Essay 2 initial draft
Everyone has a life story, this story as a whole typically does not follow a cohesive narrative this is usually due to the fact that the person is still alive and therefore their story is not over.
In the essay titled “life stories” author Julie Beck states that everyone has a narrative structure to their life and will benefit from identifying this narrative. Conversely In “ I am not a story” by Galen Strawson he asserts that human life unfolds in a manner that is too complex to be represented as a narrative and that attempting to see your life this way is potentially dangerous. I believe it is possible for anyone’s life to be viewed as a narrative as long as it is framed correctly. Unless they are dead thier story is not over so you may need to break their story into multiple narratives. Analyzing the narratives in your life is no necessary for most people.
One story that I engaged with was the one told in Hope’s interview. Hope’s boyfriend’s dad worked at a storage facility where a very disheveled man often fell behind on his payments and was mistreated by the storyteller. Then one after the man’s unit went of for action the storyteller found ut he was an accomplished lawyer whose life had fallen apart. My main takeaways from this story are don’t judge a book by its cover and always treat others with kindness n matter what you don’t know their story. It’s these takeaways that connect this story to the essays. It was not until he knew the man’s story which was just one part of his life one narrative that gave a clear picture as to who he really was. This transformed his perception of the man and taught him a valuable lesson.
That is the importance of narrative and story in life it acts as a bridge to a better understanding of each other. These stories do not need to be broken down so empirically as to be defined as a standard narrative.
