83 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas KingThe Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Power of Stories
Throughout the work King argues that stories are powerful. He frequently remarks that “the truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (2). King describes creation myths and suggests that the creation myth we believe has the power to form the society we live in so that, if we were to believe the earth was formed through cooperation rather than conflict, we might end up creating a more cooperative society. What makes stories powerful is that they are believed to be true, even if they are not true.
King also suggests that the historical record is itself a story, one that likewise informs the present. For example, if people believe a story of Indians as savages who needed to be civilized, they will justify racist laws that treat Native peoples as savages who need to be civilized. King also describes the story told by images that have their own power, as images give everyone the power to imagine what a person should look like or be and reject others who do not fit that image. In each case King expands the definition of stories to include basically anything that can be imagined or conceived as a narrative. But expanding the definition or limits of stories only furthers his point that stories have extensive power.
King also suggests, however, that stories have some limits. While Native writers have attempted (successfully) to create their own style of writing, one that blends Native and non-Native traditions to create a new Native story and future, they cannot unwrite the past. They can reimagine and revitalize the past so that people learn a new story of Indian history, but they cannot get rid of the stories that existed before or change the historical results of people believing said stories. Stories cannot be untold, and the damage inflicted by them cannot be undone.
The Struggle Between Image and Reality
King spends a great deal of The Truth About Stories discussing the impact that imagined realities have on everyone, especially Native Americans.
In his discussion of the photographs of Edward Sheriff Curtis and Richard Throssel, King argues that the images created a false reality but a version of the truth that has had more power than the actual truth. He argues that Curtis and Throssel’s photos created an image of what an Indian is supposed to look like, an image often repeated in advertisements, Westerns, and other aspects of popular culture. King writes that the reality of Native American life does not fit the popular image of it, but everyone expects the image instead of the reality. He, as a Native American, is criticized implicitly for not being the Indian someone else had in mind.
King also wonders about Will Rogers, who was famous as an Indian but who did not fit the image of the “authentic” Indian. This worries King, who wonders whether the photographs of Indians that he took will appear authentically Indian enough to the viewer. This realization that even he as a Native American is weighed down by the need to signal as “authentically” Indian leads to King’s larger point about the psychic burden of racism. At various points in the text he describes attempts to make himself look more “Indian,” suggesting that he was not just worried about making others resemble the image but also about making himself resemble it. His attempts to seem like a “real” Indian—even though such an Indian does not exist—demonstrate that there is no black-and-white truth. Reality exists between the poles of the real and the artificial. That even a “real” Indian like King tries to meet the expectations of the artifice makes the real somewhat artificial and the artificial somewhat real.
Regardless, the problem with such an existence is the psychic toll it takes on the Native American who is caught between the image and the reality.
The Fluid Nature of Stories and Truth
King notes several times in the text that stories change slightly every time they are told or read. The story of the earth being built on the backs of turtles, for instance, changes each time someone tells the story (1). Some details remain the same, but others do not, and King always makes the same point that a reader or listener can make of any story what they will. Thus, even stories that are written down can be interpreted differently and can change in meaning without a word or punctuation mark changing.
King argues that the story of the Indians has changed many times since whites first encountered them. Early explorers wrote positive things about the Indians, while the Puritans vilified them. Later North Americans celebrated a certain type of Indian, a “National Indian” that embodied their Romantic ideals and connected them to the ancient lands of North America (79). Each time the story evolves, its consequences evolve too. Governments have made treaties with Indians and laws about Indians only to change their minds as the stories they believe change. While the consequences of the laws and treaties cannot be undone, the story told by the laws changes. However, the consequences are only ever felt by the Native peoples who must live with the psychic weight (and physical consequences like loss of status or land) of whatever story whites want to believe in that moment. The fact that stories are fluid only makes it harder for Native Americans to live free of the labels and standards imposed upon them by whites.
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