Symbolic Stories

by Derek S. Brewer

This book explains the underlying structure of many narratives from ancient to modern times. After a short theoretical introduction, there follows chapters on fairy tales, medieval romance, Shakespeare, "Mansfield park" and "Great expectations", with reference to many other stories. The underlying structures of many narratives are shown to be based on the struggle towards maturity of the young hero or heroine who represents us all. Modern naturalism, however, often distorts the reception of these stories which are then dismissed as absurd, escapist or trivial. This work aims to clarify the intentions and methods of these stories, thus enabling them to be further understood and enjoyed.

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Nicky]

I was reading this for a class, since there was an excerpt I was interested in during one of the classes, and then I came up against this line, in reference to David and Jonathan:

"It seems absurd to attribute such masculine friendships to homosexuality in any ordinary understanding of the word as perverted sexuality, unless any friendship between persons of the same sex is to be called homosexual."

Absurd. Perverted sexuality. I --

Yeah, I'm not going to continue reading this. I thought this theories overly contrived and over-simplified anyway. I read on a little bit, in hope that Brewer would put this in the context of society, rather than own those views as his own, but he does not. He includes it matter of factly, as though it is beyond question.

For him, it might be beyond question, but for me it's beyond question to continue reading something from a mind so poisonous.