Epic abstractions and literacy absurdity: the loss art of oral campfire (Bakhtin, 10)
Everyone enjoys a nice campfire song. A deep story full of unrealistic fiction. Captivating and experiential. The literary imagination fails the oral sequence.
There are two parts to fiction: realism and direction. The first points to the narrational prose and the latter to the imaginative faculty. Fiction is a novella of possibilities. There is a fantasy genre but that is unique. More often than not, authors are not world builders. Even fantasy writers draw from past documents and lore. Authors who do not build off their own creation, facilitate a realistic persona. The point of fiction is that it can be relatable. Stories that exist within the reader’s stratosphere. The reader knows the story is fake but it could happen. The protagonist is a teenage girl or teenage brothers. The reader identifies with the character not only from his/her values but their human connection. It is a direct line of comprehension. The reader imagines the characters in their own life. In their own universe. What is engaging is the plausibility. The brain recreates the normative town with the normative character. It is a plausible occurrence to the reader or his friends.
Even stories that are impossible. Stories that are futuristic or alien, fulfil the same role. It is the person, the protagonist that can be resembled. Frodo and Harry are not typical humans but they look like them. They act like them. The personification of characters eases the understanding but it also makes the reader find identification with them. The reader adds the mythical features but understands the character to be of a similar genre. While the cinematic creation provides the humane visual, the book does too with less accuracy. The ability to paint non-humans as humans is by and large a personality thing rather than an appearance thing. Persons of all types can interact and communicate. The reader adheres to the rules of human communication. This is a quasi-human and not a monster. The ability to relate is but a facet of human application. The non-human is but a human at heart and in the reader’s mind. The character is anthropomorphic and thus resembles the human fitting and sublayer.
Fiction is written by the standard of the human conception. The human imagination can only propel the characters in the most humane way. This is even true of epic stories. The characters are humanised but unlike, epics, fiction is written to a targeted audience. The goal is to implore the setting with contemporary affairs. The might of the human condition revels in simplistic formulation. It isn’t so much the content of the story but the storyteller. How is the story told and where it is told. Epics also have personified features. Myths anthropomorphise even in their grand scale. Pulling the classical themes of the hero’s journey from elves to people. What differs is the offer of stimulation. The leisure of fiction is a tale of enjoyable engagement. The reader is an actor of the story. He doesn’t sit wide-eyed but rather as a participant in the story. As if he were observing the moments. The author conveys the setting and the reader reciprocates. The disconnect between author and reader is rebounded by distanced reading.
Campfire stories do not compare with the ancient epics. Lord of the Rings has more in common than scary stories and old wives’ tales. The cumbersome connection is far and out of reach. The indirect relation between the author and the reader, forces the reader to accept the setting. To accept the extraneous variables that are absent on a sheet of paper. The emotion from the text is only subsumed by the reader’s imagination. His fears come to life from his own interpretation. Unlike the cinematic visual it is reflected not forced upon. The visual adds somber music and quirky sounds to ready the reader for the incoming problem. The campfire scary story has both elements. Combining the imagination of the reader and the variables of the viewer. The story is direct and compounded with a heavier voice that beats any punctuation marks. It isn’t a reader inferring the method of speech but rather receiving it from the the storyteller. The storyteller immerses emotion and exaggerated pitch to deepen the impact on the listener. The ears receive and internalise the message to be fictionalised in the mind. Highlighting a single word repeating the scary beast twice to emphasise the fear.
The campfire is a murky location for a scary story. Yet it is also a place to tell funny stories as well. The goal isn’t fear but experience. The direct assault. The direct dialogue is more than conversation. It is an experiential lecture under the stars. Amidst engagement and reciprocated fascination. Stories more often than not are simplistic and farcical. The stories of myths whether of cosmology or legends imbibe fear into the possible. It is the experience of the maybe boogeyman who though knowing it is fake still feels it to be real. The passion and integrity in the speaker’s voice persuades the audience to accept the fiction. The fiction is farcical in its head. Non-scientific or far back historical, yet its impact sticks. The listener imagines this scary or powerful character that proves compatible in its own irrationality. The more positive stories are still relayed in small breaths. Harping on each word and concentrating on the emotional impulse. It is the plausible belief in the irrationality. When sitting in an emotionally heavy circuit the story impacts deeper. It isn’t only about the words but the setting and the experience of the direct confrontation.
Immersed in the presence of nature, the story gravitates to the illusionary in a curious land. The camper has never experienced it. He is out of place and the story frightens him. Maybe the story is true and the boogeyman will come out of the forest to snatch the young camper. To frighten kids is for them to experience the story. For them to be impacted by fiction narrated. The setting is clear and the defences down. There are many stories based on folklore and mythology. Not every story is a lesson nor an inspiration. The goal is to experience whether fear or joy. The speaker hits right to the core of the young or old. It is the implausible rectified as plausible. This is being told not written. This is not a fictional tale by a memory or historical episode. Fight and fear are normal responses of the human condition. It means the self is operating. To be scared is to care even if it is not real. On the off chance it is real, the terrifying consequences lurk in the listener’s mind. Unlike cinema, the frightening image is a mirror of that sickening image seen that day but the listener cultivates his own theory. He has his version of these events. In his own mind they are worse than told. The imagination surrounded by these variables stimulates a fearful devil that haunts him. The experience overwhelms and shakes him.
Campfire stories are not the epics of old but they do provide some similarities in their impact. They inspire experience and engulf the listener in a rabid fascination with the phobic illustration. It is the imagination directly implored. An avid participant engrossed in the plot.
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