While a story can be interpreted by the reader and made his own, information is objective. Where a narrative can remain timeless, information is only relevant in real time information is unable to transcend time like a story can.īenjamin also contends that information can only be taken in as raw data. Likewise, it is subject to “prompt verifiability” (Benjamin, 89). Instead, information is used to gratify immediate needs. Information, according to Benjamin, cannot impart any wisdom upon its reader. Ultimately, it is the integration of experience enabled by open narrative that leads to wisdom. Through narrative and discourse, one is able to reflect upon experiences and share them with others. In turn, according to Brooks, a type of wisdom is imparted to the listener. Critic Peter Brooks expands on this idea, stating that the storyteller gives the narrative “a ‘chaste compactness’ that commends it to memory” the story sinks into the reader, and the experience becomes one with the reader. According to Benjamin, the beauty of the storyteller was his ability to communicate a story and allow the audience member to integrate this story into her own experience. Informationīenjamin correlates the dramatic increase in the dissemination of information to the quick decline of the storyteller. While some were reaping the so-called benefits of the new age, many were left behind. Life became fast-paced and information-driven. The world was immediately affected by this new addition of information processing, leading to a quick metamorphosis in greater society. But after the war, this kind of lifestyle was ripped from their grasp. Benjamin communicates this idea very accurately, stating: “A generation that had gone to school on a horse-drawn streetcar now stood under the open sky in a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of forces of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human life.' Many soldiers had grown up knowing a slow-paced, effectively unchanging lifestyle. For many, the addition of modern technology, such as mass media and mechanical warfare, was disconcerting. Specifically, they returned to a world transformed by the war. According to Benjamin, when the soldiers returned from World War I, they were simply unable to communicate their experiences. In “The Storyteller,' Benjamin focuses mostly on the social consequences. World War I, one of the most traumatizing events in human history, had significant cultural, political, and social ramifications. Specifically, he believes that these transformations in societal norms were not sudden changes rather, they were progressive movements that slowly seeped into the modern world as technological usage expanded.Īccording to Benjamin, after World War I, people struggled to communicate their experiences. In addition, it appeared as a symptom for the rise of information usage. According to Benjamin, there were few places death had not touched.īenjamin asserts that World War I crystallized a change in the perception of death. Family and friends would come together and discuss the deceased person’s life, ultimately finding the meaning in his or her life. Moreover, prior to the rise of information, death was a time of gathering. Rumors and information were spread verbally, from person to person, not read or watched.

Arguments and Responseīefore World War I, people received information locally. Moreover, he asserts that the rise of information is incompatible with storytelling, and contributed to the diminished efficacy of the storyteller. According to Benjamin, people have become unable to reflect accurately upon their experiences, in part because of the dramatic influx and rapid distribution of information in the early twentieth century. Published in 1936, the essay attributes the fall of the storyteller to a time in history devoid of shared experiences. Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller” concerns itself with the incommunicability of experiences in the modern world.

Illuminations walter benjamin summary