The Truth About Stories By Thomas King Sparknotes

We grow on stories. Stories we tell, stories we hear. The private and the public one just like our stories and the others’. As social animals, these stories we hear and tell link us. Thomas King’s book, The Truth About Stories: A Native narrative, tells us all kind of stories. The book defines stories as being multifaceted and varied, as “dangerous and wondrous” (p.9), “all we are” (p.32), as a way to create our own path (p.25), or as medicine, that can cure or injure depending on how it’s told (p.92), and so on. Through his book, King teaches the reader about Indigenous stories, as well as very personal and human stories that illustrate the very concrete notions of Indigenous issues to the reader.

King’s use of personal stories has for

The story of the injustice his mother faced in a patriarchal world, as well as the autobiographic tale of the disappearance of his father, makes a direct link to the following story. Naturally, the stories of King’s creation and background make a straightforward connection with the Indigenous Creation story. Throughout the book, the creation story and how it is told is repeated at the beginning of each chapter. The creation story seems to set the ground as a guideline for stories. As a matter of fact, the way the author tells the creation story appears to be unorganized compared to a more traditional structure, but that is what it makes it great. The whole book is sometimes hard to follow as its construction doesn’t seem so evident, but I believe it is also what gives color to it. An example of this would be the alternation between the coyote and duck story, and the information on government legislations concerning Indigenous people. King creates parallel stories, which pushes the reader to make connections between the different ongoing

King opens up this discussion through the story of the despicable and famous photographer, Edward S. Curtis. As it is explained to the reader, Curtis photographed Indigenous people throughout the United States (p.33), as a way to preserve the images of a supposedly dying culture. The idea of the ‘dying Indian” has been a constructed narrative through the American Romantic period. A melting pot of images, postcards and movies representing Indigenous stereotypes has fuelled this factious tale. The settler narrative of the “disappearing Indian” has also been found in Australia, as King explains (p.51). This constructed idea of what being Indigenous meant have been destructive, as “the Indian simply had to exist in our imagination” (p.54), but although depicted as “strong, brave, honest and noble” (p.82) and “exotic, erotic and terrifying” (p.79), he will have to “assimilate or die”(p.85). The constructed Indian myth did not only served as entertainment to white settlers, but also as a way for settlers to disguise themselves and claim their history to the land (p.82), such as white people being disguised for the revolution of the Boston Tea event, which is fascinating. This is an example of obvious manipulation, where settlers don’t want to address current and historical natives issues, but are ready to appropriate their culture whenever it