Drawing on the statement from the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun,” Thomas Foster connects King Solomon’s wise words with the literary world by asserting that there is no literature which is wholly original. Foster believes that, “writing and telling belong to one big story.” In an interlude in How to Read Literature Like a Professor titled “One Story,” Thomas Foster analyzes how the infinite number of stories circulating throughout history are all interlocked and are all parts of one single, perpetual story. Furthermore, while explaining what this one story is about, Foster states, “It’s about everything that anyone wants to write about. I suppose what the one story, the ur-story, is about is ourselves, about what it means to be human” (194). In this passage, the author creates an entirely new outlook on the “one story” theory by implying that it deals with human nature and the collective human unconscious. This is a particularly intriguing outlook because of the psychological implications which it arouses. In psychology, the collective unconscious is a term originally coined by Carl Jung in order to describe what he believed to be a universal set of archetypes passed down through inheritance to all human beings. Jung believed that this collective unconscious connected all humans together and was a central part of human nature. In the concluding sentences of the interlude, Thomas Foster reveals a theory on literature in which he adapts this theory of Carl Jung to his personal beliefs on the “one big story.” He claims, “We—as readers or writers, tellers or listeners—understand each other, we share knowledge of the structures of our myths, we comprehend the logic of symbols, largely because we have access to the same swirl of story. We have only to reach out into the air and pluck a piece of it” (200). From this statement, the reader can clearly see the correlations between the psychological theory of Carl Jung and the literary postulation of Thomas Foster.
In my opinion, I believe Thomas Foster is correct and that there is definitely a single story which is comprised of all writing and telling throughout the history of the human race. Additionally, I believe this claim can be supported by pondering how authors come up with what to tell their audience. Where do the ideas stem from? What influences cause an author to alter details in his/her story? Ever since birth, all people have been exposed to a plethora of stories which have influenced them either consciously or subconsciously. Just as Foster explains in his book, no story can be completely original because every author has in some way been tainted by outside influences from stories they have read or been told. Because all stories are connected and influenced by each other, it is logical to conclude that there is simply “one big story” from which all other stories stem. As a reader, this realization has immense implications because of its impact on increasing the richness of the reading experience. By knowing that all stories come from one unending story, a reader can search through a text to find the intertextuality hidden within. Consequently, an individual can then form a deeper understanding of the text, thus allowing them to dive deeper into the author’s purpose in writing and form their own opinions on the topics being discussed. All in all, I believe that Thomas Foster’s assertion that there is “one big story” is correct and that this realization can allow readers of all levels to improve the effectiveness of their reading by allowing them to notice the correlations between texts.
I find Foster's ideas very true as well. In addition, I like the inclusion of psychology into the analysis of Foster's idea. This being the ultimate form of intertextuality in which we connect two different fields of knowledge that both complement each other in regard to the same idea. Knowing that there is "one big story" can help the reader step into the shoes of the author and identify their purpose, because the reader has equal access to the information and texts which the writers themselves had. The authors must have gotten their ideas somewhere, and it wasn't a crystal ball, but timeless works which we are all fairly familiar with, making reading a more interactive experience when paired with that base knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Foster’s belief that there are no wholly original pieces of literature. Literature is an organism that feeds off of itself and grows stronger. The idea that there is only one big story in writing and storytelling strikes a chord with me because it shows that no authors are solely basing their stories off of a clean slate. Authors will always be picking and choosing from the amount of prior literature that they have already read. I like how you went into detail about how people gradually expand their basis of writing simply by being exposed to literature whether they know it or not. For the reader it is extremely important to realize that all literature stems from other literature because once the reader realizes this it becomes easier to notice connections between stories and underlying meanings that the author is inferring.
ReplyDeleteI agree that all stories are part of one large story, even if a writer thinks his idea is original there is an extremely high chance that another author has already articulated this idea. Due to the staggering amount of novels published, originality has to be utilized through the author's style. In chapter 16, Foster answers all of the "non-novel-writer's" questions, and also gives them credit. I still wonder how an author picks ONE idea and goes with it, when the variety is so dense with options. You made a very good point on how this allows readers to correlate stories with past stories by other authors, it makes the possibilities endless.
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