During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “The Riddle of Fiction.” Some questions that you might consider answering in your response: What does Gottschall mean by the “riddle of fiction?” Play is the work of who? What does children’s play differentiation tell us about the speed of evolutionary change and the speed of cultural change? Remember to type up your handwritten summary and post it here as a comment to this blog post.
ENG1101 D340 English Composition I, SPR2015
Official site for ENG1101 D340
Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “The Riddle of fiction” convey the idea that evolution is ruthlessly utilitarian. Also, that the riddle of fiction is part of a bigger biological riddle of Art that children adore by nature. Children play the exuberance of running and jumping like by instinct of exploring their world. Therefore, I think that “play” is the work of children who bring fictional stories as their reality. However, it is our imagination which tells that the speed of evolutionary and cultural changes increases as time pass. In reference to the chapter, “Story is just a drug we use to escape from the boredom and brutality of real life”. In other words, telling stories is the solution to avoid what we can’t do in the real world and now it has become an essential way to satisfy yourself in the sense of survive. Finally, I’ll keep saying that Gottschall’s isn’t so far away from John Medina’s writing style.
When I was reading “The Riddle of Fiction”, I agreed with what Jonathan Gottschall said in the chapter. At a very young age, toddlers can already cooperate in simple dramas while they begin learning how to develop a character. And I believe children are creatures of story because most children at a very young age they have theirs “Imaginary World” and we will see the spontaneous creation of art acted out by the small children. Most of us enjoy funny things and we all hate boredom. Fiction is a good way to make things live up. Fiction is like a drug, it help us escape from boredom and brutality of real life. To us, stories are very important because it may educate us, deepen us, and give us joy.
After reading storytelling animal chapter two riddle of fiction I noticed that brain rules and storytelling animal have a lot of the same points and theories especially the part about fiction. Its true when he said humans do love fiction, we love to pretend and see things the way we want for example if a movie or a book doesn’t have the ending we wanted or expected we will write it as we want. In brain rules there is an exact passage about how we love to fantasize. As I said when I wrote my passage for brain rules I fantasize and not just about books or movies, I fantasize about real life events like how I wish a conversation could have went differently. Sometimes if I fantasize about something long enough and keep telling myself that story I will start believing it. I enjoyed the chapter and I love all the similarities between brain rules and storytelling animal.
What I got out of the “Riddle of Fiction” chapter of Gottschall’s “The Story-Telling Animal” was that we need to use our imagination. I noticed that he spends a lot of time talking about kids and how they use their imagination. I know that as a child I used to spend lots of my time playing with Barbie’s and watching Dragon Tales which was a show where the characters used to go on “magical adventures” which were really just adventures of their imaginations. We use our brains all the time even as adults to imagine things. We imagine all the time as we do every day life activities. For example, when we watch movies we imagine or predict the ending. in conclusion, imagination is important.
After reading the book “The Story Telling Animal” by Johnathan Gottschall the chapter “Riddle of Fiction” was very accurate to the life of a young child because many children and I when we was little decide to use our imagination and things so we can have fun. When I was little I had imagine that I had powers like Superman, Static Shock or even skilled like the Batman and even until now I still imagine myself holding a powerful sword that has powers because I like swords. So the point that Gottschall is trying to make is true because even at a young age we find ways of building our character so that when we get older we can become that person.
In the riddle of fiction chapter, Jonathan Gottschall discusses why we are telling stories. Kids seems to have an incredible imagination and an ability to make up stories that slowly fades when we get older. Although children make up different stories and make beliefs with their imagination, their stories seems to have something in common. They are mostly displaying trouble and obstacles that the child has to overcome, both girls who played with dolls and boys who played with guns, made up stories that had some sort of trouble in them. Vivian Paley was a kindergarten and preschool teacher, who found out that children’s play were mostly decided by gender. No matter what she tried, the boys played in a more violent manner than the girls. We do not know the full answer to why children play or make up stories, but it is possible that it is meant to prepare them for the adult life.
The StoryTelling Animal
By Jonathan Gottschall
The Riddle of Fiction
Summary
In the chapter The Riddle of Fiction, Gottschall explains how stories somehow are part of the evolutionary steps for humans and also how stories involved children’s creativity, moreover, when children are pretending to make a story. Also, he states how the mind is involving in stories and the evolutionary aspect. First, the author introduces the chapter with a story that looks like a riddle which basically describes a dad visiting his daughter. However, he told this story in a colorful and fictional way which means he exaggerate some of the features of the story making it more entertaining. After that he asked why is the purpose of the fictional stories in the evolutionary aspect for humans? In order to answer that question, he explains some of the purpose of the hand which is a complex multipurpose tool that helps us to touch and express our feelings, and the same happens with lips and other parts of our body which all of them have a purpose to be in that way. Nevertheless, stories apparently do not have any purpose in the evolutionary step for humans, as he scrutinizes about this topic, he mentions that stories are a form of art that our minds fabricate in order to describe something such as a specifically culture or just explain human’s psychology because it is part of people daily life. In addition, Gottschall explains that stories are like a drug because people like stories in order to have fun, and he compared this to a book about aliens and the reason why the like drugs because for the aliens that represents a different form of art, and the reason why people like story is because they like to have fun with a this form of art and scape from boredom. In addition, the author explains the correlation between stories and children for the purpose of emulate something in their life or situation that had happened to them. Basically, children like to pretend to do something such as being a cop or a princess, so when they tell stories they do the same, but in a simple way using their imagination at their full potential describing many elements in a very spontaneous way. This was based in some research made by Vivian Pasley who was a teacher that likes to study preschooler and their activities, and she found out that children like to represent stereotypes such as boys pretend to be pirates or cops and the girls being a princess, and those are ways that they represent themselves by pretending to be someone in a story made by their spontaneous imagination.
Summary of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “The Riddle of Fiction”
In The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall declares that “The Riddle of Fiction” comes down to evolution is ruthlessly utilitarian. He argues that fiction might be for many things, for instance, like the stories of Neverland we read from books. On the other hand, he states that the Riddle is easy to pose but hard to solve, for example, the human hand is of bioengineering, which allows us rotate it, make a fist, wiggle our figures, etc. Jonathan Gottschall, explains that our hands are tools, but evolution did not shape them for one single thing. He added that the hand is not the biological equipment of a hammer or a screwdriver, but the hand is like a multipurpose tool like a Swiss Army knife, and that our hands are for many things.
Nevertheless, Jonathan Gottschall believes that play is the work of children and that sex differences in children’s play reflect the fact that biological evolution is slow, while cultural evolution is fast. In addition, he states that children’s play seems to be preparing girls for lives beside the hearth and preparing boys for lives of action in the world.
In the Storytelling Animal, The Riddle of Fiction, Jonathan Gottschall describes the importance of story to us. According to Gottschall at the age of one, something strange and magical buds in a child. And as they start growing up their imagination and stories gets even bigger. At the age of three, four children start to pitch their voices differently and they pretend to be masters of romps, riots and revels in the land of make believe. I still remember, when I was five I used to get on my brothers back and used to pull his ears pretending it’s a bike. Gottschall also says that children adore art by nature, not nurture. Also children don’t need to be tutored in story. We don’t need to bribe them to make stories like we bribe them to eat broccoli. Children pretend even when they don’t have enough to eat. As I was reading I found out that Jonathan Gottschall keeps on jumping from one topic to another. As he was explaining about how children make stories he suddenly started talking about our fingers, lips and brain. Gottschall explains that our fingers are not just for turning pages of our books and typewriting rather they are for performing various activities. Also at the end of the chapter Gottschall argues that children’s television program had about five violent scenes per hour, while read aloud nursery rhymes had fifty-two.
Gottschall’s second chapter “The Riddle of Fiction” expresses us that in somehow since we are children, we start to develop skills that in the future are going to be more complex. He says that children don’t need to be tutored in story. The reason why I agree with the author is because I have noticed that the kids create their own world and make a story of everything they see or feel because they perceive the things different that adults. Also, the author says that people may invent a high-minded evolutionary justification to for their fictions habits, but story is just a drug we use to escape from the boredom and brutality of real life. Personally, I do believe this, I think is amazing the way we can transport our minds to places that nobody else could ever imagine and the capacity we have to make of every teeny tiny detail a big story, it is funny how in just a few minutes we are able to imagine so many things. But the truth is that story does not have a biological purpose. All this capacity is developed since childhood, I remember those days that my brother used to play with a little car and talk to himself imaging that he was in a race and so many other things. Everybody has their own way of imagine stories but at the end they all love stories, there is no one that could live without them because that is the best way of visualize all the things around us.
Justin Echevarria
What Jonathan Gottshall meant by “Riddle of Fiction” is based on story telling; how we as humans get the joy of stories and how it fills our imagination. He explained people aren’t taught to like art as he made the statement, “children adore art by nature, not nature.” What does this mean? Well art could mean a widespread of various things. For example, art can be interpreted as paintings that give people a sense of emotion. The sense of emotion is art in my perspective. Literature makes people feel emotion, paintings give a sense of an artist emotion. People might disagree but graffiti is a type of art, although it is vandalism it shows where an artist is coming from and its public art where someone could be recognized. Singing, personally what I believe to be the most powerful type of art, music can change how someone is feeling dramatically and so quickly. So the sense of art has a meaning and it can change a person by molding them and allowing one to find self.
While reading “The Riddle of Fiction” Chapter in the book the Storyteling Animal by Johnathan Gottschall I found two points very interesting. One, the fact that we’re obsessed with fiction. Not because we get any real benefit from it, but because we simply enjoy stories for “kicks”. Second was the fact that our brains just enjoy being able to experience drama without us actually going through it. I think that’s why I’m obsessed with “reality tv” even though I know it’s really fake!
In this chapter author describes that we are involved into stories since we are 1 year old. We are getting joy from the stories. Children like to play stories and they do it very naturally.
Then he explained why fingers and lips are connecting with the brain and how they are helping us to show emotions, act in situations, operate on daily basis.
Stories got through evolutions same way as humans went through it.
Also Gottschall look at the concept that stories can be a form of cognitive play, that they are low-cost source of information and vicarious experience.
But I am absolutely agree with a point that stories is a form of social glue that bring people together around common interests, topics, etc.