M2 Content Guide B: Story Cycles
We've looked at Creation, a story pattern shared in
some form by all cultures.
We looked at the idea of archetypes, specifically the
S/hero. We compared very divergent concepts of what
makes a person worthy and questioned the dominance
of the S/hero archetype.
We saw that while the S/hero is an archetypal being,
the S/hero 's Journey is an archetypal story pattern.
Just as all cultures have myths about the making of a
worthy individual, all cultures have myths about
unworthy individuals. And no matter how good you
are, it seems, you may still suffer at the hands of an
unworthy individual, so we looked at the story pattern
of Betrayal.
Different archetypes are always in relationship to each
other – no character stands alone. Thus, along with the
S/hero archetype, there is a Mother, a Trickster, a Mentor, and so on. Each character interacts
with other characters, his or her own inner challenges, and/or the environment. A character
archetype can be a S/hero and/or a villain, depending on who’s telling the story. Therefore, they
may be an Ally and/or an Enemy. The Trickster can be a very complicated mix of both/and,
either/or, an Ally/Enemy. It all depends on the situation, who is talking, and the responses of the
reader.
Similarly different story patterns are always in relationship to each other. This suggests that these
are not fixed categories – they're fluid, continually changing into each other (a S/hero can betray,
a creation story can shift to a couple story, and so on). Let's begin to think of story patterns in
relationship, then, as interwoven threads in a Story Cycle, or Story Basket as some call it.
Every Story Cycle begins with a Creation Myth. Since we’re using the word Myth in a scholarly
sense, it does not have the popular connotation of lie or superstition. Rather it is a particular kind
of story that embodies and conveys, metaphorically or otherwise, a profound truth – as the myth
itself will tell you, often a truth conveyed by Divinity. Within this definition every religious story
is a myth, and the term is one of respect.
Just as every Story Cycle begins with a Creation Myth, an emanation from Divinity, all Cycles
contain story patterns of Community (a concept of “the people” or in the west, nationalism),
Family (where personal betrayal is often located), Couples (Love Stories, another Betrayal site),
and the Individual. Generally the Creator is in relationship with the Individual, Couple, Family,
and Community. It is how each of these is defined and how they relate to each other that will
differentiate a Story Cycles from one culture to another. While the S/hero is often oriented to
individualistic experience (King Arthur is central to his own story), in Aiyaiyesh Girl the
orientation is community. This tells us something about the dynamics of the Story Cycle in their
respective cultures.
If you map the Story Cycles as suggested by the distinction between King Arthur’s Quest and the
Aiyaiyesh Girl’s Vision, you will find that the Indigenous and Western Story Cycles go in
opposite directions. The Individual is emphasized in the Western cycle and thus, when the cycle
turns to Community, s/he remains prominent (the leader). A S/hero or Leader contributes to
Community via the exceptional or prominent – the heroic – nature of her/his accomplishments.
In contrast, when the Aiyaiyesh Girl was not a contributor to community, she was the
exceptional one. Aiyaiyesh transformed into the Cultural S/hero who contributes to the
community and is no longer exceptional in the same way a typical Western hero would be.
Contribution to Community, in fact leadership itself, is very different when the cycle goes the
other way. Another difference is that in Indigenous Story Cycles the Family pattern is “All Our
Relations” - therefore including animals and plants so that Cedar Tree became her Mentor. "All
our Relations” also points to a lack of hierarchy or separation between human animals and other
living things. A tree, serpent, or other feature of the landscape has the same respect as an aunt,
sibling or other close relationship that is familial or otherwise. Understanding of Story Cycles as
situated in culture – something you cannot take for granted, but which can be ordered in various
ways – should help you read Linda Hogan’s Power.
Please note that not all Western cultures tell exactly the same kind of story, and not all
Indigenous cultures tell exactly the same kind of story. Also, all Western stories do not strictly
follow the Western Story Cycle, and all Indigenous Stories do not completely follow the
Indigenous Story Cycle since these groups have interacted and influenced each other. However,
given that caveat, these paradigms are predominant indicators of what each group as a whole
does believe and value. The West, underwritten by a philosophy that can be glossed as The Great
Chain of Being, privileges the ascent of a heroic individual, while Indigenous cultures,
underwritten by a philosophy that can be glossed as All My relations, privileges a balance in
which individual accomplishments contribute to community, and this is indicated by the
direction of each cycle. If a bit simplified, these cycle maps do serve to illuminate how the same
material (in this case the archetypal pattern called the S/hero’s Journey) can be viewed in
radically different ways depending on beliefs.
M2 Content Guide C: Power
Dynamics
Power Dynamics refers to ways
that material and cultural
conditions affect who has what
degree of power in any given
situation. There are two arenas
where we can observe power
dynamics: we can trace personal
power in lives and relationships,
and we can trace systemic power
in politics, economics, culture,
and other collective aspects of
societies. Systemic power is
determined along the lines of
cultural schemas. Theoretically
individuals can leverage personal
power, but the influence of that
power is constrained by whether
they act within or against those
schemas and the norms they
construct. To return to the
example in Cultural Schemas: if gender and sex are conflated and character is supposed to follow
anatomy, then a person who acts against gender norms may encounter social constraints. This
can range from bullying in elementary school to a glass ceiling that prevents “othered” people
from reaching the top rungs of a career ladder (to refresh: the words “other” and “othered” are
also a cultural studies terms; essentially, they refer to those who are not members of the cultural
group with whom we primarily identify, and in this context it means those who are not members
of the dominant group).
The kinds of struggles that occur as people test these constraints are registered in cultural
productions such as the upcoming novels. While social, and economic, and cultural power
dynamics do play out in personal relationships (which we will look at these carefully in the next
two modules,) what we are concerned with in this content guide is:
1. delineating how collective power affects what beliefs are generally agreed to be "cultural
truths" or norms,
2. how we treat difference
3. the ways different myths are perceived
In M1 Content Guide B: Different Discourses we learned how beliefs structure collective
worldviews. The agreed upon truths that dominate a given nation or group are known as
hegemonic.
Hegemony refers to dominance of one social group (and for our purposes, this includes their
belief and value systems) over another. While the term originally referred to politics,
Mythological Studies examines how cultural institutions (schools, media, religion, etc.)
promulgate and or/enforce belief systems (Gramsci). From a material perspective, it is
economics that allows such hegemony to flourish, and the dominant cultural belief in human
superiority in turn elevates economics over ecology.
Still, while belief in human superiority is hegemonic, not everyone holds it to be true. For
example, many Indigenous cultures hold animals to be our elders. But Western cultures have
attained a certain degree of global dominance. From the Indigenous perspective in the upcoming
module, a system does not have to be inherently better, but only more violent in order to “[beat]
out [the] others” (Alexander 327). Since Europe expanded into the Americas via conquest,
Western beliefs and values drive many political, economic, and ecological decisions. Even
within a hegemonic cultural system, at any one given time or in any one given place, there are
multiple sets of beliefs and values. If this was true in Galileo’s seventeenth century Italy as
discussed in Different Discourses, it is all the more true in the globalized twenty-first century, in
which an enormous number of widely divergent cultures come into direct or indirect contact with
one another.
Cultures have a strong investment in their own belief and value systems. These are its lifeblood,
the foundation of its identity, the creator of its shape as a distinct entity. These systems drive a
culture’s sense of what is a justifiable action to insure survival. For example, the Great Chain of
Being, in positing men as superior to women and whites as superior to other ethnicities, justified
white men’s rule over the resources and labor of “others.” For example, belief in the superiority
of whites led to belief in the right to ownership of Indigenous lands and African peoples; this
belief, called Manifest Destiny and bolstered by the Doctrine of Discovery, is a building block of
American nations. Today, belief in the superiority of a lifestyle based on lavish consumption of
manufactured goods and the latest technological advancements justifies various actions.
It is important to keep in mind that while others’ beliefs (separated by space, time, or identity)
may seem strange or even wrong, members of that group held or hold them to be inalienable
truths. It is also important to keep in mind that some of what we consider to be inalienable truths
will inevitably be altered by history. Also, keep in mind that while we have looked at some
extreme examples, within apparently homogenous groups there can be more subtle differences in
beliefs, values, and power – for example, the sects of one religion.
Recall that there are three types of overlapping mythologies you will encounter during the course
that are directly related to power dynamics:
•
Cultural mythologies are widely accepted and largely unconscious, much like water to a
fish. They are based on what is socially acceptable and understood, like the concept of
race and its theorem of white supremacy, gender norms, rugged individualism,
meritocracy, and so on.
•
Personal mythologies arise because cultural mythologies vary from person to person due
to familial and sociological experiences; for example while a male and a female
understand gender norms differently, rural and urban females may understand femininity
differently.
•
Communal mythologies arise out of necessity from diverse cultural groups that share
specific histories of marginalization. These mythologies convey shared meaning and
goals that often counter dominant cultural mythologies. For example, a dominant cultural
mythology of white supremacy was countered in the “Black is Beautiful” cultural
movement that was part of the US Civil Rights Movement. Communal mythologies
challenge the cultural mythologies of rugged individualism and meritocracy because they
are consciously pursued for the good of the group.
When reading, consider how and why people make and invest their beliefs in cultural
mythologies. Consider how mythologies shape or challenges power. Consider the stakes of one
mythology as compared to another. Keep the concept of power dynamics in mind while
reading Power, and later Parable of the Sower. Think about the ways cultural, personal, and
communal mythologies intersect, compete, and complement one another. You will be asked to
apply present and articulate these considerations in several assignments.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment