The Native Writes Back: Stories, Theory, and Oral Rhetorics

Recently, I’ve been facinated with reading the memoirs of some of my favorite writers—in fact there seems to be a recent movement to record one’s personal life.  Salman Rushdie just released his memoirs—Joseph Anton—in September, and Chinua Achebe just before he died wrote his memoirs—There Was a Country. (I just started his memoirs because I needed something to relieve the pain I felt at his death.)  I also read Reinaldo Arenas’ Before Night Falls when I was working on my senior colloquium paper—I must admit, if it weren’t for his life stories I wouldn’t have been able to fully understand the oppression homosexuals in Cuba faced because of the  heterosexism instilled by the Castro regime.

I have to wonder, though, because in each I’ve found moments that I thought could be considered critical theory. I stepped back and thought to myself, “Isn’t this a life story? Why am I reading moments of post-colonial theory, within something as personal as a memoir?”  All of these questions run through my mind because the reason I read memoirs is to get a better understanding for how a person become the person who wrote a great work of literature.  Never in my mind did I think that a life memoir could function as a work of theory—until now that is!

Which brings me to the readings for class this week which sought to answer a specific question: where is the line supposed to be drawn between personal stories which convey some sense of realism, and the line in which theory is applied to explain phenomena which seem almost surreal? 

Can a memoir function as a work of theory, and can it inform schools of theoretical thought?? Where does the Native belong in theory? If things like theory and philosophy are products of European Nations, HOW then do Natives express theory in terms of Western thought? How do Natives enter the elite group of theorists that says what goes and what doesn’t?

Simple, they defy typical theory, through the use of narrative structures through blending theory and stories they create memoirs that function as works of theory which free and decolonize the mind.

Before I point out passages from the readings—Stories Through Theories, Theories Through Stories—that I thought were important I want to make a comparison between stories and theory by defining each.

Theory: theory is the basis of any scholarly work—you can’t escape it as an undergrad or graduate. Theory is the search for truth. It helps explain the essence of things, how certain things function, and the phenomena of the ways in which things exist. It also helps us better understand the way humans operate within certain cultural discourses of contact. (Of course this is a biased definition because I am queer/phenomenologist/poco theorist)

Stories:  Stories, according to Thomas King, are all that we are.  Natives use stories to talk about the way their world was created, to convey life lessons, and above all to entertain. 

Stories and theory ARE not so different!

They both explain the phenomena about the world in which we live. Yet, the difference is that stories can be used to convey false truths, confuse people, and to hid that which we truly desire—stories can function as fiction.

But here’s the caveat, isn’t theory just a bunch of bull shit? I mean don’t get me wrong I am an English major.  Stories are product of human intellect, and so is theory. So… Doesn’t that mean theory is nothing but fictitious things we tell ourselves to make us feel better? It’s kind of like a story right? NO story conveys the complete and utter truth about life, JUST like theory.

So why is there such a big beef about creative writers not being literary critics and vice versa?

This is why I love Native writers like Vizneor and King, they are literary anarchist set to change the world. They understand that theory is no different than telling a story and they blend Western narrative structures with Native oral traditions.   The hybridity of their genetics, is conveyed in the conceptual mode of their “autocritical auto/biographies.”

Vizneor sees single theories and individual stories as limited, and this interferes when it comes to “the self and the way it is expressed through communal stories [his work] goes beyond literary tropes and restrictive categories” (Pulitano 84).

Theory and stories, individually, do not encapsulate self in relation to community.  NOR does a single story represent a complete whole. It’s pretty neat what Pulitano is saying Vizneor does when it comes to theory and stories.

However, Vizneor, according to Pulitano does more than just combine theory and story. He makes the written a vehicle for the oral because “oral cultures have never been without a critical condition and that the act of telling stories is essentially a theoretical gesture” (87). This is exactly the comparison I made up between stories and theory in their definition is it not?  Except the only we can understand theory in relation to stories is through the way they are combined—orally. 

Natives use the oral to combine theory and story.  Think about it, when a story is written down, and discussed orally it is often done through a fierce debate about its theoretical implications.  Which then makes “writing [according to Vizneor] [a] primary role of langue, which in oral discourse; should set people free” ( Pulitano87).

Theory on its own imprisons people within certain conceptual frame works.  Stories on their own do much of the same.  I’m sure Vizneor would agree.  In order to undo these dangerous actions, which function as the basis of academia because they place Natives on the marginal end of the conversation, Natives write back by blending the rhetorical abilities of oral communication to set people free from theories and stories that do not allow us to see the whole truth but single truths.

Decolonize your mind, decolonize language, make your voice heard through the spoken word.