Why Do We Tell Stories?

Ever since I was able to write, I wanted to tell stories. As a child, I would sit with notepads and pencils and scribble away, writing about people and places that only existed within my own imagination. The stories that I write even now are informed by the stories that I put down on paper all those years ago. But why? Why are so many of us compelled to write about faraway lands and wild adventures?

As a psychologist, I know that there are many different ways to answer that question. We could consider the science of the human brain and its evolutionary drive to recognise pattern and meaning in the world around us. We could consider the social aspect of sharing knowledge and experience as well as building links with those around us. We could also consider the developmental benefits of building empathy and understanding of the perspectives of others. So where do you start?

The History of Storytelling

The earliest known cave paintings date back over 60 000 years. The earliest painting depicting what could be described as a story was found in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and dated to around 44 000 years ago. Back then, homo sapiens and neanderthals were still duking it out for supremacy and human language was in its infancy, so our stories were probably similar to what has been seen in other animals. For example, monkeys have specific calls to indicate certain predators and can combine them to communicate more complex messages. Bees dance with each other to share information about pollen sources and make decisions about search strategies. These are the stories told to help us survive. True tales of where to find food, where our enemies might be, and where might be safe to sleep at night – shared with those who are important to us.

But the stories humans now tell are far more complex than that. So what changed?

The Power of Language

When us humans tell stories, we tell allegories. We share ideas rather than events or locations. We tell stories that teach us how to behave, like The Boy Who Cried Wolf – act like him and no one will trust you. We tell stories that warn against conflict and pride, like Romeo and Juliet – forgive past sins or your children may suffer. We tell stories about coming of age like Peter Pan – childhood is fun but we all must grow up. All of these stories require a level of communication far beyond what we have seen in other animals. They require an ability to use language not just to describe what has come to pass but people and places and events that have never existed and are outside the experience of both the storyteller and the reader.

Many animals’ communication is so far removed from our own that we can never be sure what goes on in their heads, but we do know a little about primates. There are examples from the 1970s to 1990s of primates (like Koko the gorilla, Washoe the chimpanzee and Kanzi the bonobo) who had been taught sign language and human language and learned to communicate with the primatologists working with them. None of them exceeded the level of a young child in terms of their communication level, but they were reported to engage in forms of pretend play, an early stage of the use of imagination. The most common example of this was in pretending that an object was something other than it was. The unique thing about this behaviour was that it was also something linked more with social interaction than with survival – for example, dolphins have been shown to engage in novel behaviours for rewards; and rats have been shown through brain studies to plan out maze routes in their heads before traversing them, again for a reward at the end of it. There is no obvious reward in pretending that a brush is a book, other than in how those around you react to your ‘game’.

But if you’ve spent any length of time with a four year old, you know that object substitution is nothing next to the range of creative play that a human child can engage in. My son regularly creates items out of thin air that he expects me to interact with and tells me that he is off to his grandparent’s house, which is actually a den he’s created in the corner of the room. He pretends to be a shop keeper, a bus driver, a dog. He role plays stories with his stuffed animals – talking for them so that they can hold a conversation.

Humans are likely the only animals in the world who are capable of telling these symbolic tales of fictional events, because we’re the only ones who have developed our language to the level required to do so. As our brains developed into what they are now, they prioritised the use of language, not just to communicate about a tangible past and present, but to imagine other possible presents and futures. The symbolic nature of the language we use allows for our stories becoming symbolic as well. When I say “remember the boy who cried wolf” you know that I don’t trust what you’re saying and my words evoke an idea of the outcome of continuing to lie. When you read the story of a brave hobbit travelling with his companion to destroy a ring, you know that the story is really about the loss of innocence, the dying of the old ways, the importance of friends to support you when challenges stand in your way.

But in the end, our stories, no matter how complex or allegorical, are attempting to achieve the same thing as our animal cousins. They teach us messages about the life that we live, the people we want to befriend and the dangers that we want our children to avoid. They tell us the behaviours that might reap rewards from those around us or warn against behaviours that will lead to harm. They also tell us something about the person telling the story. In much the same way as the bee dancing to tell its companion of a pollen source that only it has found, we are unique in the stories that we’re able to tell. We filter our warnings and our teachings through a frame of reference that only we ourselves have truly experienced.

The Desire To Be Remembered

Which leads me to why I believe that we still tell stories. Why we don’t just rely on the ones already written, the ones shared in our communities so much that they have become symbols in their own right. We tell stories so that people will know who we are and understand the world from our unique points of view. We use them to bond with others, to communicate something about ourselves. We instil our hopes and dreams into words and cast them outward, looking for people who share an affinity for those dreams.

And this is true even of the introverted writers like my teenage self, scribbling away on my own, my work locked away from view. I may have never shared those teenage stories but they were the starting point for other stories, other attempts to reach out and connect with like minded people. And even stories still to be shared, much like the cave drawings on the walls, are written in the hope that one day someone will read what our minds have created and know something of who we were.

Meet the author

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She is also a lover of fantasy in all forms and fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

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