Crossan Claims Myths example essay topic

John D. Crossan parallels story to life. This essay will examine several aspects of story. First, I will examine the relationship between story and humans' lives and how it is limited by language. Second, I will examine the differences between myths and parables and their polar opposition within the field of a story. Third, I will examine the Prodigal Son to illuminate the necessary elements of a parable. Stories serve to define humans' reality and the use of specific types of stories evokes different reactions from their audience.

Myths will seek to comfort but parables seek to challenge. Crossan claims humans create the world they live in and reality they experience through language and story. Anything disconnected from humans' imagination or language is unknowable. Asking what exists beyond the limits of the story should appear as strange as asking a sterile woman what occupation her child would have assumed. Reality exists as human knowledge shared amongst us. Or, as Crossan puts it, "I am not saying we cannot know reality.

I am claiming what we know is reality, is our reality here together and with each other" (25). Jus as our physical lives remain limited by death, a story is limited by language. Therefore our reality remains limited by our use of language. Nonetheless, one should not view life as simply a story. One should understand only story matters. Therefore, humans should stop lamenting of their inability to understand life outside the story and attempt to learn everything about the story itself.

Crossan states, "My suggestion is that the excitement of transcendental experience is found that the understanding of the one is also the proper understanding of the other" (30). When Crossan claims myths and parables exist as the poles of story, he means they act as the limits of story's possibilities. In order to justify such a claim, Crossan defines the terms myth and parable in a strict sense. For example, Crossan's myth is not synonymous with sophisticated lying, nor does it refer to stories with gods and goddesses simply by definition. The strict definitions and criteria use to define myth and parable allow for distinction and separation. Three concepts help structure and define Crossan's myth: bundles of relations, binary opposition, and mediation or reconciliation.

Bundles of relations refer to the repetitive aspects or cultural patterns occurring throughout all myths. A myth's bundle of relations is evidenced through an examination of a series of myths. Every myth contains a persistent sequence of binary opposition. Binary oppositions refer to the conflicting relationship between two opposing entities.

They may occur between human and superhuman, mortal and immortal, male and female, and good and evil. This binary opposition is followed by a mediation or reconciliation between the aforementioned opposing entities, represented by fictional characters. The reconciliation between the binary opposites serves to introduce the function of myths. Myths serve three functions.

First, myths provide a comforting worldview. The myth's moment of reconciliation seeks to ensure the audience that the conflicts in their lives will also be resolved. Second, myths provide order and structure. The repetitive structure myths follow seek to inform the audience that the world operates in a similar fashion.

Third, myths seek to establish a cultural identity and provide their audience with a purpose. Often time, the binary opposition occurring within a myth reflects an actual conflict occurring within the particular society. Often times, storytellers will employ characters their audience will appreciate or relate to and environments that reflect the audience's. In contrast, parables represent "the dark night of story" or "the dark side of the myth". In fact, a parable remains inversely related to a myth in both function and structure. While the structure of myths transition from a situation of conflict to resolution, parables begin with a situation of resolution and proceed to conflict and contrast.

And while myths serve to comfort their audience, the function of parables serves to challenge the worldview and its values. Parables intend to upset their audience and subvert their comfort. The parable of the Prodigal Son depicts the necessary elements of a parable. The Prodigal Son begins with a situation of resolution; a man receives a part of his father's estate and leaves home. The situation of conflict and contrast occurs when famine strikes the country and the man is unable to provide for himself because he squandered his entire inheritance. Although the father forgives his son upon sight, conflict and contrast still persists because his other son becomes jealous.

One could also view the father's immediate forgiveness of his son's extravagance as the moment of resolution and the brother's subsequent jealousy as the moment of conflict According to Crossan, life exists within humans' understanding of their story. Everything beyond the humans's tory remains unknowable. Myths and parables exist as the polar ends of a story. A myth contains an opposition between two opposing entities (binary opposition), followed by a reconciliation. They serve to comfort their audience and establish a cultural identity. Parables transition from a moment of resolution into a moment of conflict.

Myths and parable are inversely related in both function and structure. The parable of the Prodigal Son illuminates the necessary elements of a parable.