The Will of the Gods and Goddesses: Shaping or Disrupting the World Through Storytelling

Abstract

This chapter examines young people’s thoughts on terrorism and fear of unemployment, racism and bullying, social mobility, adult authority, suicide and risk taking, and social values. Issues of authority are debated by examining how young people, from similar and different social backgrounds, linked oral storytelling to their personal narratives. The previous chapter proposed that young people learn how to interact with others through the pressures placed on them, via stories like fairy tales, to follow the morals and values of the society that they live in. This chapter questions this process by demonstrating how young people negotiate complex situations utilising their own judgement and agency. Yet at the same time there appears to be limited scope for resistance in opposition to authority figures, like parents and teachers. This idea raises issues about the control of young people’s behaviour by authority figures and organisations, such as education. Therefore, a caution about the ways in which storytelling can be used to manipulate rather than liberate, and the ethical considerations which affect storytellers, educators, researchers and other professionals working with storytelling.