Folk Narratives

e of Western Folklore Folk Narratives Elliott Oring "Narrative" is another word for story. Narrating is a method by which an experience is transformed into a verbal account. Experience is recapitulated by matching a verbal sequence of statements to some sequence of events which is purported to have occurred. For example: ( 1) At first he refused the drink that she offered. (2) She persisted in her demand that he at least taste it. (3)He finally consented and drained the glass. (4) Suddenly, he felt a searing pain in his stomach. (5) He knew that he had been poisoned. There are, indeed, other ways of communicating this same information which do not depend upon a re-presen ta tion of the temporal sequence of events. For example, "He knew that he had been poisoned when he felt the searing pain in his stomach from draining the drink that she insisted that he taste, but which he had first refused." Although this second formulation is perfectly logical and communicative, we will not consider it a narrative because it does not re-present experience in the order in which the events took place. Maintaining the order of events in the verbal recapitulation is basic to our definition of narrative. This distinguishes a narrative from other kinds of event reporting. A narrative is conceptualized as a whole, not as a mere list of clauses or sentences. A sentence links words together, whereas a narrative links Elliott Oring FOLK GROUPS AND FOLKLORE GENRES actions and events. The individual sentences in our example above could which circulate primarily in oral tradition and are communicated face-to- possibly be regarded as a random list of sentences for parsing in a grammar face. Since they communicate through oral rather than written channels, exercise. However, once we perceive that they are related ("narrate" such narratives tend to exhibit certain other characteristics: ( 1) Folk comes from the Latin word for "relate," a word we also use to narratives tend to exist in multiple versions. No single text can claim to characterize the telling of a story), these sentences are transformed into be the authoritative or "correct" one. Rather, different narrators perform powerful, cognitive and affective verbal organizations. Even in our narratives differently in different circumstances. A folk narrative, in other rather anemic example, the temporal sequence of events assumes words, must be re-created with each telling. (2) As a result of this significance. Consequently, we may respond to the man's initial refusal of process of re-creation, the folk narrative reflects both the past as well as the drink as wise and founded upon a just suspicion, but to his subsequent the present. Narrators must draw upon past language, symbols, events, succumbing to the woman's entreaty as foolish. We surmise that the pain and forms which they share with their audience for their narrations to be in the man's stomach is the result of a poison which perhaps ao evil or both comprehensible and meaningful. Yet because each narration is a vengeful woman has pressed upon him. As a whole, the narrative might creation of the moment, it crystallizes around contemporary situations and imply that people in general, or women (or some particular woman), are concerns, reflecting current values and attitudes. A folk narrative is dangerous and not to be trusted. However, none of the constituent something of a renovation; the past is made to speak in the present. (3) A sentences bear these messages. They can be derived only from a folk narrative reflects both the individual and the community. The consideration of this narrative sequence as a whole. narrator shapes the narratives he re-creates in accordance with his own Note that narrative has the ability to ensnare us. It engages us dispositions and circumstances. Yet his creativity is not unlimited. His intellectually and causes us to make demands of it. Why did the woman narrations depend upon a measure of community acceptance. The re- put poison in the drink? What did the man do when he realized that he creation of a narrative relies upon a negotiation between the narrator and was poisoned? Did he survive? What, if any, was his revenge? Narrative his audience. The narrator's individuality must find outlet in a narrative has affective import as well. That is, it engages the emotions as well as the acceptable to the community if he is to be confirmed in his role as narrator mind. We may feel anger, fear, joy, sorrow, suspicion, hope, despair, or and if he is to be permitted to perform again in the future. triumph - the full range of human emotions. Indeed, narratives may serve Obviously, the process of folk narration evolved sometime after the as important vehicles to communicate emotion. development of language and has continued unabated until the present All in all, a narrative is a medium for communicating experience. Its day. It is often necessary to point out that folk narration is not ability to engage the mind and arouse the emotions greatly depends upon characteristic of just primitive or peasant groups, but is characteristic of the sensitivity and artistry of the narrator. Agood narrator may engage his all known human groups at all stages of civilization - ourselves very audience totally, directing or redirecting their thoughts, emotions, and much included. perhaps their future behavior as well. Folklorists have tended to divide folk narrative into a host of What makes a narrative a "folk" narrative poses a somewhat subvarieties, and it is not unusual for the folklorist to be familiar with a different question. The notion of folk narrative is based upon a large folk-narra tive terminology: origin myth, Saint's legend, memora te, conceptualization of what folklore is, and there is no unanimity among fabulat, novella, aetiological tale, magic tale, joke, jest, animal tale, scholars about the basic defining characteristics of folklore. Suffice it to catch tale, clock tale, formula tale, personal experience story, and life say that folk narratives are generally conceptualized to be those narratives history, just to name a few. In truth, the terminology often leads to more Elliott O;ing FOLK GROUPS AND FOLKLORE GENRES confusion than clarification, but it also reflects some of the distinctions primarily through retranslation and reinterpretation rather than through which folklorists have perceived as important within the larger body of the oral re-creation of the text it~elf.~ folk narrative. Three major prose narrative categories regularly distinguished by Another category of narrative to which the folklorist frequently folklorists are myth, legend, and tale. These terms do not refer to the forms refers is the legend. Legends are considered narratives which focus on a of narrative so much as to the attitudes of the community toward them.' single episode, an episode which is presented as miraculous, uncanny, Thus, myth is a term used for a narrative generally regarded by the bizarre, or sometimes embarrassing. The narration of a legend is, in a community in which it is told as both sacred and true. Consequently, sense, the negotiation of the truth of these episodes. This is not to say that myths tend to be core narratives in larger ideological systems. Concerned legends are always held to be true, as some scholars have ~laimed,~but with ultimate realities, they are often set outside of historical time, before that at the core of the legend is an evaluation of its truth status. It might be the world came to be as it is today, and frequently concern the actions of that a particular narrative is regarded as false, or true, or false by some and divine or semi-divine characters. Indeed, through the activities of true by others. This diversity of opinion does not negate the status of the mythological characters, the world has come to take the form that it has narrative as legend because, whatever the opinion, the truth status of the today. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden might serve as an narrative is what is being negotiated. In a legend, the question of truth appropriate example of a myth, even though it takes a written rather than must be entertained even if that truth is ultimately rejected. Thus, the an oral form. For those who hold the story to be both sacred and true, the legend often depicts the improbable within the world of the possible. activities of this primordial couple, in concert with beguiling serpent and The legend never asks fof the suspension of disbelief. It is concerned with deity, explain fundamental aspects of world order: why the serpent is creating a narrative whose truth is at least worthy of deliberation; reviled, why a woman is ruled by her husband and suffers in childbirth, consequently, the art of legendry engages the listener's sense of the why man must toil to live, - and most importantly - how sin entered possible. the world and why man must die. It should be noted that nowhere in this The legend is set in historical time in the world as we know it today. definition is myth held to be untrue - rather, that the narrative is held by It often makes reference to real people and places. The full range of someone to be ultimately true enables its characterization by the folklorist associations to these people and places often remains implicit, however. as a myth. Myths are frequently performed in a ritual or ceremonial Their identity and significance is not usually addressed in the narrative context. There may be special personnel designated to recite the myth; the proper but is generally assumed to be known to the audience.

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