There are no stories without values, but very often the proposed values are only a means to another end: selling a product, asking for votes in national elections, suggesting a tourist destination for vacations or many other purposes. In this short course we only want to highlight the ability of stories to share positive values.
First, we must ask ourselves: what are values and why are they suitable for stories? The word “courage” comes from the Latin “ valere ” and means “to be strong, healthy, capable.” By extension, values would be those principles that guide a person's life. Stories that transmit values suggest, therefore, criteria for making good decisions in life, for choosing well, for guiding one's own behavior.
For this reason, it is said that good stories have the ability to dress old issues in new clothes, and can connect the concerns of modern man with classic narratives and with ethical or religious proposals.
One of the strengths of stories is their ability to communicate the indescribable. Stories put words and images to the best intuitions. They contain realities that cannot be seen or touched, but can be known or felt. In this movement from the abstract to the concrete, history not only makes the values at stake clearer and more accessible, but also facilitates the memorization of the concepts we want to convey.
Good stories contain what is known as the dramatic code . The dramatic code, etched deeply into the human psyche, is the artistic description of how a person can grow or evolve. The narrator hides this process behind some characters and actions: while these change driven by the conflict, the viewer/reader also feels called to improve. This works because each of us wants to become a better version of ourselves (in short, a story follows the trajectory of what a person wants, what they will do to get it, and the consequences that follow from it).
When the audience identifies with the protagonist, they learn when the protagonist learns. When storytelling is good, the audience can relive events in the present and understand the strength, resolve, and emotion that drives the character to do what they do. Thus, stories offer the public a type of knowledge called emotional wisdom.
The short video that illustrates this chapter is a beautiful example of how an apparently simple story can make us reflect and transmit a value, in this case strength and the ability to grow.
© Don. J.B Nyamunga'24
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