an oral culture

I found this weeks readings particularly interesting. I actually liked the vulgarity of what I thought were children tales; it complies to the reality of things as well as graphically reveal what these people were subjected to during that time. It's very true that the storytellers "portrayed a world of raw and naked brutality." However, some of the versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" took me by surprise and were rather disturbing. Nonetheless, these readings, for me, created a whole new perspective of folktales and to the oral tradition in general. The connection between the readings were quite fascinating as well, particularly with how completely different cultures created very similar ways of coping with their lives. In class, a question was raised "Do we live in an oral culture?" I immediately began thinking about how much print culture has emerged and how much technology has advanced to where our culture are becoming more and more reliant on it. Thus, my initial reaction was "not really" or as another student said "not exclusively." As discussed in class, our culture is not really fit to practice the same oral traditions that were practiced during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. These were people that underwent serious hardships that are just not likely to happen now. However, during our discussion in class, I remembered how my father would recite some riddles he grew up with that helped better his indigent living conditions. One such riddle goes,

Beans, Beans, they are good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart, the better you feel.
so eat them bean with every meal.

The riddle came about because my father and his family pretty much grew up on well, beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans, lima beans, green beans...all kinds of beans. As my father would tell me, my grandmother would cook a hefty amount of beans, enough to last the whole family of 6 an entire week. Surprisingly, my father still enjoys beans and every he or I would fix them, he would recite that riddle.

So, all in all, learning about folktales and how they came about, and thinking about them in relation to today's traditions, it really puts into perspective how much our culture has changed. The original folktales are fun to learn about, and in some cases read and even see on television, but as discussed in class, our culture has graduated to another kind of orality, one that is more fitting for the present time. Now I'm curious to know how it will change in the future...