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Archive Number 988 | ||
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Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 11:32:46 EST
"What do we mean anyway when we speak of "transformation" and how is this accomplished through story?" Dear Cristy, I think your question about transformation is one of the most important that can be asked about storytelling, and I applaud you for raising it. The legendary anthropologist Victor Turner identified the social drama (human interaction) and, more specifically, ritual/performance, as very much like the plot of a story: 1) breach (leaving home or the status quo, opening oneself to new experience or knowledge), 2) crisis (a problem/question to be addressed) 3) redress (addressing the crisis) and 4) reintegration or schism, (either returning to the familiar with the knowledge gained through this process or leaving it altogether for new frontiers). Turner identified the transitional period between stages 2 and 4 as the "liminal stage" or threshold between one state of being and another. This, he believed, is the stage in which art takes place. We might also think of it as the larval stage. You can see how the four stages are closely associated with adolescent rites of passage, such as a young man's first hunt or working toward the Bar Mitzvah. When we tell or hear a story, we accompany the characters on this journey through the four stages. We are in the liminal state while we are in the midst of it, and, if the story "works" for us, we emerge transformed, like a butterfly, at some point after it is over. Incidentally, in Turner's analysis, the social drama led to the establishment of communitas, or deep communal feeling. This is one reason I believe so strongly in the power of story to resolve differences. (Ah ha! A plug for the Social Action Committee!) If this discussion interests you, see Turner's Anthropology of Performance and The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure.) I wish you all the best, always. Caren | ||