Summary of the truth about stories

Summary of the truth about stories
Student:
Professor:
Cause title:
Date:
Summary of the truth about stories
In The Truth About Stories, scholar and Native novelist Thomas King explores how stories shape us, how we interact with others and how we understand them. Moreover, it also explores how stories shape our perceptions of the world. From personal experiences to creation stories, social injustices to historical anecdotes, works of contemporary Native literature to racist propaganda, the author probes Native culture’s strong ties to storytelling. Using a collection of thought-provoking essays, the author examines the importance of the oral tradition. He begins and ends all, except one chapter in the same way and using the same words. This way, he instills a sense of thoughtfulness and continuity in the text, forcing the reader to consider stories from a new angle.
From a bigger picture, King compares the Judeo-Christian creation story and an aboriginal creation story. The aboriginal creation story introduces talking animals. From the use of “chatty fish and friendly rabbits” in the aboriginal literature, I tend to label Aboriginal societies as simplistic. However, the animals are quite sophisticated and speak of a world where cooperation and solidarity are the norm, chaos is turned into organization, and where the world is shared, and it reminds me of the importance of social cohesion in our societies. This is in contrast with the individualism, hierarchy, and organization into chaos of the Judeo-Christian worldview. In a segment on identity, the author points out the nonsensicality of using colonial markers for instance in determining authenticity. In the final chapter, King decries the attempts by the Canadian government to enroll fewer people from the Aboriginal community as status Indians; Kings states that the Canadian government tries to “legalize native people out of existence”, asking, “Who will sing for us? Who will danc...