What's the Use of Stories That Aren't Even True?

"What's the use of stories that aren't even true?" This was the haunting question that Haroun asked his father after his mother abandoned them for a sensible man without stories.


The most obvious answer is found in the words of Frye:


“First, myths stick together to form a mythology, a large interconnected body of narrative that covers all the religious and historical revelation that its society is concerned with, or concerned about. Second, as part of this stick-together process, myths take root in specific culture, and it is one of their functions to tell that culture what it is and how it came to be . . . ” (Frye 9)


I have long mistakenly believed that art was an imitation of reality. But truthfully, art creates reality. It is the lens through which which we determine the facts. Without our imaginations to breath life into the hollow forms of matter that surround us, this reality would not, and could not exist. So what is the use of stories that aren't even true? I don't believe there is such a thing as a story that isn't true. All stories are true because all stories are intertwined rewritings of older stories - stories that were written to illuminate some facet of life. Stories are the only thing that are useful and that we can know for certain exist and will continue to exist "I think therefore I am." Stories are the reality. And what could possibly be of greater use to us than that one thing that creates and encompasses all other things? This is my answer.