Category: storytelling

A blog about the many ways in which psychology and writing intertwine.

The feral child archetype: stories and themes in real life and fiction

What is an archetype?

In a previous post, ‘What is a story?’, I talked about Christopher Booker’s seven proposed story archetypes. These archetypes describe the narrative structures that are most commonly seen in the stories that we tell. Brooker’s ideas were informed by the psychiatrist Carl Jung, who introduced the concept of a collective unconscious, an ancestral memory of different concepts that influence our behaviour and which echo across the world in our stories. Jung’s focus was on the development of the human psyche and, as a result, his proposed archetypes tended to focus more on characters rather than narratives. While some of his work might seem outdated now, these characters still persist within our stories.

The wild child through history

Most people will be familiar with the concept of the feral child. A child who has lived from a young age without human contact, usually raised by animals to connect with the wisdom of the wild. This concept can be found in literary fiction and in mythology across the world.

Enkidu, a character from the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, is the oldest known example of a wild man. He was created by the goddess of creation and roamed free with the herds. When he copulates with a prostitute, the animals smell the human scent on him and reject him, forcing him to learn the ways of humankind. Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome, are well-known by their story of having been suckled by a wolf before being adopted by a shepherd and his wife. The Iranian šāhnāmeh (‘Book of Kings’) has Zaal, a mythical king who was rejected by his father and raised by a simurgh until his father realised the error of his ways.

A more modern example is Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’, although many will also be familiar with him from the Disney adaptation. The book’s story is one of a boy who is abandoned and finds himself part of both human and animal worlds. His last story, before he departs from the jungle to live with Man as an adult, talks about Mowgli’s sadness and tears, something that separates him from his animal companions. While he accepts that he belongs in the world of Man, this acceptance can be seen as a loss, much like children have to give up aspects of freedom and play to grow into adults.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, on the other hand, is a tale of escapism from the perspective of a masculine White man who is stronger, faster and smarter than the humans and animals around him. His survival skills and connection with the jungle rise him up above his enemies but he retains enough of a connection with his Western upper class heritage to live as he pleases in the human world.

‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendack is a children’s book about a ‘wild child’. The concepts are more allegorical but still similar – Max journeys in his dreams to become King of the Wild Things, then returns home, having gained a level of mastery over himself, and become stronger because of it.

The real feral children

The reality of children living with animals is far less entertaining. The human brain has critical periods of development which, if missed, can lead to long term disability.

The real life inspiration for Mowgli, Dina Sanichar, was found living with wolves as a six year old. Hunters killed the mother wolf and took him to an orphanage. He learned to walk upright, put on clothes and use a plate but he never learned a language or how to fit in with human society.

Oxana Malaya is assumed to have lived with dogs from the age of three to eight after her alcoholic parents abandoned her. Discovered in 1994, she was able to learn to talk and walk upright but still lives in an adult care facility now. The similar story of Ivan Mishukov has a happier ending. He lived with dogs in the city for two years from around four and was later taken in by a loving foster family and able to reintegrate into society.

Another man, Marcus Pantoja, lived with wolves for twelve years in isolation after being sold by his abusive stepmother to a man who subsequently died. He recalls living among the animals and being able to communicate with them. In reality, he probably projected social intention on their actions in order to feel less alone – they would come when he had food, and he would see it as friendship. Marcus was seven when he ended up alone in the mountains, so had learned enough language to be able to rebuild his skills when he returned to society, but he has always struggled to adapt to the human world. As recently as 2018, aged 72, he voiced that he still wished he could return to the mountains.

What do stories about feral children try to tell us?

These real life stories and examples from history suggest various themes that might arise in a narrative about a feral child.

Survival:

Both the real and fictional characters  raise the question of how to survive when society has rejected you or left you behind. We are social creatures and for most of us the thought of complete isolation is a scary prospect. Fictional narratives tell us that we can survive rejection and find a place to belong, though the reality often tells us the opposite.

Found families:

In many cases of feral children in fiction, the animals that raise them become their families. Often they have human traits, are able to speak and behave like the people whose role they’ve fulfilled for the child in the story. As such, these narratives tell us that even when our biological family cannot look after us, others will take their place and we won’t be alone. The simurgh who takes in Zaal, for example, comes at his call to offer help even after he returns to his father.

The differences between humans and animals:

In a story that begins with a child being abandoned, it’s animals who ensure that he or she is cared for. They don’t judge or threaten – they offer food, companionship and protection when no human offers it. In real life, the best example of this is probably with animals that are used to living with humans to begin with. For example, the dogs that Ivan Mishukov lived with tried to defend him from the police and were killed when they kept trying to reach him in the orphanage he was taken to. The implied message underneath this animal behaviour in stories is that humans aren’t always capable of the same unjudging acceptance – humans develop prejudices and flaws and mental health difficulties that prevent them from offering the human connection that their loved ones might need. In the midst of that, many would say that the uncomplicated love of an animal is a welcome comfort.

Our ties to human society:

Even stories like Tarzan that include a return to the jungles, make it clear that living forever with the animals isn’t feasible. Mankind have separated ourselves from animalkind and no matter how long we live in the wilds, we must eventually accept that we are in some way different from our animal companions. Most stories featuring a feral child involve that child returning to human society, sometimes with difficulty, though often as a stronger, more empowered individual for having reconnected with their wild roots.

The beauty and simplicity of nature: This concept is usually in contrast to the complexity and potential cruelty of human society. Living in the wilderness is presented as a more simplistic way of living. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s safer, and often there are a lot of survival related dangers in the wilderness, but they may be presented as being easier to navigate, the enemies forthright and open about their intentions. In Mowgli’s story, he is cast out for witchcraft when he first tries to reintegrate with humankind and his adoptive parents are tarred with the same brush, prompting him to send animals to help them. Marcus Pentoja has consistently said that he struggles with human society and found life among the animals far easier to navigate.

Power in difference:  

Surviving in the wilds often leads to the main character being stronger and more able than many of the humans they encounter. Tarzan for example, frequently bested humans who tried to threaten him or his family. Zaal gained wisdom from being raised by the ancient simurgh. As the narrative goes, survival in the wilderness empowers the main character, to be stronger than the humans who rejected them, through connecting with their animal nature. But it may also show that being different than those around you can be to your advantage – the outcasts, the rejects, they can overcome their bullies because they have their own unique skills.

The strength of the archetype

Archetypes play a role in setting reader expectations and they are a shorthand tool that a writer can employ in order to communicate the themes of their story. They have been used within stories likely since stories began to be told. Used well, they can strengthen a narrative by speaking to the themes that the writer is trying to convey. However, used poorly, they risk coming across as clichéd and plagiaristic.

The most important factor in using them to their full potential is being clear about the themes that they evoke when they’re introduced into a narrative. Those themes need to tie well with the story being told so that it’s clear why the character is there, or else the reader may find the story unfocused, or assume that the writer is being lazy by relying on the archetype to define their character for them.

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

CATS ARE NICE (The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction)

“‘I meant,’ said Ipslore bitterly, ‘what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?’
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”

– Sir Terry Pratchett

What is anthropomorphism?

The above quote is an example of a character interacting with an anthropomorphic personification of a natural phenomenon. In simpler terms, this is when a non-human object or animal (or concept in this case) is shown to display human traits and be capable of human behaviour. Death in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is a sentient being, who raises a daughter, hires an apprentice and, as noted in this quote, has his own personal likes and dislikes. His existence is shown on several occasions to ease the process of dying, making death an experience that is tinged with a level of familiarity, and less scary as a result. Pratchett also uses him as a tool through which he can observe and reflect on the complexities of life and death, though the perspective of a character who technically experiences neither.

There is a slight distinction to be made between anthropomorphism and personification, two similar but distinct literary devices. Anthropomorphism involves imbuing non-human things with human traits and human behaviour, for example, the animals in Animal Farm; or Thomas the Tank Engine; or Winnie the Pooh. Personification involves giving inanimate objects or natural phenomena human-like characteristics, like saying that the sun is smiling or opportunity is knocking at the door. Personification is intended to be more figurative, while anthropomorphism is more literal.

Death in the Discworld is technically an anthropomorphism, although he is used by other characters as a personification, so he is really a bit of both.

Why do we anthropomorphise?

There have been many theories about the reasons for anthropomorphism throughout history. David Hume, a philosopher and scientist with an interest in the origins of religious beliefs, argued that anthropomorphism was an attempt to rationalise an unfamiliar world using the model that humans were most knowledgeable about, namely the model of humans themselves. But then, humans also anthropomorphise animals and objects that they are familiar with, like laughing dogs and spoons that run off with dishes.

Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, saw it as an attempt to make a hostile and threatening world into something familiar and thus less threatening.  But humans frequently attempt to personify sounds and images into something scary, like thinking the creak of a floorboard is a burgler.

The true answer is probably a mix of both. Humans look for patterns and stories in the world. Our brains are predisposed to see connections and to turn disparate parts into wholes. In doing so, we rationalise something unknown and make it familiar – even if we believe it’s something dangerous, at least it’s a danger that we can categorise.

Remember Heidel and Simmel’s moving shapes from my post about why we tell stories? These were an example of anthropomorphism, where basic shapes were conferred human intention and behaviour by their observers with the purpose of making sense of the movements they were seeing. And there is a survival benefit in being predisposed to see agency in the world around us – there is less of a cost to mistakenly thinking that a moving object is alive, than there is in ignoring a living creature that’s a potential threat.

We can find examples of anthropomorphism in stories across human history. Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals used animals to tell stories about the creation of the world and teach moral lessons about society. Religions across the world historically often described anthropomorphised gods – representations of natural phenomenon like the sun, love or war, who married, grew jealous and had children, just like humans.

As far as the human brain is concerned, we are surrounded by creatures who are just like us, even when they are not.

The use of anthropomorphism in literature

Writers through the ages have often used anthropomorphism within their stories. This device takes advantage of humans’ natural propensity to confer human-like traits on others. The purpose of this device is dependent on the story being told.

Take Animal Farm by George Orwell, for example. This book is a satirical allegory for Russia’s communist revolution, with the animal’s representing different groups or people from Russian history. But yet, the story is removed enough from the reality that it critiques to have lasted the test of time, becoming like a fairy tale, where the underlying message remains relevant regardless of current history.

People read the story without their real world preconceptions being triggered, meaning that the story itself has room to challenge the reader to think about the rights and wrongs of these animals’ decisions and behaviour. The story presents these questions to the reader in far more general terms than a story about people in Russia would have done and thus makes the reader consider their general view on similar situations, rather than their opinion on Russia specifically.

Another powerful example of the use of anthropomorphism is Watership Down by Richard Adams. In this example, the anthropomorphism serves a slightly different purpose. The rabbits in the story have a society much like a human one, with their own culture, mythology and language. The characters exist in a world fraught with danger, with humans being one of the biggest. Here, Adams takes advantage of our preconceptions about rabbits – they’re our pets, they’re cute little animals that we see bounding across the grass. We start off with an image of a vulnerable creature, which serves to further emphasise the risks when the characters are threatened, as well as increasing our empathy for their plight.

This story also challenges the reader by placing them in the position of the enemy against a very humanised group of animals – thus indirectly raising questions around how we treat and understand animals but also how we might treat other humans whose culture is significantly different from our own. If those questions had been posed through the lens of refugees coming to Britain, facing threats from the government or challenges from the locals, I would argue that the story would have lost an element of the emotional resonance and timelessness which has sustained this book’s popularity.

Anthropomorphism for children

The talking animals in children’s stories serve a similar purpose to those in adult literature. They turn the narrative into something that exists outside of known human culture but also tells our children something about how the world works. Anthropomorphism helps children to absorb the underlying message of the story by creating a level of emotional distance from the narrative, allowing for a staged introduction into potential real-life challenges.

Take Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf eats the girl’s grandmother and could have killed her. He’s defeated by the woodsman in the end, but he’s still a dangerous threat to the little girl. Imagine if that wolf was a human – a man who had broken into Grandmother’s house and killed her, then lain in wait to pounce on Little Red. Young children need to be aware there are dangers in the world but we also don’t want them suspicious of every adult they meet. The wolf is a substitute for the real risk, a gentle warning until children are old enough to understand the complexities of human behaviour.

Another, less extreme example of this, is the story of the Ugly Duckling. The poor duckling is rejected by the ducks and made fun of by other animals, until he sheds his downy fur, and is welcomed by a flock of swans come spring. When children read this story, they feel sad for the duckling and learn a bit about acceptance along the way. But what parent would want to read them the story of the Ugly Child – a boy who’s adoptive mother didn’t love him, whose peers made fun of him, and who didn’t really find somewhere to belong until he grew up? The message is the same, but the distance is gone and it starts to feel like something that could happen in the home or in the playground, rather than a distant allegory.

Anthropomorphism done well

The examples that I’ve given from literature mostly use a fully anthropomorphised setting – where everyone is an anthropomorphic animal. But, much as with Terry Pratchett’s Death, this device can be used in smaller ways to achieve an effect within a larger story, such as Aslan the lion from Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia; or Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear; or  the range of fantastical characters in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Anthropomorphism works best when the form of the character is used with purpose. All humans are predisposed to anthropomorphise, which means that we come with a range of preconceptions that can be taken advantage of. Lions are strong predators but also sociable felines; rabbits are cute pets to some and prolific rodents to others. Anthropomorphism that works well in literature often uses these preconceptions to strengthen the story’s character, or does the opposite by subverting expectations.

As well, it’s important to consider why a story is using anthropomorphism. What is it about the theme of the story that means an anthropomorphic character is better than a human? Does the reader need emotional distance to be able to reflect on the underlying meaning of the story, like with The Ugly Duckling? Does the character serve as a way of changing the readers view of an abstract concept, like Death? The purpose doesn’t necessarily need to be obvious to the reader, but the story will be stronger and more meaningful if the writer has considered what it is.

When used well, anthropomorphism can be an effective literary device that serves to strengthen the symbolism and themes within a story. It can turn a narrative into a timeless classic that speaks to the human condition in a manner that will remain relevant across generations.

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About the author

Caroline Ashley author photo

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

The Rule of Three (and how to use it in writing)

What is the rule of three?

Have you ever noticed how many things come in threes? You can find several examples in children’s stories, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs. Or you could look to adult fiction to find the three ghosts that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge, the three witches in Macbeth or Beetlejuice being summoned by three repetitions of his name.

The rule of three even pervades our understanding of science and religion, such as Newton’s three rules of motion and Christianity’s holy trinity.

When we think of well known phrases, many can be reduced to three words: “Ready, aim, fire.” “Lights, Camera, Action.” “Live, laugh, love.”

The idea behind the rule of three is that groupings of this number are more memorable, more emotionally resonant and more persuasive than just one or two, or even four or five.

But why?

Why do memorable things come in threes?

There is a potential reason why our stories are littered with threes, though the theory hasn’t been definitively proven. The best explanation seems to be that our brains look for patterns in everything.

Even the simplest of visual scenes cause us to imbue meaning where there is none. In the 1940s, Heider and Simmel presented research participants with a simple video of basic shapes moving across the screen and found that participants were quick to attribute emotions, motivations and purpose to these two dimensional triangles and lines.

But even with a brain desperate to find meaning in the world, we need something first to apply it to. Three is the smallest number of iterations that can form a cohesive pattern. Take this visual example:

Example of two images: a square followed by a circle
Two Item Pattern

With just two images, you can’t be sure yet what the pattern is and may question if there even is one. There could be a different shape coming next, the circle could be repeated, they might not be related to each other at all. You could guess but you wouldn’t feel sure. Now look at this one:

Example of a three image pattern going square, circle, square
Three Item Pattern

Do you feel more confident that the next image will be a circle? Do you feel like you’re looking at a pattern rather than just two unconnected shapes? Seeing the three together tends to lead to a feeling of cohesiveness, where our brains start to assume that they are part of a whole.

The same logic works with the formation of a pattern using words or narrative – by the time of the third example, you’re able to draw conclusions about the writer’s intention. But it also becomes a complete arc, something with a beginning, middle and end, something we are very familiar with in storytelling.

Everyone can remember three things

Another advantage to the rule of three is that the repetition helps us to remember the message or story. The cue given by the pattern acts as a memory aid, causing the story to stick in your mind.

In folklore, making stories memorable was particularly important because they were often passed on from person to person, rather than being written down. Even now, filmmakers and authors want us to remember what we have seen so that we can recommend it to our friends and family.

This is likely another reason that our brains like to work in threes. Research shows that an adult has the working memory capacity to hold seven items in mind, plus or minus two. But a child averages around three or four.

Additionally, looking back at the Heidel and Simmer research, a subsequent study by Wick et al. (2020) has shown that even adults, when presented with multiple shapes, struggle to agree on and follow narratives for images with more than four shapes, and performance was best when there were three.

They question why this was such a small number, when you consider that many stories have more than three characters, or three story events, but this is likely to be because of our brain’s ability to ‘chunk’ information into larger parts in real life. We have to work hard to find meaning in random triangles, but life experiences often have connections that we can draw on to help our memory. So we may still only be able to recall three things, but those three things can be much larger if we can group smaller parts into a bigger whole.

For example, if my working memory is capacity is only for four numbers, and I want to learn 12 digits, I could remember them as “1231 – 4367 – 3476″ but I would probably struggle as the number of digits increased, because the different numbers would risk getting confused in my mind. 

Or if I was trying to remember a story I was told, I could remember it by breaking it down into sections, for example, a house of straw blown down by the wolf, a house of sticks blown down the by wolf, then a house of bricks that stayed standing.

When you think that common folklore is often a warning, a message about how to behave or what to protect yourself from, you want everyone to remember the story, so you need it to be as simple as possible, while still containing the information that’s important. So stories were written with a level of repetition to help keep them memorable, but they were also kept short enough to ensure that as little information as possible was lost when they were re-told later by whoever had heard it.

Using the rule of three in writing

There are a few ways that writers can take advantage of the rule of three to make their work more memorable and emotionally resonant.

The three act structure:

The standard form of this is the beginning, middle and end. The set up, the identification of the problem, then the resolution. This doesn’t mean that you need to follow chronological order – plenty of stories build anticipation by showing the end first, then revealing how the characters got there. Your story doesn’t even need to include these elements in the events around the character – in a character driven story, these three elements might all be about how the character resolves an internal conflict.

Repetition in the narrative:

You will have read stories that use this technique – the Goldilocks narrative where something is too hot, too cold, then just right; or the granting of three wishes from a Genie. These narratives allow for elements to be repeated three times within the narrative itself, meaning that the detail within the story is better remembered.

The tricolon:

You can introduce this at the sentence level to make your conveyed message more memorable. These are a set of three parallel words or phrases, similar in length or structure. The use of this technique allows you to build rhythm within the sentence, as well as building emphasis in the content.

When using a tricolon, try to consider that certain patterns often work better than others. Repetition of the same, or very similar, words can work well to place emphasis on your point, such as “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” or “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. But there are other well known examples that establish a different pattern whereby the first two words or clauses are similar – this can be in terms of rhythm, length, syntax, sound – and you then end on something different and usually longer, which emphasises the last section by causing it to stand out from the others. Take for example, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” or Edgar Allan Poe’s line “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.”

The rule of three is everywhere

The rule of three is such a pervasive form of rhetoric within writing that you will likely see me reference concepts that use it in future articles. But even before then, I’m sure you’ll find many more examples of it in books, television or public speaking.

If you are a writer, look through your work and see if you can spot any examples of it. Or if you enjoy reading, flick through your nearest book and see what you can find.

If you enjoyed reading this, feel free to like, comment and share 😉

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If you’re interested in reading my previous Storytelling posts, you can find them here

Or why not check out my serialised young adult fantasy novel George Square or my published short fiction.

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Meet the author

Author photograph

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is a story?

When I started thinking about this blog, I considered the ways in which a psychologist could contribute to our understanding of storytelling. My initial thought was that most topics would relate to characters and characterisation, after all, psychology is all about people, isn’t it? But then it occurred to me that the psychology of a reader may be just as important to a successful story as the story itself. A five year old would be unimpressed by a 100 000 word tome; an avid science fiction reader likely won’t find much to engage with in a chick lit novel.

I also realised that my first blog post started with the premise that everyone already understood what a story was. And perhaps we do. Perhaps we grow up so surrounded by stories that the concept doesn’t need to be explained. But consider the example of language fluency – it is possible to be fluent in English but to not understand the difference between past perfect and past continuous, and to not be able to put into words why it doesn’t sound right for someone to be wearing a “red, old, big coat”. You might know English, but you would perhaps struggle to teach its nuances to a class of English learners. So I thought I would share some thoughts about what stories are.

How do stories begin (and end)

Generally stories are a description of people and the events that happen to them, whether real or imaginary. Stories always have a purpose. Often they are told in order to share some understanding of the world we live in. Even stories that seem to have no strong purpose, light hearted and funny, tell us something about the storyteller or the characters within the story.

But none of this tells you anything really about what a story will look like. And the thing is, we do have expectations around the form that a story will take. Generally a reader (or listener) starts a story expecting it to contain a beginning, middle and an end, although not necessarily in that order, if the storyteller is feeling particularly avant garde.

We want to know who the main character is, what the setting is, and what problem the character is facing. And most of all, we want to know how they solve the problem. We want to be taken on a journey that gives the character resolution and teaches us something along the way.

When we start a story, if there’s no real conclusion, it generally feels like we’ve wasted our time. I’m sure many Netflix subscribers have grown used to that disappointment lately and started to turn away from them as a media source – because what’s the point if they never give you a completed story?

The importance of the ending

A story without an end is a story without meaning or purpose. How can we know what lesson we were supposed to take from a narrative if the writer doesn’t give us the ending? How can we better understand who the writer is if we don’t know how they wanted their story to go? Our lives are not as easily separated into discrete entities, but we expect the stories that we tell about these lives to be compartmentalised regardless. Because in doing so, our experiences become something that we can learn from, move on from, and then share as a warning to others who might follow the same path.  

The lack of ending, or lack of closure, is often a reason that people struggle after a negative life experience. We want there to be a reason. We want to know what the lesson is. We want to know how to avoid it happening again. We want our life to be a story, broken into neat chapters, each with its own purpose. The girl who’s father left her wants to be an independent woman who doesn’t need men to define her. The man who lost his job wants this to be an opportunity to build a new career. And if our lives can’t be as clearly delineated as that, the lives of our fictional protagonists should be.

Or, to think about it another way, perhaps we use these fictional narratives in order to work out how to compartmentalise the sections of our own lives. If the only narrative sense our lives really have is the one we make up in our own heads, then the more experience that we have with narratives, the better we will be at sustaining the one that defines us.

Story Archetypes

And that leads to another aspect of reader expectation – story archetypes. Literary theorist Christopher Booker posited seven story archetypes which appear across the history of human storytelling:

  • Rags to riches – the underdog gaining power or privilege temporarily, then finding a way to gain it back for good
  • The quest – a journey to obtain a certain outcome or object
  • Rebirth – the hero experiences an event that leads them to change their ways
  • Overcoming the monster – where the hero has to defeat the antagonist that threatens them
  • Comedy – a triumph over adverse circumstances, leading to a happy ending
  • Tragedy – the downfall of a hero who either has a character flaw or makes a mistake so large it leads to their undoing
  • Voyage and return – a journey to an unfamiliar land, where the hero learns something then comes home more knowledgeable than before

Not all stories fit neatly into these categories. Probably because trying to categorise the human experience of storytelling is akin to telling a story in itself.  We bring our own unique view points to our interpretation and may not come up with the same outcome. But, this theory highlights the important point that readers have expectations. If a hero goes on a quest, we expect to know how it ends – we would be pretty annoyed if he gave up halfway through and just went home. Unless of course we were reading a Rebirth story, where the protagonist sets off, determined to kill a monster, then realises killing isn’t for him. But if you don’t set the reader’s expectations towards the right archetype, they’re still going to be disappointed with how it plays out or may disengage from the story entirely.

Stories are conversations

This leads us to the most important part of what a story is. A story is a shared experience, one that means nothing without a reader or listener to appreciate it. We tell stories to teach lessons; we tell stories to warn of danger; we tell stories to share a piece of who we are with the people around us. But none of that means anything if our story isn’t entertaining enough for someone to listen to it in the first place.

A story, ultimately, is a conversation. It is an attempt by a writer to communicate something that they believe is important, to someone that they believe might benefit from what they have to say. Without a willing reader or listener, the story might as well be screamed into the void or tossed on a fire to burn. And in return, as a reader, we want to be exposed to the narratives we expect, that give us a sense of closure and help us to in some way make sense of our own journey through life. If we cannot in some way incorporate the meaning or structure of a story into our own experience, then what was the point of the story?

Of course, there are far more facets to storytelling than just this, that could be analysed at the micro and macro level. But none of those factors mean anything if you don’t have two people, the reader and the writer, willing to communicate with each other.

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If you’re interested in any previous Storytelling posts, you can find them here

Or why don’t you check out my young adult fantasy novel, George Square, or my published short fiction.

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Meet the author

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

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.