Liquid Stories

"As a body of myths expands, it absorbs other stories, especially the stories connected with specific local places and people that are called legends...Such an absorption of legend marks the political and social ascendancy of a society with a central mythology, as it takes over other areas, and this mythical imperialism is possible because of the structural similarities among all forms of story." -Frye, 12-13.

         Frye's explanation of stories allegiance with geographical and cultural local makes for an interesting perspective gain on Rushdie's explanation in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Haroun is taken to the place where all stories are kept in liquid form and his guide Iff helps to shed light on the massive collection Haroun is so enamoured with.

"Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here...And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and become yet other stories." -Rushdie, 72.

       While most stories that are read or told today have already been told before in some capacity, be it a similar form, a generic recipe of peril and salvation, or a play off of characters and hero's, there is still reprise in the newness to an individual. As Frye explains, stories are inherently connected to the place they were first told, or where the setting of the story is. The audience also plays a key roles in why a story may be altered or changed, as it came up in class Friday, Disney may be the most influential offender in the manipulation of stories. Disney does a phenomenal job of altering stories in way that they will be appropriate to little kids. They are addicting though in that as those children grow older and the stories and movies that were "Disney-fied" for them as children are what still makeup the reality of those stories to the now grown children. Culturally an American child may fall more predominantly into this realm than say a European child who grew up with the more closely original version of the same story.

    It is however well within Disney's rights to alter the stories as they see fit. This is what Iff is explaining to Haroun, that the liquidity of the streams of stories allows them to be changed and if nothing else encourages that sort of fluid nature. Anything that is worth carrying on as time passes must have some ability to change. Since the "only constant is change" for a story to withstand the tests of time it must be able to fit the changing needs of a certain culture or group as their needs change and shift.