Humans are a species that tell stories--they live their lives around stories that give meaning and understanding. The telling of stories is not a simple act, as writer Susan Griffin explains it, but a way of narrating events that gives the listener a path through those events that leads to some fragment of wisdom by such transmission, consciousness is woven.
Gary C. Bryner, Gaias
Wager, (2001), p. 177.
"We are pattern seeking, story-telling primates trying to make sense of a often chaotic and unpredictable world. A stage-theory (belief that stages of development pre-exist and we pass through these) works in a manner similar to a species classification, heuristic or an evolutionary sequence schema.”
Michael Shermer, “Stage Fright, Scientific America, November, 2008, p. 42.
Some examples of stories
Jonah & the Whale was a test of faith as is the Story of Job, but with different endings.
Any story is a narrative that seeks to convey in its events some universal theme despite the peculiarities of the plot and a clear symbolism for every person regardless of the characters that are signally important to the outcome of the events.
When the Killing's Done, by T.C. Boyle
White Noise, by Don DelLillo
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Huckelberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens
The Bear, by William Faulkner
The consequences of avoiding one's dutiesNot heeding a father's warningsUnrequited love of a self absorbed personSuccess against overwhelming odds
David slays the giant Goliath.
Daedalus sees the fall of Icarus
Echo is ignored by Narcissus.