Stories and Remembering

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.