On Parables and the Power of Story

I just finished a paper on the topic of 'The Power of Story'. I've posted it below and would be happy to hear whatcha think!

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“Stories don’t affect people.” That was the boy’s response to questions regarding his recently exposed choice of novels. “After all, just because I listen to a villainous tale, doesn’t mean that I will become a villain myself.” It may be true that not every story, when heard, will immediately result in imitative action, but actions are not the only possible effects. From fairytales, to the works of famous novelists, to the wisdom of ancient philosophers or of simple parables, the tales we hear may influence the principles by which we live.

To hear a story is to observe a scenario -- not just any scenario -- but a scenario where the author’s ideals and principles are displayed as true. In life, all of the scenarios we see are true; that is, they are actual scenarios and therefore they correspond to reality. Within a story, however, the author creates a sub-reality which he controls; he controls the cause and effect. It is the author who decides whether justice will prevail or the villain will be praised; whether altruism is admirable, or cowardice is wise. We, as observers, fall victims to his view. We cannot help but be affected by the situations we see, because every observation is interactive to some extent. For, what is observance but an active state of consuming information?

Once information is noted, something must be done with it. The principles of any story may be accepted or rejected, but once they have been observed, they cannot be ignored. They must be sorted. If one is aware of this, then the information may be handled based on true principles; but if a person is unaware, his principles may be decided by those of the story. Whether a reader decides well or foolishly, he has been affected by his observation in one way or another. What has been seen cannot be unseen; one can only decide what to do with it. In this way, all stories affect people.

Now, to what extent one is affected is a new question. One might say “Ok, so it may affect me, but those effects are not significant to my actions. It is not like someone is teaching me to harm people”. Methodologically, the speaker is right, he is not being taught to harm, but this is not a question of method, it is a question of principle; this is not about teaching one ‘how’ to act, but ‘why’ to act. However small the principle may appear, one must not think that the acceptance or rejection of any principle is without influence over one’s actions. On the contrary, it is on principle that our actions are decided. Every action is based on a view of how one sees the world. Viewpoint is influenced most by cumulative subtleties. Just as habitual physical training toward a particular skill is done by repetition, and is done incrementally for the purpose of submitting the body to the mind with decreasing resistance, so habitual training of principle is repetitive and incremental but for the purpose of submitting the will to yet a higher authority: the authority of ‘ought’. This poses the new question: “What ought I to believe?”

Let us for a moment reminisce on the education of our childhood; back to the first days of our cognitive reasoning, at which stage we were most impressionable. It is no accident that our mothers told us bedtime stories from the first stages of our awareness; indeed they did well. After all, what child learned of courage by being told that there is some opposition that one must overcome, regardless if one feels capable or inclined to, and when overcome, this is done by courage, and courage is a virtue? No, we were told the fairytale of the brave Knight, who faced the dragon and every other obstacle and force of evil; who was subject to great danger, even danger unto death. But this Knight, this Knight of knights, overcame all of his adversaries to save the princess who had been long locked away in a tower, awaiting her rescuer. In this, we as children learned the meaning of courage long before we were ever given a name by which to reference it. It was simply the standard, nay, the triumph of every hero. And what wide-eyed boy who hears this story is not overtly inclined to save the princess himself? It was not directly explained to him that he ought to; he knew that from the story. The story had contextualized the meaning of the virtue.

This is partly what makes a story so powerful, and also what makes it potentially dangerous. A story, by nature, does not come in to oppose, but to instruct. It needs neither defense nor explanation because it comes to us in our childlike state and takes us by the hand as if to say, “Come with me; I want to show you something.” This is why George MacDonald, said “I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”[1] As Virgil comes to Dante in the “dark wood,” so do our stories to us, saying, “I think it best you follow me for your own good”[2]. Only let us be mindful of our guide and whether or not its patron is Truth.

An argument has two sides; a story has one. An argument can promote intellectual assent, but can it influence the will to care for that assent? It tells us what to think, but can it show us why to fight? In this regard, the smallest fairytale can devote more hearts to the love of virtue than the strongest ethical argument that is devoid of its context. It is not the screams that change our minds, but the whispers; it is not the obvious oppositions, but the subtleties that change the world. Our Savior did not come in the form of a ruler, but of a babe. It is stories that educate us in principles, and therefore, habitual consumption of poor stories is cumulatively detrimental to one’s principles and, consequently, to one’s actions as well.

This persuasive power of story was demonstrated in Gustave Flaubert’s novel “Madame Bovary”. Flaubert paints the young Emma Bovary as an imprudent woman whose ideas of the relationship between a man and a woman were shaped by romantic novels. He carries these notions to their natural consequences which spiral further and further downward toward insatiable passions and lusts. Like the progress of Dante’s descent into hell, Emma’s actions result in deception and betrayal. Flaubert proposes that the romantic novels of Emma’s youth educate and instruct her life’s principles and therefore actions. What is remarkable about Flaubert’s novel is that he himself was placed on trial for writing the explicit “offense to public morals” displayed in Madame Bovary’s character, demonstrating that the society of the day also agreed that story is influential to one’s principles.

If all stories are thus persuasive, shouldn’t they be avoided? No, for one thing we could not escape our consumption of stories even if we wanted; life itself is a story, and as characters made in the Author’s image, we imitate Him by telling stories ourselves. We cannot help but learn by what we live. Additionally, just because a story has the power to be dangerous doesn’t signify that the medium itself is bad, only that, in the famous words of Spider-Man’s uncle “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Let us use the art for good and not for evil, for story can be persuasive toward good as well. Indeed, who faults the mother for telling the Knight’s story, or who faults the child for believing it? All of history is telling the redemptive story. Since the fall of man, however, we must examine our influences, weighing them according to our principles.

There is a difference between a story’s being true in the sense that it accords with actual scenario and true in the sense that it accords with actual principle. Where life’s stories are necessarily in accordance with both actual scenario and true principle, stories of a man’s devising may turn out to be neither. There are three things an author may write. One, he may tell us a story of a knight who never existed, who ran home to safety at the sight of danger and was there praised for his prudence and bravery. This would be false in both regards; it was not a real knight, and it was not a real virtue but rather a misrepresented vice. Two, he may relay an actual story, and, if he remains faithful to its scenario, it would be true in both regards; he would merely be channeling the information from a reliable source, that of the real. The real is consistent in scenario and principle. Or, three, the author may relay a story with scenarios that have never literally occurred in history, but relay the true principles by which all real stories abide. For the rescuer need not have been a real Knight, the damsel not a real princess, the tower not a real structure, and the foe not a real dragon in order to abide by real principle, but instead the Knight may have been a carpenter, the princess a people, the tower a human nature, and the dragon itself may be death and hell that was “swallowed up…in a mighty duel.”[3] [4] Stories may give us new eyes to see old truths.

It is safe to infer it was not by accident that in the final book of The Republic, Socrates chose to conclude his dialogue with a story, “I will tell you a tale.”[5] After hours of debate and question, Socrates saw fit to present not a thesis, but a myth. Let us also consider that it was prophesied of the Christ, not that he would open his mouth in systematic theology or ethical argument but that, “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old.” [6] For the Scriptures say "the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate"[7] and “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."[8] But Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children”[9].

And so we see that fairytales, novels, myths and parables, all possess not only length and width, but also depth; they can be read not only from start to finish, in a two-dimensional way, but also from surface to depth. By its layers, a story accommodates the incremental maturing of the soul seeking understanding.

Therefore let us sit, as children before the Father, with wide eyes and open ears at the feet of the Author of life’s story, the Great Storyteller, Who with a passion in His voice and a spark in His eye, leans down low and whispers, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

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[1] George MacDonald’s essay on The Fantastic Imagination

[2] Inferno - Dante (Canto I, line 112)

[3] “The Freedom of a Christian” – Martin Luther

[4] Note: It is also possible for an author to write a story that is based on actual scenario and yet has false principles, but in order to succeed at this, the author must alter the actual scenario to some extent in order to suit his agenda; this would place the story once again under the first category of being false in both regards.

[5] The Republic: book XII - Plato

[6] Psalm 78.2

[7] 1 Corinthians 1.19

[8] Luke 18.17

[9] Luke10.21