The Ring of Fire: Storytelling and Communication

The Ring of Fire: the original setting for storytelling. According
to James Carey, communication is a ritual. Storytelling, like
communication is also a ritual in which we pass down stories--
legends, myths, real life experiences--to younger generations.

In Professor Kevin Barnhurst’s lecture, he discussed one of the oldest ways that we communicate storytelling. As a Theater major, I was intrigued by his in-depth analysis of something that happens naturally especially when we aren’t expecting to “become a narrator” as he put it. As a student of the performing arts, I am always interested in the most effective way to tell the story that I am presenting to my audience. With what is provided in scripts and input from directors, the story comes alive and follows a natural flow that (hopefully) allows the performer(s) to captivate the audience and take them out of their present time and place them in a different setting. But without the scripts, the directors, and the spectacle, how do we know how to tell a story off-stage?

Professor Barnhurst reveals the structure of storytelling by having the students participate in “Speed Narrating,” an exercise in which they had to tell stories, take notes, and then look for patterns within the stories that they recorded. The process that the students participated in is one that social scientists use in order to understand stories as well. The commonalities among the stories connected with the components of storytelling that Professor Barnhurst introduced (taken from Labov—theorist who studied stories):

§  The Abstract: announcing the story

§  The Setting: describes the place and sets up the exposition ; elements that help the audience picture where you are

§  The Complicating Action: introduced by phrases like “And then…” or “You wouldn’t believe what happened next…”—what happened;  the meat of the story

§  The Resolution: the end of the story

§  The Interpretation:  this is a separate step from the latter; the interpretation is everywhere because as soon as you begin telling the story, people are able to tell what kind of story you are telling—infused into everything that you say in the story

§  The Judgment: the judgment is different from the interpretation; what you take away from the story based on your interpretation of it

There are many aspects of communication that go into storytelling. The ones that I connected this lecture to were stemmed from our class discussions about effective communication, and cognitive dissonance. As we discussed in class, effective communication happens “when the stimuli as it was initiated and intended by the sender, or source, corresponds closely to the stimulus as it was received.” Applying this back to my major, the story that I tell as a performer is effective if the audience understands it, is influenced by it, and enjoys it. In other words, if these are the outcomes I have effectively communicated as well as effectively told a story. 

The cognitive dissonance comes in between the interpretation and the judgment aspect of the storytelling structure. Because stories have the ability to influence us (no matter how small or how trivial) they can clash with information that you already have stored in your mind—it clashes with the beliefs and the understandings that you have established. When we attach the meaning to whatever story we are hearing and it ends up that what the narrator meant and what we got from it is different, that is when judgment of the story (and the narrator at times) comes into play. However, as discussed in lecture, the cognitive dissonance is necessary, even if at first it messes with the storytelling—this is a part of what allows the stories that we hear to influence us.

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