The idea of a parabolic shield really intrigued me today. How then does story allow us to get up close to a difficult subject, and how close can you get and still get all the benefits of victory so to speak.
Another question it brings up to me is the responsibility or weight of the person carrying the story.
I had never pictured Medusa in quite the way that it was presented today. I had filed it away at sometime in my childhood as story, ignoring significance. As opposed to a story about what is to difficult to address head on and thereby one we can only approach sideways.
There seemed to be a theme that ran through class today, one of breaking free from limiting ideas, stories, or preconceived concepts. It ties into an idea presented in Storyteller gym yesterday. That the discipline is in revisiting and bringing a new level of awareness to a familiar subject rather than always pursuing the new.
Julie
I agree. The Medusa head, as described in class, reminds me of that classic quote from the Spiderman movie, "With great power comes great responsibility." The Medusa head represented great power both for good (making choral and sea jewels) and for evil (turning to stone). The responsibility, and thus the weight of that responsibility, must have been enormous for Perseus. Just like, in class, it was mentioned that he really couldn't just rest easy without finding a place for the head in the bag lest some unsuspecting person tries to help Perseus by doing his laundry and, BAM, turns to stone. Likewise the story is very powerful, but is equally a great responsibility. A storyteller can not use the story in a negative or manipulative way, but must bear the responsibility . . . well . . . responsibly!
ReplyDeleteWhile I had previously appreciated the power of a story to be indirect (and yet effective) in addressing some issues, I had never appreciated Perseus' vanquishing of the Medusa as an illustration of that principle. Now I may never think about an "oblique" approach to problem-solving with story in the same way again!
ReplyDeleteSteffani Raff, in her book The Ravenous Gown, has a wonderful example of this kind of story. In fact, it's kind of a "double" misdirect (or could be) in that the protagonist not only lets her subjects discover their own solutions by showing them how others have solved similar issues, but the story itself is an excellent "frame story" for illustrating all manner of situations in this way.
I'd like to read that. Elizabeth Ellis told us a story last summer where all the characters acknowledged the problem but no details were given I found her delivery incredibly powerful. I have her book with me called Inviting the Wolf in which talks about dealing with Medussa's so to speak.
DeleteI noticed today that Bill Lepp used a "character shield" for as a way to place a difficult topic or opinion in a story so that an audience will accept hearing it. If you recall, he mentioned that he creates a character to state a difficult point or perspective, and develops the character thoroughly enough for the "difficult statement" to be utterly believable coming from that person and thus deflects disapproval away from the teller - after all, the teller didn't say it, the character did ;-) That's my paraphrasing of Mr. Lepp's more concise advice.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see it quite like that. Thank you that is insightful. I have been thinking of my family as characters. Wondering if I could put my cast of eccentric characters into a narrative.
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