Stories have been around for thousands upon thousands of years. From the cavemen telling their hunting stories, to the epics of Achilles and Beowulf, stories have played an important role in all of our lives for as long as we can remember. But what makes stories so important? Is it because of the entertainment and thrill? Or, are stories just a big waste of our time? Salman Rushdie author of Haroun and the Sea of Stories believes that stories are important in everyone’s lives. Stories are everything to Haroun and and his father Rashid in the novel. “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true? ” (22).
Stories are important because they can provide hope, bring families and communities together through entertainment and enjoyment, and can spark curiosity and wonder in anyone and everyone. Stories can provide hope to people in many ways. Fiction and even nonfiction stories to can provide hope to readers for many reasons. Stories such as David and Goliath and the film Rudy provide a feeling of hope that the underdog or the little man can rise up to be victorious and come out on top. Stories such as these can give readers and viewers a feeling of hope that they can conquer anything no matter size, skill, or talent.
In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Haroun, a weak young boy, defeats the devious Khattam Shud to save the stories (173). Throughout the story Haroun becomes stronger and defies all odds to save the stories and gets his old life back. Stories can be so influential that they can even inspire us to not give up on anything in life no matter how difficult or challenging it may be. There are much more to stories than hope and inspiration, stories can also provide entertainment and peak our curiosity.
Stories have been around for centuries, even millenniums. Before there were omputers, phones, and tablets, people would talk to each other for entertainment. People would tell each other stories from their day or from millions of years ago when the god’s created the earth. There are many different types of stories that have been told for entertainment such as myths, tall tales, fables, and many many more. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, stories are the only thing that keeps the Khalifa family happy in the Sad City (15-17). After Rashid Khalifa’s wife leaves him, he stops telling stories and his and his son’s life starts becoming more depressing each day (18-21).
Without stories people would be sad and less knowledgeable about the world around them. The stories make us happy and leave us feeling happy just like Walrus said in the story “Happy endings must come at the end of something,’ the Walrus pointed out. ‘If they happen in the middle of a story, or an adventure, or the like, all they do is cheer things up for a while” (202). Stories help bond friends and family and will they cheer us up and leave us feeling happy. Storytelling comes with a price, curiosity.
When someone hears a story for the first time they begin to wonder “why did this happen? “, or “where did this come from? . Curiosity causes people to ask questions or find out more, which leads to more stories and even more curiosity. The more you know, the more you want to know. Even fictional stories can spark that inner curiosity in anyone. When Haroun was woken up to a noise coming from the bathroom, he didn’t just go back to sleep, he got up and found out what it was because he was curious (54-55). If Haroun was not curious he never would have found the water genie and would never have gotten his father’s stories back. Curiosity can lead you to places you may never want to go, but it can also take you to places you’ve never dreamt of.
Hope, entertainment, and curiosity, are just a few reasons that stories are important. There is much more to storytelling than one would think, “I always thought storytelling was like juggling… You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any” (109). Storytelling is a gift that can not just be picked up anywhere, it takes a lot of practice to become a good storyteller. In recent years people have become less and less concerned on storytelling and their ability to do so.
Stories should be a major part of everyone’s life even in today’s society with new technology. Stories are slowly becoming less and less part of our lives and sadly, someday, it’s possible they won’t exist at all. Technology consumes every aspect of our lives, and in hundreds of years, or maybe even less, will stories still be around? If not, how will people bond or have that extra hope to keep going and pushing on in their lives? Salman Rushdie explains how the people of the Sad were sad and miserable without stories and sooner or later, we will be living in a Sad City of our own.
