The TED Talk that I chose was “Once upon a time my mother…”by Carmen Agra Deedy. Carmen starts her talk by telling the story of calling
her parents and asking what she should talk about for the TED talk (how many
times can I type talk in one sentence?) She transitions into the art of good storytelling.
Carmen briefly tells the history of storytelling and how storytelling is all around
us. She then starts telling a story about her mother, who is a horrible driver
and continually embarrasses her. The story itself is not important, but the purpose
and the message of the story is. When watching this twenty-some-minute TED
Talk, I found myself wondering what the point of the story was, but in the last
minute this talk was impactful and relatable. At the end of her story about her
crazy mother, a random brother and sister come up to her and say “she reminds us of our
mother…God, I miss her”. To which Carmen’s mother says to Carmen "I'm going to drive you crazy probably for about 14,
15 more years, if you're lucky, but after that, honey, you're
going to miss me."
Carmen’s purpose is to emphasize the importance
of storytelling. We tell stories to
recall and to remember the time we spent with loved ones. Carmen’s purpose is
furthered by her use of pathos, imagery, and general storytelling skills
(ethos). Carmen utilizes pathos is used throughout the whole performance to
make the audience feel a connection with Carmen because she plays off of their
emotions. Carmen uses imagery throughout her story as well to captivate her
audience so they are more invested into her stories. As a storyteller, Carmen
knows which parts of a story to emphasize by slowing down her speaking patterns
and which to race through by talking quickly. She also places different accents
to her different characters to provide a stronger effect on the audience. All
of these components are mixed together in order to bring the audience in the story,
and to make it more relatable so that the message at the end is more impactful.
The audience relates their own family stories to Carmen’s so they realize that they
should value the time and stories of their own family members.
I was first interested in this talk because I thought
it was cute and funny, but then I realized how applicable it was to my life
now. Recently, my Great-Grandparents visited from California for Christmas.
During their stay, my Great-Grandma kept saying that this was their last time
visiting North Carolina, which was, and still is, very hard for me to digest. I
think in order to compensate, I have been telling a lot of stories of my
Great-Grandparents. We tell stories to remember. If I don’t see my
Great-Grandparents again, I still want to remember what it was like to have
them here. Playing card games, baking, making dinner. I want to remember. One
of the reasons I really liked this talk was that Carmen didn’t have to stand on
stage and explain the message of her story. Everybody can relate to it because
we all know someone that we don’t want to forget, so all we can do is tell
stories of the times that we spent together.
