Author: Molly Andrews
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2004
Review by: Supriya Prasanta
Molly Andrews’ Narrative Imagination and Everyday Life explores the apparently eventless everyday life and probes deep into its makings. As a study in narrative psychology, it takes into its purview of study a number of fascinating aspects of psychology such as time-travelling, magic, ageing, education, political narratives and the role of imagination in all these phenomena. Introducing such multiple themes, Andrews explains her rationale—‘this book takes as its starting point that narrative and imagination are combined, not only in our most elevated thoughts about the world as it might be, but also in the very minute of our daily lives. Not only can we time travel, but we do it all the time. We must. We constantly move backwards and forwards in our mind’s eye, and it is this movement which is a key stimulus behind our development.’
In one of the fascinating subjects on magic (chapter 2, ‘Talks of the Art of Deception: Psychology of Deception’), she explores the art and craft of magic, an interesting and often misunderstood subject. She delineates how a magician is able to create an illusion which seems true in the moment. Through ample examples, she goes on to illustrate how the art of the magician is not found in simple deception, but in what surrounds it, the construction of a reality which supports the illusion.
Ageing, yet another chapter investigates the myths and responses surrounding the process of ageing. Andrews illustrates how ageing, natural and inevitable, is not always an easily acceptable process for many. Commenting on this aspect, she says—‘This sense of an ongoing future of a world in which we have already played our part is for some, at least, a source of comfort. But this requires great imagination.’ It is our imagination which gives us the necessary sustenance to create visions of alternative realities, which ‘differentiates human beings from all other animals.’ As such, the term everyday life is not one which is customarily combined with the word imagination. So it becomes necessary to not only suggest but deal in some minute detail the subject of narrative imagination, which holds the key to connecting the individual with the universal, the particular with the possible.
It goes without saying imagination plays a great role in education. Education and imagination must go hand in hand since only information based education produces a society which is devoid of enduring values and progress. The discourse of ‘imagination’ must be fully understood and then implemented with regard to the evaluation of educational goals and standards.
However, the most prominent chapter of the book could be the chapter on politics which shows how Barack Obama, used his personal experiences to connect with people. His autobiographical books were instrumental in presenting before the people of America as well as the world at large a real image of an emerging world leader. Obama could skillfully redefine what it meant to be American through examples from his own life experiences. By connecting his life experiences with others, he could present himself as someone who was one among the people. Obama succeeded in brining the populace to his side, though that might not mean he had the people’s best interests in mind with regard to policies, only that he could persuade people to his point of view most effectively.
The mainstay of Obama’s lectures was the way he recounted his life stories, and secondly, how beautifully he could connect that story to a larger national story, the essential American story. Besides, he also drew heavily on other people’s life stories and explained how he could relate to the lives of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. He never missed a chance to make a connection between the present day narratives and those of the past. This way, Obama could present a coherent story which was personal as well as universal; he could wonderfully strike the balance between the personal as well as communal. His distinctness lay in forming a natural bond between with him and others. By successfully blending his narrative with the narratives of the past, he could project a complete image of not only himself but the nation as a whole. Andrews elucidates the Obama story through analyzing and breaking into pieces Obama’s lectures during his election campaigns and its aftermath and examining his structuring devices, his allusions which obviously put upon him loads of charisma and magnetism.
Andrews study contributes to our understanding of how narrative and imagination are linked to one another in everyday life. People try to recollect the past through the faculty of imagination, and they also use the same faculty to think and make plans for the future. The book also brings to mind the perennial question of making sense of the world we inhabit. To understand and appreciate our life and existence, we need to delve deeper into our psyche and realize how we create realities out of our imagination. As Andrews puts it, if we could, ‘render ourselves vulnerable to new ways of knowing, we will not only be transformed in the process, but we can, in our small way, contribute towards creating new realities. This possibility of renewal and change is one of greatest gifts of our narrative imagination.’
And these are possibilities we should look forward to bring into our lives.
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