Power and Purpose of Words, Stories, and Storytelling - Essay Example

December 11, Power and Purpose of Words, Stories, and Storytelling Words, stories, and storytelling can be used as means for attaining power and purposes in stories. The paper focuses on three texts in analyzing the power and function of words, story and storytelling- Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The power and purpose of words, stories, and storytelling lie in expressing the truth about the virtues, or lack thereof, of the characters and how words and stories help them in attaining their various missions in life.

Words and language have the power of revealing the virtues, including the lack thereof, of the characters and how these virtues shape their identity. In one scene of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Miranda reminds Caliban that he should thank her for teaching him language. Caliban, on the contrary, does not feel grateful at all when he says: “You taught me language, and my profit on 't /Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you/For learning me your language” (1.2.437-39). The irony is that he uses language to curse his own teachers, which is the reverse of thanking them for an important skill and knowledge.

His anger is understandable. Caliban feels wretched that he knows the language of the free and the learned, and yet, he is a slave to Prospero and Miranda. Caliban is painfully aware that he only has the language of a free man, but not the freedom of a free man. Moreover, Caliban’s words reveal who he is. He only knows the verses of an educated man, but not the decency that goes with it. Caliban has sheep’s clothing on, but he continues to be a wolf inside- an animal to his physical desires and lack of virtues.

While Caliban is an example of a bad character who abuses the power of words, The Help depicts good people through their use of words. For instance, Minny and Skeeter have something in common. They both say what is in their mind, no matter how uncivilized it might be to other people. Stuart tells Skeeter about this, when he mentions that she is different from other women because she says “exactly” what she is thinking (198). Minny might get into trouble all the time because of her sassy mouth, but at least, she is not someone who lies about people like what Hilly does.

By saying their feelings outright, Minny and Skeeter are portrayed as honest people. They are not pretentious like other people around them, especially the socialite whites. Stockett shows that, when these characters use words, they do not only do so to express their identities, but to also expose the identities of the people around them. Thus, The Tempest and The Help show the power of words in revealing the (absence of) virtues of their characters. The next point of the essay is that the power of stories and storytelling is to provide the opportunity for characters to attain their diverse missions in life.

The main purpose of storytelling for Jacobs is to inform the world that slavery must be stopped because it is wrong. Jacobs has ethos because she is a slave and surrounded by slaves and their stories, so she says in Chapter 9: I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. (para.20). She is saying that her story represent the stories of slavery.

These stories demonstrate how inhumane slavery is; anyone who becomes involved in it is infected with brutality. Jacobs uses storytelling to question the morality of slavery and to argue for its complete end. Her storytelling satisfies her mission of ending slavery through revealing its horrible truths. Storytelling is also important for Aibileen and Minny because, for them, telling their stories will help end racism in their society. Aibileen does not want to talk to Skeeter initially about her life as a black maid of a white household, but soon, she realizes that she wants to do it because of the sanitation project of Miss Hilly.

This project is the tip of the iceberg for Aibileen, which signals to her that she needs to do something. She needs to express her voice because it can help stop racial prejudice and discrimination. Stories and storytelling have empowering effects of facilitating social changes. The power and purpose of words, stories, and storytelling are shown in Incidents, The Tempest, and The Help. Words reveal the identities of the characters and those around them. Stories and storytelling achieve the purposes of helping the characters attain their goals in life.

Hence, language and telling stories are powerful tools in finding the truth and expressing it, and in empowering people and changing societies. Works Cited Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1610-1611. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. New York: Berkley, 2009. Print.