Content, Content Everywhere But Not A Story Anywhere
Where is the story in the modern storytelling?
Abduction of Proserpina, Bernini, Borghese Gallery. Photo by Garima Garg.
In 1798, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published a poem, titled, The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, that told the story of an ill-fated ship voyage. The titular character, the old mariner, makes the mistake of shooting an albatross which appears to have led them out of danger and then feels attacked by supernatural forces as a punishment. By the end of the voyage, all of his crew members perish and the mariner survives but finds himself distraught still. The poem takes us through the many dangers of a ship voyage, where Coleridge writes at one point,
“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”
He closes the poem with the mariner regretting having shot the albatross because,
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
The poem has elements of supernatural and death but also the eternal human stories at its heart: the challenges of life, the revenge that guilt can take on a human being’s conscience, and the need to respect everything that exists in Nature.
Speaking of stories, this sculpture tells another good one. Titled Abduction of Proserpina and carved by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, it was completed in early 17th century. It tells the story of the abduction of Proserpina, symbolised as Nature and the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, by Pluto, the god of Underworld. It is the Roman version of the original Greek tale where Proserpina is Persephone, Pluto is Hades, Jupiter is Zeus, and Ceres is Demeter. Either way, the myth tells the story of winter — when Nature is abducted by a dark force and new seeds cannot be sown and neither is there any harvest. As a tale, it is almost primordial in nature. For the ancient human being, life during winters was tough and such a tale was a good way to prepare themselves for it mentally and physically.
Another interesting way to look at this tale is through the Jungian lens, i.e., those who follow the methods of psychoanalyst Carl Jung to understand the world. They also look at Persephone as a tale of a woman’s coming of age. When the maiden is abducted, she is blissfully unaware about the world outside her home. But when she finds herself in the Underworld against her will, she must come to terms with it. She shows her assent by eating food that she is offered by her abductee, and later becomes the Queen of the Dead. The Jungians believe it has parallels with journey of a sheltered girl becoming a woman who can deal with the world from the position of her strength.
A yet another example of profound storytelling is the Hindu myth of Samudra-Manthan, i.e., the churning of the ocean, which puts forth several observations about the world. According to it, not only is the world made up of two broad categories of people — good (Devas) and not so good (Asuras) — but also that the society is the result of a constant churning between them. This churning will lead to some rewards, even the nectar of immortality, but also a poison. This poison, or Halahal, can only be ingested by someone mighty like Shiva who upon this act also becomes Neelkanth, or the blue throated one.
What all of these have in common is that through the use of symbolism, they communicate a variety of realities of life. Through the characters, whether it’s the Englishman or the ancients around the world, their journeys resonate with us both in their challenges and the overcoming of them. That is in sharp contrast with modern storytelling where rather than the journey, it is the character that becomes the story. This means that the emphasis is often on the literal facts of the character, rather than the symbolism of their journey that may help others in understanding something about life, human nature, or the world.
For instance, Steve Jobs and his “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” persona. It suggests that his life and the success of Apple as a company owes everything to the idea of brilliant innovation. Jobs, after he delivered this address, became this poster-boy for a phenomenon that went beyond the intention of his own speech. Modern storytellers, whether marketeers or social media influencers, will repeat the phrase ad-nauseam as if to tell their audience — chase success relentlessly and you’ll be a star one day too. Because all that matters to these storytellers is the quality of being a star than that of being human.
None of these storytellers will talk about Jobs’ difficult personality, major setbacks in his professional life, and the lonely death from cancer. They are not interested in analysing if Apple’s success had anything to do with the larger personal tech revolution, increased consumerism, and the work of innumerable other brilliant and hard-working employees.
The Enlightenment era shift in human consciousness from the mystical to the factual may have contributed to this fracture in our storytelling. In privileging the apparent and logical reality, we have now almost entirely forgotten that there exists a reality that is not apparent and may not be logical. It was to grasp this reality for which stories were often told and retold countless of times because even though the details may change, the essence of life remains the same across ages and cultures. When stories become content, they fail to fulfil their purpose — to instruct human beings about the nature of life with a sense of wonder and rapture. It is because of this fracture that even though we may be more connected than ever before in the history of humanity on the surface, in essence we may be more disconnected from each other, life, and the world than ever before as well.
This is a Rasa World post, a newsletter by Rasa Journal where I share quick thoughts about culture around the world in about 500 words.
