Stealing Scripts

Much alike how stories are described in Rushie's novel, stories are thrown around within seas of people. When we're young our parents tell stories, some you remember while others are sifted from your sea of knowledge. Frye with regards to psychology contends,'"transactional" therapy, we are told that we take over "scripts" from our parents which it is our normal tendency to act out as prescribed and invariable rituals, and that all possible forms of such scripts can be found in any good collection of folktales." (57) As kids we stow away the good stories in our head, and then they're there for forever to tell to whoever. As we grow older we meet lots of other people who we know because they tell us of their tales. As adults we see these stories on display, developing and fraying. They're all around everyday, the stories you know from your childhood, and you find other ways to keep the lot of stories in play by the sea of associations.

In this chapter Frye is explaining the context and tradition of romance. Frye quotes Milton and agrees that within romantic language there is a sense "where more is meant than meets the ear." (59) This supports the notion of romance having an allegoric nature, and ocean of notions. Within the realm of allegory and the romantic [happy ending] structure there is still sometimes a blur referred to as the '"symbolic spread," the sense that a work of literature is expanding into insights and experiences beyond itself...'

I'm going to break off from the quote here for a moment. Here I want to incorporate another person I know who is traveling through Chile to Peru as an exchange student. His character is full of insights and experiences beyond himself. He's full of bullshit, it's his bread and butter. Many call him a pathological liar, but the bottom line is he's a hell of a storyteller. His new adventures of awesome epicness are churned out like clockwork. "Got hit by a car last week and had to shake that shit off." Or "Then, f#&*ing dude I won 800 bucks last night, we were at the bar and I bought a round of drinks for the house and threw the rest of the cash in the street." These type of tales seldom strike me as believable or romantic, but they are full of symbolism and realism. Though, in our context here is realism present in his symbolism?

Next the end of the quote says, '...The symbolic spread of realism tends to go from the individual work of fiction into the life around it which it reflects: this can be accurately called allegorical. The symbolic spread of a romance tends rather to go into its literary context, to other romances that are most like it in the conventions adopted.' (59)

This friend of mine has conventions adopted from the world around, he's inheriting those stories as we do when we're younger hearing bedtime stories from our parents. Are his hyperbolic storytelling tactics worth merit, his shared imagination and ad libbed fibs? Are these fair game and intelligibly allegorical? Are hyperbole and dishonesty analogous or is there merit his shared imagination and ad libbed fibs? I don't think I have an answer to these. There is a very fine line between allegory, dishonesty, symbolism, and context, and I find it hard to believe that language ever escapes context. My answer to whatever I'm asking as Frye would say "where more is meant than meets the ear" quothed Milton.