The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling

Why, throughout human history, have people been so drawn to fiction?

By Cody C. Delistraty

    The oldest story in the world is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, and it has all the trappings of a modern story: a protagonist who goes on an arduous journey, a romance with a seductive woman, a redemptive arc, and a full cast of supporting characters. Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, sharing them orally even before the invention of writing. In one way or another, much of people’s lives are spent telling stories, which can be a way for humans to feel that we have control over the world. They allow people to see patterns where there is chaos, meaning where there is randomness. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives—a form of existential problem-solving.

    In a 1944 study conducted at Smith College, 34 students were shown a short film in which two triangles and a circle moved across the screen and a rectangle remained stationary on one side of the screen. When asked what they saw, 33 of the 34 students anthropomorphized the shapes and created a narrative: The circle was “worried,” the “little triangle” was an “innocent young thing,” the big triangle was “blinded by rage and frustration.” Only one student recorded that all he saw were geometric shapes on a screen.

    But why start telling stories in the first place? One theory is that storytelling could be an evolutionary mechanism that helped keep our ancestors alive. The theory is that if I tell you a story about how to survive, you’ll be more likely to actually survive than if I just give you facts. For instance, if I were to say, “There’s an animal near that tree, so don’t go over there,” it would not be as effective as if I were to tell you, “My cousin was eaten by a malicious, scary creature that lurks around that tree, so don’t go over there.” A narrative works off of both data and emotions, which is significantly more effective in engaging a listener than data alone.

    The value humans place on narrative is made clear in the high esteem given to storytellers. Authors, actors, directors—people who spin narratives for a living are some of the most famous people in the world. Stories are a form of escapism, but there seems to be something more at play. Perhaps the real reason that we tell stories again and again—and endlessly praise our greatest storytellers—is because humans want to be a part of a shared history.

Adapted from: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/thepsychological-comforts-of-storytelling/381964/. Access in: 17 June 2022.

TEXTO – New Data on Autism Spectrum Disorder in 4- Year-Old Children.

    CDC scientists published a report on the prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among 4-year-old children. This report is based on information from the Early Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. Early ADDM is a subset of the broader ADDM Network, which has been doing ASD surveillance among 8-year-old children since 2000.

    In this report, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summaries, scientists analyzed information from the health and/or education records of preschool-aged children. Identifying children with ASD early helps families get access to services in their communities. This report provides valuable information on progress made toward early identification of children with ASD, and informs providers, particularly public schools, of upcoming service needs. The data in this report demonstrate a continued need to identify children with ASD sooner and refer them to early intervention.

    Seven sites from across the United States were included in this report. These sites participated in Early ADDM for at least one year during surveillance years 2010, 2012, and 2014. However, trends in the prevalence and characteristics of ASD could only be analyzed across three sites: Arizona, Missouri, and New Jersey. This is because not all seven sites participated and had consistent data sources for all three surveillance years.

(Adapted from: www.cdc.gov)

TEXT

New Translations Explore Brazil’s ‘Endless and Unfinished’ Character

    Mário de Andrade’s novel
“Macunaíma: The Hero With No Character”
follows a shape-shifting, rule-flouting, race-

switching trickster as he roams the vast nation of
[5] Brazil, meeting historical characters, folkloric
figures, and outrageously satirized stereotypes
along the way.
    Rich with words and references from
Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian cultures, the
[10] modernist novel was hailed as a classic upon its
publication in 1928, and has long been seen as an
allegory for Brazil’s unique cultural blend. Faced
with criticism of the book’s uncredited reliance on
anthropological research, Andrade offered up, in
[15] an open letter, a typically insouciant response: “I
copied Brazil.”
    Some scholars have deemed the book’s
complexity virtually untranslatable — but this
week, New Directions published a new translation
[20] of “Macunaíma” by Katrina Dodson that aims to
transport Andrade’s idiosyncratic prose into
English. Over six years of research, Dodson
familiarized herself with every aspect of the
novel. She chased down obscure flora and fauna
[25] on two trips to the Amazon, waded through
reams of critical commentary, immersed herself
in Andrade’s archives in São Paulo and discussed
the book’s continued relevance with
contemporary Brazilians. While she found that for
[30] some readers the book continues to represent
the “endless and unfinished” national spirit of
Brazil, she also met many Afro-Brazilian and
Indigenous artists who have set out to reclaim the
folkloric roots that Andrade drew on.
[35]    Inspired by her research, Dodson hopes
that her new translation will emphasize just how
deeply personal, and multifaceted, the concept of
Brazil was for Andrade. “He had African heritage
on both sides. Once you know more about him
[40] and more about the context of how he wrote this
book, you understand that there are a lot of very
sincere and serious questions at the heart of it.”
    The notion that the book and its main
character are a stand-in for the country and its
[45] “amalgamation of different races and ethnicities”
has helped establish “Macunaíma” as a canonical
novel, read in every classroom devoted to
Brazilian literature, said Pedro Meira Monteiro,
chair of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton
[50] University. But it would be a mistake to read it as
a nationalist project, he said. “Mário is so
profoundly charmed by the endless and
unfinished character of Brazil,” he said, referring
to the author by his first name, with the
[55] familiarity common to Andrade’s readers in
Brazil.“ He is seeing something that he recognizes
as his and at the same time not,” he said. “There’s
a problematic sense of belonging in his work that
is profound.”
[60]    A more personal register is on full
display in “The Apprentice Tourist,” the first
translation of another Andrade book by Flora
Thomson-DeVeaux that was also published this
week by Penguin Classics. Compiled from notes
[65] Andrade made during his first trip to the Amazon
shortly before “Macunaíma” was released, “The
Apprentice Tourist” shows Andrade’s fascination
with Amazonian cultures — and his utter
boredom with the government officials and elites
[70] who welcomed the group of travelers along the
way.
    Andrade was born in São Paulo, the
country’s industrial capital, in 1893. He enrolled
in São Paulo’s Dramatic and Musical Conservatory
[75] at age 11 to train as a concert pianist, taught
himself French and became enamored with the
poetry of the Symbolists. By his mid-20s he was
traveling throughout Brazil, publishing poetry and
essays on folklore along the way.
[80]    Andrade’s fascination with the
multiplicities of Brazilian culture placed him at the
center of the modernist movements that were
sweeping the country in the 1920s. “Macunaíma”
was first excerpted in the Revista de
[85] Antropofagia, the journal edited by Oswald de
Andrade (no relation), whose 1928 manifesto
proclaimed that Brazilian thinkers needed to
reject European artifice and “cannibalize” native
forms of storytelling to produce a new Brazilian
[90] art. Antropofagia, or anthropophagy in English,
refers to the eating of human flesh.
    The book found an admiring readership
among the Brazilian intelligentsia, but even they
were struck by its incongruities. One critic, João
[95] Ribeiro — a prominent folklorist himself — called
it “voluntarily barbarous, primeval, an assortment
of disconnected fragments put together by a
commentator incapable of any coordination.”
    Dodson approached the book because
[100] she felt the existing English translation, E.A.
Goodland’s 1984 version for Random House, had
smoothed over the “joy and poetry of the 

language, and the cultural politics of the
particular mix of languages.”
[105]    Take the book’s first line, which half a
dozen Brazilian artists and scholars interviewed
by The New York Times quoted, unprompted,
from memory: “No fundo do mato-virgem nasceu
Macunaíma, herói da nossa gente.” Goodland’s
[110] translation of the first line ignores Andrade’s
sentence structure. It starts: “In a far corner of
Northern Brazil” — words that do not exist in the
original — then continues, “at an hour when so
deep a hush had fallen on the virgin forest….”
[115] Goodland, a retired technical director for a sugar
company in Guyana, was “well-versed in all of the
natural history foundation of the book,” Dodson
said, “but he completely missed the spirit of what
the book is trying to do.”
[120]     Dodson decided to essentially
transliterate the line, despite the grammatical
awkwardness it introduces in English: “In the
depths of the virgin-forest was born Macunaíma,
hero of our people.” The importance of the line,
[125] she said, is not in establishing where the action is
taking place, as Goodland had done, but in
bringing the reader into the fold of the people at
hand. “Macunaíma is our hero,” she said.
As her knowledge of the book
[130] deepened, Dodson said, she found herself
walking back some of her own interventions to
maintain the “music” of the original. “A lot of the
words in the book are not in the regular Brazilian
Portuguese dictionaries,” Dodson noted. “Or if
[135] they are, the meanings are ambiguous. My goal
was to make you feel the joy of language in the
book, to be carried along by all the humor and
the colloquial ways in which people speak, but
also by the beautiful sounds of the Indigenous
[140] words.”
For the Brazilian artists behind the
book’s many adaptations into film, theater, and
art, Andrade’s insistence on maintaining the
complex vernacular that he overheard on his
[145] travels is precisely what makes the book so vital.
“The book’s difficulty is its genius,” said Iara
Rennó, a São Paulo-based musician. Shortly after
reading the book for the first time and becoming
enamored by its musicality, Rennó began writing
[150] her 2008 album, “Macunaíma Ópera Tupi.”
“‘Macunaíma’ puts the reader, who is used to so

called ‘well-written’ Portuguese, into a state of
transgression,” she said. “And that transgression
is so important. It feeds culture.”
[155]    Some scholars have compared
“Macunaíma” to James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” another
totemic modernist novel from the 1920s whose
allusive, wide-ranging play with language is as
central to its identity as its plot. “The elites in
[160] Brazil love to think of themselves as dislocated

Europeans,” said Caetano Galindo, whose
innovative 2012 translation of “Ulysses” into
Brazilian Portuguese won the prestigious Jabuti
prize. Andrade, he added, “had a huge role in
[165] facing the fact that this is not a true monolingual
country.”
Nearly a century after its publication,
many of the novel’s Brazilian admirers are unsure
of how it will be received in the United States.
[170] “Macunaíma is always on the verge of being
canceled,” said Meira Monteiro, the Princeton
professor.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07

Read the text and answer the question

Instrução: A questão estão relacionada ao texto abaixo.

If I had to sum up, in one word, the singular
talents of our species, I would answer with
“learning.” We are not simply Homo sapiens,
but Homo docens—the species that teaches
[5] itself. Most of what we know about the world
was not given to us by our genes: we had to
learn it from our environment or from those
around us. No other animal has managed to
change its ecological niche so radically, moving
[10] from the African savanna to deserts, mountains,
islands, polar ice caps, cave dwellings, cities,
and even outer space, all within a few thousand
years. Learning has fueled it all. From making
fire and designing stone tools to agriculture,
[15] exploration, and atomic fission, the story of
humanity is one of constant self-reinvention. At
the root of all these accomplishments lies one
secret: the extraordinary ability of our brain to
formulate hypotheses and select those that fit
[20] with our environment.
Learning is the triumph of our species. In our
brain, billions of parameters are free to adapt to
our environment, our language, our culture, our
parents, or our food. These parameters are
[25] carefully chosen: over the course of evolution,
the Darwinian algorithm carefully delineated
which brain circuits should be pre-wired and
which should be left open to the environment.
In our species, the contribution of learning is
[30] particularly large ........ our childhood extends
over many more years than it does for other
mammals. And because we possess a unique
knack for language and mathematics, our
learning device is able to navigate vast spaces
[35] of hypotheses that recombine into potentially
infinite sets—even if they are always grounded
in fixed and invariable foundations inherited
from our evolution.
More recently, humanity discovered that it could
[40] increase this remarkable ability even further
with the help of an institution: the classroom.
Pedagogy is an exclusive privilege of our
species: no other animal actively teaches its
offspring by setting aside specific time to
[45] monitor their progress, difficulties, and errors.
The invention of the school, an institution which
systematizes the informal education present in
all human societies, has vastly increased our
brain potential. We have discovered that we can
[50] take advantage of the exuberant plasticity of the
child brain to instill in it a maximum amount of

information and talent. Over centuries, our
school system has continued to improve in
efficiency, starting earlier and earlier in
[55] childhood and now lasting for fifteen years or
more. Increasing numbers of brains benefit
from higher education. Universities are neural
refineries where our brain circuits acquire their
best talents.
[60] Education is the main accelerator of our brain.
It is not difficult to justify its presence in the top
spots in government spending: without it, our
cortical circuits would remain diamonds in the
rough. The number of syllables a literate person
[65] can repeat is almost double that of an adult who
never attended school and remained illiterate.
And one's IQ increases by several points for
each additional year of education and literacy.
The complexity of our society owes its existence
[70] to the multiple improvements that education
brings to our cortex: reading, writing,
calculation, algebra, music, a sense of time and
space, a refinement of memory.

Adapted from: DEHAENE, Stanislas. How we learn: Why brains learn better than any machine… for now. New York: Viking Press, 2020.

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