Storyline: Ong II

Verbalized stories of an oral culture have come to have a certain cadence and plot to them that is often times different from that of a literary culture.

For example, it makes complete sense that the Iliad and the Odyssey would have been written with such rhythm (regardless of the validity Homer's methods or identity/identities). Even if an individual can read, they are more capable of recalling what they have read if there is some sort of "flow" to the story. As Ong puts it, "One of the places where oral mnemonic structures and produces manifest themselves most spectacularly is in their effect on narrative plot, which in an oral culture is not quite what we take plot typically to be" (pg. 138)

Individuals in a literary society are typically more familiar with a plot that follows Freytag's Pyramid. This requires that the story remain fairly linear with a defined beginning, climax, and end. In the case of Homer's works, they are very episodic and tends toward action first, details later. Why does this work?

As Ong stated, ". . .episodic structure was the only way and the total natural way of imagining and handling lengthy narrative. . .starting in 'the middle of things' is not a consciously contrived ploy but the original, natural. . .way to proceed for an oral poet approaching a lengthy narrative" (pg. 141). There was no way to try to put things of such length in order on paper. Everything was committed to memory. Imagine telling a story, and all you can remember is the highlights, the climaxes. As soon as you begin to verbalize those high points you begin to recall the events leading up to the more memorable moments in a story. This method is slightly reminiscent of journalism in the written form-- write the highlight and then work your way through the details.

Telling a story from a "start from the middle" perspective probably only solidified these key points in the stories as they may have been told first over and over again in episodic format. This is not a format typically followed in modern literate culture.

Consider an individual recalling an account of their day. They may begin by telling of the events that happened at lunch, and may preface it by saying that nothing noteworthy happened before this. Or they may tell of something that occurred later in the day, then suddenly remember what happened earlier on and take the listener back a bit on the timeline. In this example, there is a need to at least faintly fill in the linear structure in terms of time. Most literate societies of today's world need for things to fit inside of measurable increments of time-- we tend to see this in a linear way. Using this as only one of many possible examples, it makes sense that our stories would push to follow suit.