Story - A Powerful Weapon

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“The Universe is made up of Stories, not Atoms”

- Muriel Rukeyser

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The effect stories could have on human brains started to sink in when I was halfway through the book, ‘A Spark of Light’, by Jodi Picoult. The story revolves around a Women’s Health care Centre and the reader gets to learn the happenings through the perspectives of different people involved in the scene. What left me spell-bound was how she managed to make me change sides in an argument within minutes.

Though at the beginning of the book I had no strong opinion about what I believed was right, as the narration proceeded I was growing to feel the convincing arguments the narrator was thrusting on me. The author through her stories was able to convince me in one chapter that it was unjustifiable to end a fetus’s life in the womb and the very next chapter convinced me to say that sometimes a woman needed a choice.

When I was worriedly thinking about how weak my opinions were, vulnerable to a change in encountering a few opposite yet appealing words, I realised it was the power of the stories.

Stories can influence the hearts of people. It does more than what normal scripts can do. A plain text can only make the mind think, while stories make hearts feel.

It connects to a person's empathy because a story easily convinces the person to put himself into the shoes of the character in it. The person empathises with the character and there opens an opportunity for a change of opinion, because now he doesn’t just think before forming an opinion, but he feels.

This, I observed was the very case in the intelligent film, ‘Vikram Vedha’. The turn of events, the cop’s doubt on his actions, the audience realisation about a new perspective to the truth. All this begins when Vedha draws his powerful weapon, “Oru Kadha Sollata Sir?”. It was through the story, Vedha managed to make his convincing stance, justifying his actions that are otherwise considered a crime.

Stories, they draw the fine line between justice and law, sometimes demarcating the dangerous difference between both

So, how powerful can they get?

Really powerful, I believe. It lies in the hands of the wielder and his narrative skills. With a fittingly narrated story, one could even convince the extremists.

But not to forget that it is the power it encompasses that also makes it dangerous.

In one of her talks, Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie states how dangerous a “single story” could be. She calls false perceptions sometimes formed about individuals to be a result of single stories. She says, “the problem with stereotype is not that they are untrue, but they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story”

Stories can help see perspectives, they help frame opinions, they help make decisions.

And, could do even more. For example, serve to be a medium of education.

Author Amish in one of his interviews talks about how different the Indian education system was in the past and how much it was dependent on stories to spread knowledge. Stories not only interestingly gave the information but also allowed people to think. It created thinkers and not just learners.

Me quoting experiences from various authors and movies was to substantiate my views on how influential I feel stories are because of the realisation of the power that stories and storytellers had occurred strongly to me. Only then did I realise that it was okay to be not opinionated because opinions could be subject to refinements caused by stories I come across and stories that I live through.