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Storytelling and Its Relevance

Decent Essays

Storytelling and its relevance
Storytelling is, as a concept, built upon the fundamental question of why. From the dawn of civilization to the marketing activities of a silicon-valley technology company, the success of every endeavor in between can be traced to the resolution of this fundamental question. “Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history,” writes Jeremy Hsu for Scientific American . “Anthropologists find evidence of folktales everywhere in ancient cultures, written in Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian and Sumerian. People in societies of all types weave narratives, from oral storytellers in hunter-gatherer tribes to the millions of writers churning out books, television shows and movies.”
In his book The Triumph of Narrative, Robert Fulford writes about the historical significance of narratives and their impact on culture through time and generations. When ancient man’s crop failed, for example, he wanted to know why. To the non-scientific mind, the most compelling explanations arose in the form of religion; crops failed because the gods were unhappy and required tribute. The power of these stories, as mentioned, lies in the fact that on some level in the consciousness of the audience they make sense – they resolve the question of why and provide explanation for the happenings around the brain. “The story—from Rapunzel to War and Peace—is one of the basic tools invented by the

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