Piece of Miraculous Literature: Modern Story Telling

Introduction

For those who study modern literature, there are many known "Literary Elements" (like plot, theme, character, pace and tone, ...) and "Literary Techniques/Devices" (Flashback, Cliffhanger, Narrative hook, ...) that was developed over time.

With regards to story telling, many structural principles of modern storytellers can be explained using analysis based on Aristotle Poetry, where the story is all about a "knot" that get tied or revealed, the play has two parts: complication and unraveling with respect to the "knot".

Freytag's Analysis of a store, proposed in 1863 by Gustav Freytag (a German writer) which is a model of an arc of 5 parts:

• exposition/introduction
• rising action (rise)
• climax
• falling action (return or fall)
• denouement (catastrophe)

Although it's advocated for modern story telling, it's still lakes more advanced structures used by modern story tellers as we are going to see later.

Back when I was at university, we took two modern short stories from 20th century, decades apart. The older one, followed the Freytag's pyramid exactly, direct chronological order of events, introduction to get you know the characters, events that kept raising in actions until a peak is reached, hand-holding the reader to the extent that at the end of the story, the narrator directly addressed the reader and told him/her the moral of the story. The other more recent example, did not follow chronological order of event using Flashbacks, and Flash-forwards, characters jump to the stage without introduction letting the reader connect the dots, the story had several local rising and falling actions with several local peaks, and at the end of the store there was an open-ended "Cliffhanger".

An ancient story with modern structure

The "setting" opens on a dialog between Moses and his tribe arguing about a cow, let me quote:

• Moses said to his people, "God commands you to slaughter a cow,"
• they replied, "Do you mean to have a jest with us?"
• He answered, "God forbid that I should be among the foolish!"

We don't know the context, it opens like that, without introduction, could it be for food or a sacrifice of some sort (ritual or reparation), what made them think that he is making fun of them in such serious matter?
This is a kind of "Narrative hook" that is called "In medias res", starting the story in the middle of events.

In typical story telling, subsequent events would gradually clarify this, but this is not the case here, the story continues without knowing why they thought he is making fun of them or why the cow is needed in the first place, the story now shifts from slaughtering any cow to finding "the mysterious cow" even though it was clear that it was supposed to be any cow not "the cow", quote:

• Then they said, "Please make a request to your Lord to give us some details of the cow."
• Moses answered, "God says that the cow should neither be old nor immature but of middle age. Do, therefore, as you are bidden."

Moses are telling them "just do it" and they keep asking for more details, the more they ask the more specific the details get, the harder it gets. For now it's about specific age

• But they further asked, "Please request your Lord to make it clear to us of what colour she should be."
• Moses answered, "He says that she should be of yellow colour, so deep and bright as to delight the beholders."
• Again they said, "Pray your Lord to specify for us the kind of cow that is required; for cows (of this type) look alike to us. We shall then find her, if God so wills."
• Moses answered, "God says that she should be a cow which has not been yoked nor has ploughed the land nor watered the fields; which is sound and whole, without belemish."
• Then they cried out, "Now you have given an accurate description."
• Then they slaughter it and they barely did it.

When the events start to appear in chronological order, as the tribe collecting hints to find a mysterious cow, that we don't know why it's needed or why they thought that he is making fun of them, how it shifted from any cow to a specific cow, but they finally found it and they did what they were told to do. When we think the store came to a closure, it flashback into a crime scene, and the narrator says

• And remember when you slew a man and began to dispute about the murder and accuse one another of it...

So the chronological order would be, the crime, the dispute, then finding the cow. This is called "Frame story" or "a story within a story". We can now understand why they thought he is making fun of them, when they were accusing each other of committing the crime, Moses commanded them to slaughter a cow! How would slaughtering a cow relates to this? Moses was serious, he is not making fun of them, just do it. They tried to delay the slaughter, trying to find a specific cow, collecting hints, ..., and when they find it they hardly did it as they did not want to expose the real criminal. But who is the narrator? Let's see

• And remember when you slew a man and began to dispute about the murder and accuse one another of it, but God had decreed that what you were trying to hide should be disclosed.

It's God, God is going to reveal the killer, speaking using the royal we

• So We commanded, "Strike the corpse of the murdered man with a part of the slaughtered cow. See how God brings the dead to life and shows you His Signs, so that you may understand"

God uses the story to address the reader by addressing the tribe of Moses. With eloquent words, and almost no details, dots get connected, we understand that the murdered man came to life for seconds to identify his killer then rest again in peace. The tribe now have a clear miracle that confirms Moses message of life after death and the day of judgment, but the reader is addressed to see how he is going be resurrected and held accountable for his own deed in the day of judgment, and the reader should understand and repent.
Story tellers usually spare such moments of the story to use excess details (Euphuism) and Dramatic visualization, but surprisingly almost no words is used to describe what happened but it generally understood from the context.

So in around 13 lines, we see a short story, that employ many of the modern art of story telling, that manipulate time back and forth, spare details, have several knots, and frame a store within another story, ...etc.

Story source

Because it mentioned Moses, you might have guessed it's from The Old Testament, Tanakh or Torah, but it's not. It's from Quran Chapter two, starting from verse 67. And the story did not end there.

You might refer to the story here and here.

One more level of nesting

The story above is framed inside another story, so let's continue

• But even after seeing these Signs your hearts hardened and became as hard as rocks; nay, even harder than rocks. For there are some rocks out of which springs gush forth, and others which split open, and water issues out of them; then there are some which tumble down for fear of God. And God is not unaware of what you are doing.

Continue to address people of Moses, that even after they have seen such miraculous signs their hearts got harder and harder. A Metaphor between how hard their hearts are like rocks. So far, we don't know what they have done wrong to be addressed like that!

• O Muslims, do you then expect that these people will accept your invitation and become believers? whereas there have always been among them some who have been hearing the Word of God, understanding it well and then perverting and tampering with it knowingly.

Now, addressing Muslims, not to expect much from the Jews living in Medina at the that time. The Jews; the tribe of Moses, have seen a dead man brought back to life with their own eyes, yet they have hard hearts, and some of them have faked the message of God and deliberately changed it.

There were some Jewish tribes that have settled in Medina, built fortresses, and told pagan Arabs of that time, that a prophet will come and destroy their idols, but when the prophet happens to be from a different tribe, they changed their minds.

The story of finding the cow was framed inside the story of the crime which was framed inside the story of Jews of Medina centuries later.