Danille Christensen Lindquist and Professor Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist, English

“The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign—is it not? Of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.”1 So Ralph Waldo Emerson champions the collection of ordinary stories. Others have stressed the importance of stories in general: author Leslie Marmon Silko believes that stories, while entertaining, are also “all we have . . . to fight off illness and death.”2 (Silko’s statement is not just metaphorical: a 1990 study indicated that “simply expressing one’s feelings improves affect, reduces stress, enhances physical health, and even increases the functioning of [a] person’s immune system.”3 According to Reynolds Price, “a need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens — second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love and home, almost none in silence.”4

But even if people admit that traditional tales are as meaningful as published “literature,” they may disregard the importance of the most intimate and mundane stories- those of their own lives. Even folklore scholars are guilty of neglecting the near-at-hand. Traditionally, folklore has studied “residual culture,” looking “backward to the past for its frame of reference, disqualifying itself from the study of the creations of contemporary culture.”5 As Sam Keen writes, “We do everything but look under our own hearths for the stories of who we are.”‘ This is a dangerous kind of shyness; general narratives might sustain life, but personal narratives unearth what is most meaningful in individual lives. Telling personal stories is an exercise in self-examination.

Personal narrative, in fact, has several distinct functions. First, it is what some critics call the “literature of the imagination”: rather than being historical fact, personal narratives are crafted “fictions”: accounts vary according to the teller’s past experience, adherence to cultural norms and artistic patterns, and audience composition. Consequently, analysis of personal narratives reveals aspects of the narrator’s values and sense of identity. In addition, personal narratives comment on the “covert assumptions” of a culture—what is implied by the details and tone of a personal narrative can tell as much about a society’s attitude and core beliefs as the literal words do. In the course of commenting on cultural assumptions, personal narratives fill another function: they try to promote change, either in audience attitude or action. Narratives can have themes that are overtly didactic, or they can demonstrate desirable personal characteristics by taking the form of character anecdotes. Finally, personal narratives can encourage evaluation of community attitudes by employing humor. Humorous stories identify ironic or incongruous elements of a particular cultural group. And as personal narratives are shared between individuals, they function in yet another way: they increase intimacy and foster community.

Initially, I was interested in learning more about the ways narratives reflect identity; I wanted to see how stories about an individual created a “public” identity, or character legend. As a result, I intended to collect “character legends” about Elouise Bell, a former Brigham Young University professor and lecturer well-known for her humorous perspective on Mormon life. I sent fliers explaining my project to all the English faculty; I called retired members of the English department to ask for their memories of Elouise; I talked to associates and former classmates about my plan to collect narratives. When it came down to recording stories, however, my tapes remained empty. My slim collection was partly due to staff turnover in the last few years; in addition, while I interviewed former students, a teaching assistant, and several of Elouise’s friends, many interviews seemed to be character summaries instead of discrete narratives.

As I pressed on with my research on the theoretical underpinnings of folklore studies, I began to think I should collect Elouise’s own stories, instead of those about her. Claire Farrer, for instance, observed that studies of women’s folklore have historically concentrated on “data from women for information about health, charms, some games, and various beliefs and customs,” but have otherwise ignored the stories of women unless “men informants were unavailable.”7 Since I knew the BYU Folklore Archives had a relatively small collection of stories by and about women, I decided to ask Elouise if she’d let me record stories from her own mouth. She agreed, and six hours of taped interviews resulted in about 100 pages of single-spaced narrative.

Sifting through these narratives, I discovered that the stories did reveal a lot about Elouise’s self-conception, but that they also had specific motives. Many of her stories, either explicitly or somewhat more subtly, center around a common theme: taking life less seriously. She posits that an inflexible adherence to convention and propriety results in distant and superficial relationships; she then demonstrates her ability to give people “permission to be real” when she says or does “foolish” things. Her willingness to take herself less seriously allows others to loosen up and begin to establish more intimate relationships with those around them.

My project, submitted to the BYU Folklore Archive, includes an analysis of general story function; the cultural context understood by teller and interviewer; a discussion of personal narrative as “fiction” and an analysis of its role in social change. I then apply this theoretical framework to the collected narratives and tie the ideas together in a conclusion. In all, my research confirms that the lives of everyday people should not be disregarded: personal experiences are important to the creation of self, cessation of stasis, and connection to others.

References

1. R.W. Emerson, “The American Scholar,” in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Third Edition, Shorter, ed. Nina Baym, et. al. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989): 412-425, at 423.
2. L. M. Silko, Ceremony (New York: Penguin, 1977): 2.
3. M. R. Leary, Self-Presentation: Impression Management and Interpersonal Behavior (Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark, 1995): 44.
4. Qtd. in S. E. Lundquist, “Narrative Theory in Naguib Mahfouz’s The Children of Gebelawi,” in Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature, ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock (Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1992): 213-229, at 217.
5. R. Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1977): 47-48. 6. S.Keen, “Our Mythic Stories,” in Sacred Stories: A Celebration of the Power of Stories to Transform and Heal, ed. Charles and Anne Simpkinson (San Francisco: 134 Harper, 1993): 3 1. 7.C. R. Farrer, “Introduction,” In Women and folklore: Images and Genres (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1975): xii.