Stories: Healing and Sharing

The story can act to heal those have been injured by personal violence or social injustice. Often traumatic acts are “unspeakable” because those acts are so terrible that it clamps the tongue and subsequently the victim suffers a pain so great that the inexpressibility, the inadequacy of representation, grows and locks the sufferer inside of their suffering. By having their stories told, victims begin to feel empowered again because events where they were once powerless are being re-created. Although events cannot be erased, the act of recollecting and of telling both aid people to process and move beyond pain. Zora Neal Hurston’s Mules and Men (year) and Anzaldúa’s Borderlands (year) are creative and potent cross-cultural examples of such medicinal storytelling, serving to redefine and yet preserve the people they re-represent. Trinh Min-ha’s Native Woman Other (year) speaks of the marginalized, woman storyteller, recognizing the power of stories as integral to healing.

The complex process of healing differs for everybody, but storytelling holds prescriptive elements that promote people to move beyond their wounds. According to Trinh Minh-ha, “the principle of healing rests on reconciliation, hence the necessity for the family and/or community to participate… witness the recovery” (140). Within narrative, I have identified three functions that heal. The function of sharing connects people. People who have felt powerless also have felt alone, and through the process of sharing, the listener can realize they have had similar experiences to those of the speaker and other the listeners. They are then able to understand and to support each other. A community is built on top of these foundations, one that works together as to move past previous hardships. The function of preservation empowers people to remember who they are. Through folklore and legends people preserve their culture and their spirits. They remember that they come from a world that existed before victimization. This revived history passes on truths from which the listener can draw strength. Narratives help people reclaim their past and present, giving them ownership of their lives and their world. The function of ownership allows the storyteller and all those who share in the story become owners of the past, as they are now able to assert their voices and define their experiences, rather than have their experiences defined from outside. My site, in which I will find these three functions, will be Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands and Zora Neale Husrton’s Mules and Men. In these two texts, I will tease out how each empowers and heals, respective to the communities to whom they are addressed. Although the audience’s healing cannot be apparent in the writing because it does not happen on the page, I will focus on the way these stories promote the functions of sharing, preservation, and ownership, which lead to healing.

For a story to take shape it must be shared. Minh-ha uses the metaphor, “a story is like a gift” (2), it gives more than entertainment; it creates connections between people. Through storytelling a community is strengthened and enlarged because the insider understands the story. That insider has been through similar experiences and the outsider who participates becomes aware of those experiences. In Anzaldúa and Hurston, when the story is shared it is not longer the burden of the teller alone, but an artifact of an entire community. The group mind takes up the task of processing the pain or injustice of the story, not the solitary internal struggle of one victim.

In “Towards A New Consciousness” (Borderlands page), Anzaldúa writes of “El dia de la Chicana” passionately stating the importance of sharing her identity with her friends and family. She expresses her frustration that her identity and the identities of other Chicana women deserve respect (110). Through the rituals of “El dia de la Chicana”, which involves the baring of souls all the people involved, the “insiders” are sharing their wounds with each other and acknowledging that they are part of the same community (110). By sharing her burdens with friends and family, the weight becomes diffuse enough to engage. Then, the statement “all you people wound us when you reject us” (110) brings the outsider reader into the ritual as a listener by making the reader aware, by the “you”, he becomes part of an active participant in her experience of rejection. Learning about the thoughts and feeling of other people we become participants in their experiences, therefore the narration of the rituals in the book create a shared knowledge between the reader and Anzaldúa. Her position as the storyteller, in writing this book initiates the reader into the event. Now that the reader/listener is aware they are able to choose a course of action that either honours or rejects the experiences of the storyteller, but even if he rejects her shared experiences he becomes linked to her world.

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In Hurston’s Mules and Men, she has collected African American folklore in the area that she grew up. More than just a collection of folklore, it records how the storytellers told the stories. The storytelling process is interactive, so that there is often not a clear distinction between speaker and listener. They share their hardships with each other without digging into their individual experiences, letting narratives and metaphors, some dating back to the times of slavery, act in proxy to their unvoiced troubles. Most of the community had to perform hard labor, and the ‘white folks’ they encountered did not. Instead of voicing their frustrations or complaining about their day to day burdens, they are able to ease their spirits by creating stories to explain their lot in life. When they are discussing hard work one man tells a story where God places two bundles on the ground, a small one and a large one. The black man races for the large one thinking that there is something wonderful inside, and leaves the white man with the small one. When the bundles are unwrapped the bundles they find that the large one was filled with tools for working the field, and the small one contained a pen and paper (74). This story is entertaining, humorous, and deals with the burdens of unequal labor without accusations or blame. The exchange that contains the story above is part of a light hearted conversation where several speakers offer stories explaining why they work harder than white people. The community is able to support each other through offering their versions of different stories and they value the interaction it generates.

Sharing is necessary to community building in Anzaludua and Hurston. Through their stories the community is able to give support to its members and create a sense of belonging. Anzaldúa’s words are powerful because her writing seems to be directed at the community outside her own. The tone in her writing is meant to create awareness in the reader and even in the characters of the story she tells. The rituals of “El dia de la Chicana” reveal that sharing is not a regular part of her society, instead sharing her identity is confined to a special day. The Metiza culture appears to be steeped in a “tradition of silence” (76), and through her writing Anzaldúa is breaking that tradition, creating a sense of community with those who share her experiences and those who may sympathize with them. In contrast, Hurston’s portrayal of African American storytelling displays it as the foundation of their community. The function of sharing is not given one specific day, but it is an ongoing process that is a part of everyday life. They share their recollection of past events, tell old folktales, and create new stories. Although Hurston may have written the book to share this culture and their stories with people outside the community, the insiders seem content with telling the stories to each other. Further, not much explanation of jargon is offered, so it may be difficult for people outside the community to connect with the symbols in the stories.

The function of preservation acts to preserve the spirit of events. If the event is a difficult one the telling and retelling of a story preserves the strength of the characters to overcome obstacles, and reminds the listener of their own potential. For oral cultures like the ones presented in Anzaldúa and Hurston the telling of stories is fundamental to preservation of culture and history because until recently many of these stories where not written down. The telling of legends, myths, and history reminds the listeners in the community that they belong to traditions that precede the effects of colonization, and has survived it. Trinh Minh-ha describes the storyteller as “the living memory of her time and her people” (125). Storytelling promotes a sense of identity and grounds people in lessons and values that may help them to persevere through the present and future.

Unlike Western society which is constantly focused on current events, the oral societies that create folklore find value that folklore being told and retold. “Yeah, we done heard it Joe, but Ah kin hear it some ‘gin. Tell it, Joe” (Hurston 77). African American folklore may rely on the repetition of the stories keeps them alive. The many stories recorded in Hurston’s book can be seen as the community’s way of preserving the history and the archetypes that exist in their culture. Characters like John Henry, and Ole Massa are symbols that help the people organize their world, spreading and maintaining the values of the community during and after slavery. Eugene Oliver says, “Tell it Cliff. Ah love to hear tales about Ole Massa and John. John sho was one smart nigger” (70). The dynamics between John Henry and Ole Massa are complex than just a slave following the orders of the master because John was intelligent and able. In one of the stories Ole Massa hears John praying to go to heaven because he wants to rest. Ole Massa wants to know if John Henry really wants to die instead of work for him so, he covers himself with a white sheet and pretends that he is God coming to take John to heaven. John knows that its Ole Massa and goes running out of the house, and while Ole Massa is chasing after him John’s children are afraid that God is going to catch him and take him to heaven, but his wife replies, “You know de Lawd can’t outrun yo’ pappy” (72). John is faster, stronger, and smarter than Ole Massa even though he is a slave. In the story following this one John Henry is so strong that he wrestles with a bear all night without getting injured. John is the “great cultural hero” who is able to be victorious even when the world seems to be stacked against him (247). The truth in these reminds the community that they are more than just their station, and it helps to preserve a moral of hard work and potential for better things.

The folklore of the Old South also contains a lot of magic, traditions like hoodoo and voodoo. The casting of spells and use of rituals is form of storytelling because the spells themselves involve the creation of characters and evoking of cultural symbols. These ancient practices preserve the identity of the people by linking them to both a spiritual world, and a world before slavery. The rituals of hoodoo involve dances that can be traced back to African Tribes and most spells are cast to bring about justice in unfortunate circumstances (239-241). Although there can be dances done to end a person’s life, most of the spells were done to break up or mend romances. The practicing and utilizing of magic is an extension of folklore because it stems from the belief that words have the uttering of words has the power to influence real changes in the physical world and connects people to a world beyond the things they can see. These beliefs and rituals enrich the identity of African Americans by linking them to the non-Christian spiritual world of their ancestors. Imagination and symbolism are important aspects of healing because they help people to look past their pain and see existence as something more meaningful than circumstances.

For Anzaldúa, preservation through storytelling is a process that involves both reaching back to old folktales and seeing her own experiences as new folktales. Her book is a space where she explores old myths and legends of her homeland and links them to her memories and present day struggles. By linking stories from the past and present she is preserving her “borderlands” identity through validation of her existence, and helping others who may share a similar struggle explore the past and present to discover who they are. Anzaldúa believes that “men make the rules and law, and women transmit them” (39), therefore patriarchy is the state of men, and not the state of women. In this society Malinali Tenepat, is a symbol of female betrayal, the name is synonymous with “whore” and makes the mixed race women ashamed of their Indian ancestry (44). Anzaldúa reaches into the story of Malinali Tenepat and sees a woman who is not a whore, but someone who has been betrayed by the people around her (45). She is not rewriting the past, but reclaiming the characters that are a part of her, and restoring them as positive parts of her identity, bringing forth the ability of the Aztec woman to mourn in protest to the cultural changes forced upon her (43). The identity of the Aztec woman was eroded by the male dominated culture rewriting the powerful female deities into evil beings and replacing the female power with masculine deities (49). According to Anzaldúa the true nature of the female figures was preserved through transformation, the Goddess Tonantsi became Guadaluape after the conquest of the Spaniards, and eventually Guadalaupe became a virgin figure likened to Mary (50). Through retelling and changing of the stories to accommodate the times, the spirit of the female deity is able to remain as part of the culture. Had the stories not transformed and remained separate from the Catholic beliefs of the Spaniards they might have been outlawed, and disappeared. But because they have not completely disappeared writers like Anzaldúa can reach backwards to restore the original stories, and preserve the identity of the people those stories belong to.

The last function of storytelling as healing is ownership. Even if a person or community was powerless to stop their own victimization, in the telling of an event the victim becomes the storyteller, and they are acting upon the event that was once enacted upon them. The victim is a passive and voiceless person, but he storyteller is active and able to add her voice to history. The victim’s own voice gives the ability to own his past and present, and restore a sense of control into his life. Through the stories of John Henry, the enslaved people were able to own and create a positive slave identity. In the realm of the story John is constantly more powerful than Ole Massa, and through the stories John lives in the storyteller and the listeners. Because the people of the South own their stories, they own the experiences of the past. Many of the stories in Hurston’s work ends with the listeners and the storytellers laughing, a sign of ownership and healing. They are able to find humor in a history full of struggle because they have taken license over the events, the stories are of the past, but those same stories are about the present, too.

Anzaldúa has identified herself and the struggle of people like her as one of frustration and misunderstanding, filled with oppression and victimage (43). Ownership is an important function of their healing because they must search themselves for the meaning of the borderlands. Anzaldúa recognizes that they have a choice (43): to freely make choices about identity and self acknowledges that they own their story. By moving towards an identity that is true to herself and an identity stands between all the cultures to which she only partially belongs, Anzaldúa becomes an architect who is building the past and present by taking ownership of the events, by writing the events and their meaning. In the poem “Creature of Darkness”, Anzaldúa writes, “I want to stop and pick at my scabs” (208). She expresses ownership over her wounds, and facilitates healing by facing them and establishing a relationship with them. Her writing and sharing, she is able to take action over personal injury. To run away from or hide from a trauma, a person may feel relief from it, but to maintain that relief they must continue to take actions that avoid the pain. Eventually, they work so hard to avoid feeling or thinking that that avoidance owns them. Constant fear of pain may be the price of silence. Sharing in narrative forms helps people to release their frustrations and take ownership of their emotion, memories, and lives.

Stories are a powerful way to share, preserve, and own the past and present. By exchanging stories people are able to learn about each other, assert themselves, share each others burdens, and remember that they are part of something greater than themselves. Storytelling strengthens communities and encourages people to connect with their pasts, their families, and their imaginations. By sharing heroes like John Henry the African American people were able to preserve through slavery because those stories helped them to preserve their values and belief in their abilities. The stories bring joy to the people because they bring them hope for themselves and their community, and remind them that they are a part of something larger. Their culture is preserved through story telling, an important part of healing because it provides people with the identity and the values of their ancestors. For the women living in the American/Mexican borderlands, their mixed heritage has been torn from them because the Spanish influenced stories of the Indian woman were negative and taught people that the Indian women were evil. The Aztec symbols were used to promote shame. In order to reconnect with and preserve the originally powerful Indian woman, the stories must be rediscovered and retold. Stories express the conditions of marginalized people and act as examples of healing through telling. Recollection is a process that empowers the person to become the storyteller, and take control of events where they would not have power otherwise. Whether the story preserves or restores identity, it gives people a tool to support each other and endure the events of their lives.