constrained idea about a group’s identity. The title “Over Here” suggests a difference between here and there, in the same approach it suggests the difference between “us” and “them”. The narrator is fixated on stereotypes, stereotypes of the Mayans, Incas, what defines a tramp and especially how Native Indians should be both portrayed and act. He has a romanticized view of the Natives as these primitive, barbaric, courageous, savages: “The Blackfoot, the Iroquois. Burning missionaries at the stake, cutting out hearts, peeling off a living man’s skin. Putting on parties where they gave away everything they owned” (Hodgins 256). The narrator through his ignorance had one story of who the Native Indians were, a single primitive story. The downfall of such stories is that they seek to reinforce the boundaries between us and them, and in doing so there is no possibility of similarity. Merely, if you were to peel the bark back, it would reveal and expose a possibility of a connection as equals. Nettie has been just as much a human and had the right to dream and become who she wanted, without constraint or pressure to follow her roots. Behind all those layers of tradition and history, a single fact remains an undisputed fact that we are all