The Power of Narration

Telling stories is part of human nature.  When trying to make sense of the world, it's easiest to take events and sequence them.  By plotting these events, people are then able to give it a story.  Stories exist in our beliefs, history, morals, and songs.  Our need to hear and tell stories has never changed; in "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, characters suffer from painful memories of past tragedies, ultimately displaying the need for narration of the horrors they suffered.

In "Beloved," Sethe struggles with her thoughts of Sweet Home and tries repressing the trauma of her past.  When Paul D shows up, Sethe slowly begins to talk more about her past with Beloved and shows that the act of story telling can be therapeutic. In a conversation with Denver, she asks, "What were you praying for, Ma'am?" "Not for anything. I don't pray anymore. I just talk," (Morrison 43). Sethe goes onto talk about rememory; something from the past a person can still bump into in the present. "If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--it stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world," (Morrison 43). Morrison's discussion of rememory is a term to describe something I never knew how to explain but understood--history is amongst us, so if people still experience things of the past, the need to narrate such events will remain as well.  Sethe begins to try and say the once unspeakable circumstances of her life, and with that comes the painful act of revisiting the past and addressing it's stories.

Similarly, in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" three different narratives are given that display more examples of painful narratives being shared.  Oskar's grandfather becomes unable to speak after losing the love of his life, Anna.  Instead he resorts to daybooks and tattoos for his everyday communication.  He then also writes letters to his son, whom he has never met. In these letters he tells a series of stories to his son; the fact that he never receives any of these still do not prove useless.  For it is in the writing he finds a way to give narration to the pain he has suffered and is able to reconnect with his wife and grandson.

Repressing thoughts and feelings of pain, can only lead to innate suffering.  The stories of the past can weigh a person down if not expressed. It's a burden no one should carry, but instead share.  Narration provides a voice to what can seem unspeakable tragedy, therein providing a way for people to better understand themselves as well as others.