The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

by Gottschall, Jonathan

  Humans evolved to crave story. This craving has, on the whole, been a good thing for us. Stories give us pleasure and instruction. They simulate worlds so we can live better in this one. They help bind us into communities and define us as cultures. Stories have been a great boon to our species.

  But are they becoming a weakness? There’s an analogy to be made between our craving for story and our craving for food. A tendency to overeat served our ancestors well when food shortages were a predictable part of life. But now that we modern desk jockeys are awash in cheap grease and corn syrup, overeating is more likely to fatten us up and kill us young. Likewise, it could be that an intense greed for story was healthy for our ancestors but has some harmful consequences in a world where books, MP3 players, TVs, and iPhones make story omnipresent—and where we have, in romance novels and television shows such as Jersey Shore, something like the story equivalent of deep-fried Twinkies. I think the literary scholar Brian Boyd is right to wonder if overconsuming in a world awash with junk story could lead to something like a “mental diabetes epidemic.”

  Similarly, as digital technology evolves, our stories—ubiquitous, immersive, interactive—may become dangerously attractive. The real threat isn’t that story will fade out of human life in the future; it’s that story will take it over completely.

  Maybe we can avoid this fate. Maybe, like disciplined dieters, we can make nutritious choices and avoid gorging on story. In that spirit, here are some modest suggestions based on the research in this book.

  Read fiction and watch it. It will make you more empathic and better able to navigate life’s dilemmas.

  Don’t let moralists tell you that fiction degrades society’s moral fabric. On the contrary, even the pulpiest fare usually pulls us together around common values.

  Remember that we are, by nature, suckers for story. When emotionally absorbed in character and plot, we are easy to mold and manipulate.

  Revel in the power of stories to change the world (think Uncle Tom’s Cabin), but guard against it, too (think The Birth of a Nation).

  Soccer practice and violin lessons are nice, but don’t schedule away your child’s time in Neverland—it is a vital part of healthy development.

  Allow yourself to daydream. Daydreams are our own little stories: they help us learn from the past and plan for the future.

  Recognize when your inner storyteller is locked in overdrive: be skeptical of conspiracy theories, your own blog posts, and self-exculpatory accounts of spats with spouses and coworkers.

  If you are a doubter, try to be more tolerant of the myths—national and religious—that help tie culture together. Or at the very least, try to be less celebratory of their demise.

  The next time a critic says that the novel is dying from lack of novelty, just yawn. People don’t go to story land because they want something startlingly new; they go because they want the old comforts of the universal story grammar.

  Don’t despair for story’s future or turn curmudgeonly over the rise of video games or reality TV. The way we experience story will evolve, but as storytelling animals, we will no more give it up than start walking on all fours.

  Rejoice in the fantastic improbability of the twisting evolutionary path that made us creatures of story—that gave us all the gaudy, joyful dynamism of the stories we tell. And realize, most importantly, that understanding the power of storytelling—where it comes from and why it matters—can never diminish your experience of it. Go get lost in a novel. You’ll see.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all the individuals and organizations that gave me permission to use the images in this book. Thanks also to Frederic Spotts for patiently explaining copyright issues pertaining to Hitler’s paintings. Finally, special thanks to Wikimedia Commons for providing searchable access to a huge trove of digital images.

  I’m grateful to the scholars and scientists who offered advice on the book as a whole or on individual chapters: Brian Boyd, Joseph Carroll, Edward Castronova, Sam Fee, Michael Gazzaniga, and Katja Valli. My mother and father, Marcia and Jon, as well as my brother, Robert, also gave sound advice and encouragement. Tiffani, my wife, deserves thanks not only for commenting on drafts, but also for putting up with me when I was obsessed with this book.

  I thank the librarians at Washington and Jefferson College library, especially Rachel Bolden and Alexis Rittenberger. They ordered me many scores of interlibrary loan books and never sicced the library police on me, even when I deserved it.

  I am deeply indebted to my talented, hard-working, polymathically informed editor, Amanda Cook. Amanda collaborated with me in everything from the book’s overarching design to the texture of its sentences. No book is perfect, but without Amanda’s ear for language and instinct for storytelling, this one would have been much less so. Others on the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt team also deserve thanks for their skill and diligence, including editorial assistant Ashley Gilliam, who worked closely with me on the images in this volume; book designer Brian Moore; and copy editor extraordinaire Barbara Jatkola.

  I feel very fortunate to have, in Max Brockman, such a capable and gifted agent. Max was there at the beginning of this project, helping me shape an amorphous clump of ideas into the beginnings of a book. He has also been a reliable source of comradeship and wise council.

  Since they were small, my daughters have invited me into their pretend worlds as a sort of participant-observer—playing the roles of princes, Ken dolls, and ogres. Playing with my girls has taught me as much about story as I’ve ever learned in books. Thanks, Abigail. Thanks, Annabel.

  Notes

  Preface

  [>] researchers from Plymouth: BBC News 2003.

  [>] Sssssss: Elmo et al. 2002.

  [>] “‘the infinite monkey theory’”: BBC News 2003.

  “a less than infinite”: Tanaka 2010.

  [>] Homo fictus: E. M. Forster uses this term in Aspects of the Novel (1955, p. 55) to describe literary characters. See also Niles 1999.

  1. The Witchery of Story

  [>] The Witchery of Story: This phrase comes from Sara Cone Bryant’s book How to Tell Stories to Children (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905), p. 8.

  [>] “Under Coffin’s watchful eye”: Philbrick 2000, p. xii.

  [>] “willing suspension”: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817; repr., New York: Leavitt, Lord, 1834), p. 174.

  [>] 50 percent of Americans: National Endowment for the Arts 2008.

  twenty minutes per day: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009.

  more time in TV land: Shaffer et al. 2006, p. 623.

  [>] five hours per day: Motion Picture Association of America 2006. This estimate does not account for time spent downloading fictions from websites such as Hulu and YouTube.

  five hours of music: Levitin 2008, p. 3.

  [>] storylike dreams: Solms 2003.

  almost all night: Dream researcher Owen Flanagan thinks that we probably dream all night long (Flanagan 2000, p. 10).

  [>] daydreaming is the mind’s: Klinger 2009.

  Clever scientific studies: Ibid.

  we spend about half: Using different methods, both Klinger 2009 and Killingsworth and Gilbert 2010 reached this conclusion.

  [>] “We make movies”: Blaustein 2000.

  [>] New York Times Magazine article: Baker 2011.

  [>] “fictional screen media”: See Bryant and Oliver 2009.

  Business executives: Guber 2011.

  [>] the role of story in court: Malcolm 2010.

  much good journalism: Wolfe 1975.

  [>] gossipy stories: Dunbar 1996; Norrick 2007.

  2. The Riddle of Fiction

  [>] romps, riots, and revels: For overviews of the developmental psychology of children’s pretend play, see Bloom 2004; Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2002; Boyd 2009; Gopnik 2009; Harris 2000; Singer and Singer 1990; Sutton-Smith 1997; Taylor 1999; Weisberg 2009.

  Auschwitz: Eisen 1988; Walton 1990, p. 12.

  [>] riddle of f
iction: For more, see Boyd 2009; Dutton 2009; Dissanayake 1995, 2000; Pinker 1997, 2002, 2007; Bloom 2010; Zunshine 2006; Knapp 2008; Wilson 1998, chapter 10. For a collection of major contributions, see Boyd, Carroll, and Gottschall 2010.

  marvel of bioengineering: For facts and philosophical meditation on the human hand, see Napier 1993; Bell 1852; Tallis 2003; Wilson 1998.

  [>] Clay bison: See Breuil 1979; Bégouën et al. 2009.

  [>] evolutionary source of story: Darwin 1897; Miller 2001; Dutton 2009.

  “a work of art”: Boyd 2009, p. 15.

  [>] vicarious experience: Sugiyama 2005.

  social glue: Dissanayake 1995, 2000.

  “Real art creates”: Gardner 1978, p. 125.

  These and other theories: For the theory that art helps us maintain cognitive order or mental homeostasis, see Wilson 1998, pp. 210–37; Carroll 2008, pp. 119–28; Damasio 2010, pp. 294–97.

  “Cocaine”: Kessel 2010, p. 657.

  [>] “for kicks”: Ibid., p. 672.

  They are side effects: This view is most commonly associated with Pinker 1997, 2002, but Pinker actually thinks that fiction, unlike other art forms, may have an evolutionary purpose. Paul Bloom (2010) has strongly argued that fiction is an evolutionary side effect.

  [>] deeply unsatisfactory: See, for example, Boyd 2009.

  [>] “Whatever else”: Paley 1988, p. 6.

  [>] only one thing: Bruner 2002, p. 23.

  “Will you tell me a story?”: Sutton-Smith 1986.

  [>] 360 stories: Appleyard 1990. For children’s storytelling generally, see Engel 1995.

  “The typical actions”: Sutton-Smith, 1997, pp. 160–61.

  [>] “Where’s the baby”: Paley 2004, p. 60.

  “Pretend you’re a frog”: Ibid., p. 30.

  [>] “Let the boys be robbers”: Paley 1984, p. 116.

  reliable sex differences: Konner 2010.

  Dozens of studies: For a review of studies, see Konner 2010.

  See also Geary 1998; Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2002.

  seventeenth month of life: Konner 2010, chap. 19.

  “Most of the time”: Singer and Singer 1990, p. 78.

  girl play only seems: Paley 1984, p. 58.

  [>] “affected girls show”: Konner 2010, p. 270.

  a bad guy named Lurky: Paley 1984, p. 84.

  [>] “a muddle out of which”: The quote is a description of Piaget’s views by the psychologist J. A. Appleyard (1990, p. 11).

  the work of children: For reviews of children’s pretend play, see Bloom 2004; Bjorklund and Pellegrini 2002; Gopnik 2009; Singer and Singer 1990; Boyd 2009; Sutton-Smith 1997; Taylor 1999; Weisberg 2009.

  have never found: See Konner 2010, p. 264; Wood and Eagly 2002.

  “I blush”: Poe 1975, p. 224.

  [>] “A man once slaughtered”: Tatar 2003, p. 247.

  [>] a critic counted: Russell 1991, p. 74.

  in a different study: Davies et al. 2004.

  3. Hell Is Story-Friendly

  [>] Mr Bailey, Grocer: Thanks to Joseph Carroll for bringing this example to my attention.

  [>] “Conflict is the fundamental”: Burroway 2003, p. 82.

  “Hell is story-friendly”: Baxter 1997, p. 133.

  [>] “There is very little”: James 2007, p. 257.

  [>] “Margaritomancy!”: Joyce 1999, p. 281.

  [>] “nothing much happens”: Quoted in Baxter 1997, p. 226.

  master themes: For a recent treatment of the topic, with reviews of previous scholarship, see Booker 2004.

  [>] Navy fighter pilots: For details of flight training, see Waller 1999.

  [>] story is where people: For variations on this idea, see Boyd 2009; Pinker 1997, 2002; Sugiyama 2005.

  “Literature offers feelings”: Burroway 2003, p. 74. Italics in original.

  [>] flight simulators of human social life: Oatley, “The Mind’s Flight Simulator,” 2008.

  [>] Italian neuroscientists: For basic overviews of the research, see Iacoboni 2008; Rizzolatti, Sinigaglia, and Anderson 2008; Ramachandran 2011.

  For skepticism, see Hickok 2009; Dinstein et al. 2008.

  [>] mirror neurons may help: For the original study of imitation in newborns, see Meltzoff and Moore 1977. For infant imitation and mirror neurons, see Meltzoff and Decety 2003.

  [>] “because mirror neurons”: Iacoboni 2008, p. 4.

  Other scientists are more wary: For instance, Ilan Dinstein and his colleagues allow that “mirror neurons are exceptionally interesting neurons, which may underlie certain social capabilities in both animals and humans,” but point out that the “‘human mirror system’ in particular has been characterized by much speculation and relatively little hard evidence” (Dinstein et al. 2008, p. 17).

  stories affect us physically: Nell 1988.

  [>] “media equals real life”: Reeves and Nass 2003.

  in a Dartmouth brain lab: Krendl et al. 2006.

  [>] they tend to respond: Slater et al. 2006.

  “What this means”: Jabbi, Bastiaansen, and Keysers 2008. For a similar fMRI study of fictional response, see Speer et al. 2009.

  [>] “cells that fire together”: The Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb, quoted in Ledoux 2003, p. 79. Daniel Goleman writes, “Simulating an act is, in the brain, the same as performing it, except that the actual execution is somehow blocked” (Goleman 2006, pp. 41–42).

  stories equip us: Pinker 1997, chap. 8.

  fiction can make: See Fodor 1998.

  Almost none of the details: On the fragmentary nature of fictional recollection, see Bayard 2007.

  [>] implicit memory: See Schachter 1996, 2001.

  “realistic rehearsal”: Valli and Revonsuo 2009, p. 11.

  [>] researchers are simply not: On the application of scientific methods to literary questions, see Gottschall 2008.

  flight simulators work: Lehrer 2010, pp. 252–53.

  fiction readers had better: Mar et al. 2006. For overviews of this research, see Oatley, “The Mind’s Flight Simulator,” 2008; Oatley, “The Science of Fiction,” 2008; Oatley 2011.

  In a second test: Mar, Oatley, and Peterson 2009. For Oatley’s quote and a more thorough description of Mar, Oatley, and Peterson’s methods and findings, see Oatley 2011. See also Keen 2007. Pinker 2011 argues that “it seems likely that fiction . . . helps to expand people’s circle of sympathy.”

  4. Night Story

  [>] “vivid and continuous dream[s]”: Gardner 1983, p. 32.

  “sensorimotor hallucinations”: Koch 2010, p. 16

  [>] “Freud was determined”: Crews 2006, p. 24.

  [>] “fortune cookie” model: Hobson 2002, p. 64.

  “The manifest dream”: Ibid., p. 151.

  [>] “We dream to forget”: Crick and Mitchison 1983, p. 111.

  “Our dreams were not”: Flanagan 2000, p. 24.

  [>] dreams are mainly: Valli and Revonsuo 2009, p. 25.

  See also Franklin and Zyphur 2005, p. 64; Talbot 2009, p. 47.

  “No random process”: Revonsuo 2003, p. 278.

  [>] “dreams of actions”: Jouvet 1999, p. 92.

  [>] rats probably dream: Ji and Wilson 2007.

  [>] “[In dreams] waves”: Quoted in Revonsuo 2000, p. 898.

  [>] In a 2009 review: Valli and Revonsuo 2009.

  REM behavior disorder: For overviews of RBD, see Valli and Revonsuo 2009; Revonsuo 2000.

  [>] “the stage on which”: Paley 1988, p. 65.

  “are so rare”: Revonsuo 2003, p. 280.

  Other universal themes: Revonsuo 2003, p. 288.

  [>] studied dream reports: Valli and Revonsuo 2009.

  [>] “We experience a dream”: Quoted in Rock 2004, p. 1.

  “When you consider”: Franklin and Zyphur 2005, p. 73. For another adaptationist perspective on dreams, see McNamara 2004.

  [>] “If you attempt”: Fajans, “How You Steer a Bicycle.”

  [>] “It is difficult”: Hunt 2003, p. 166.

  dreams are reasonably realistic: F
ranklin and Zyphur 2005, p. 64.

  “relevant, reasonable”: Valli and Revonsuo 2009, p. 25.

  “We are for the first time”: Revonsuo 2003, p. 294.

  5. The Mind Is a Storyteller

  [>] “the central mystery”: Nettle 2001, p. 117.

  turn flat characters round: Forster 1955, pp. 67–78.

  [>] “We of the craft”: Quoted in Gardiner 1836, p. 87.

  [>] “It is hard to avoid””: Nettle 2001, p. 147.

  “The Western literary tradition”: Allen 2004, p. ix.

  massive study: Ludwig 1996.

  underlying genetic component: See Nettle 2001; Jamison 1993.

  [>] In his memoir: King 2000, pp. 90–91.

  [>] dangerous experimental procedure: For details on split-brain operations and research, see Gazzaniga 2000; Gazzaniga, Human, 2008; Gazzaniga, “Forty-Five Years of Split-Brain Research,” 2008; Funnel, Corbalis, and Gazzaniga 2000.

  [>] left brain is specialized: Gazzaniga, Human, 2008, p. 13.

  “the interpreter”: For overviews, see Gazzaniga 2000; Gazzaniga, Human, 2008;

  Gazzaniga, “Forty-Five Years of Split-Brain Research,” 2008.

  [>] In one experiment: Gazzaniga, Human, 2008, pp. 294–95.

  [>] “You have been”: Doyle 1904, p. 8.

  With great relish: Ibid., p. 22.

  [>] The human mind is tuned: Hood 2009.

  [>] “Human beings like stories”: Wallis 2007, p. 69.

  [>] a very limited ability: See Haven 2007.

  For harmful consequences of our tendency to impose story patterns on random information, see Taleb 2008.

  This point is: Heider and Simmel 1944.

  [>] “rock-jawed certainty”: Hirstein 2006, p. 8. See also Hirstein 2009.