Motivation for Telling a Story

In the story The Storyteller  the aunt and bachelor have similar but also different reasons for telling the children stories. The aunt tells the children as a way, and maybe her only to make the children be quiet. However the aunt's story backfires on herself and she ends up with even more questions to answer, and even larger of a mess to clean up. The aunt tells a simple and normal story, it was just too boring. Therefore the children were unsatisfied with the details and wanted more from the aunt, so they started asking questions, and making comments about the story.

The bachelor tells the story for two different reasons, and both for his own benefit. The bachelor's main motivation was also to make the children quiet. He was sick of the noise and even thought about calling the workers on the train to let him switch cabins. However because of his second goal he stayed and told the story. The second goal was to show the aunt how it should be done and that she was incapable of taking care of the children. His story at first seemed to be the same as the aunt's but the ending was extraordinarily different. His story ended with the good little girl getting eaten by a wolf as to the happy ending where the girl is saved by people who loved her. The bachelor wanted to prove that the things that the aunt's teachings were wrong, and that good is not always rewarded.

Since the beginning of time story telling could be heard house to house every night. In early times, when writing was not invented yet, people told stories with their mouths. They told the stories to their children so that they can pass it on to their children. It seemed as if the stories were a great part of their culture and that it must be passed on. Today everyone has a favorite book, each author that wrote had a purpose of writing it. It may have been a way to remember an event, to express a certain feeling, pass down important information, or even to simply entertain the readers. A lot of people would think that successful authors only write to make a living, but that is not true. If they wanted to make a living why not a normal job? A normal job is a lot more stable. What if the society didn't like their books wouldn't they make no money at all? Of course! Therefore the authors must had had a purpose to write to. Everyone has to have a purpose to do something, anything, or else they will not even try to accomplish it.