I Could Tell You Stories

Affter reading the short story/essay and having today's discussion in class, i feel like i understand the text a lot better than i did before. What i got from it was that when individuals experience or witness something they have an urge, an inhuman urge that may go beyond the human nature, to tell someone of what has occured to them. They express what they have experienced by telling the story. But, the story may not always be able to fulfill the actual experience of the individual because sometimes one cannot truely convey what they are feeling through stories. The experience which the story is being told about, is always better understood by the person who is physically there to comprehend all the elements involved and see them in action. The first hand experience allows the witness to see whats actually happening, but when the event is retold the second hand experience is picturing the story in their mind. They can imagine what it was like, but they can never know because you can't make up the truth by comprehending it from your own interpretation. It's not about your interpretation, it's about what actually happened. Like the woman in the story who "could tell you stories", but couldn't because the story that needed telling was "too big, too much, too something, for her to place in the small shrine that the story is". (Patricia 20)