The Stories we tell : the search for meaning through stories
Date
1995
Authors
Lewis, Patrick John
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Abstract
The heart of this thesis is a story. Like all stories it involves a journey. It is a journey of the way the author thought and perceived the nature of being in his lived story through reflection and awareness. Simultaneously, it is a story about story. The thesis is a story about the use of story for constructing meaning and understanding. The journey is through the interior landscape of the mind which the author has traversed in the telling. The journey has been transformed by the artifice of the storyteller and the craft of storytelling in order to be presented in the basic story structure of beginning, middle and end.
As in all stories there is an underlying tension throughout the piece which is resolved, if only temporarily, through the telling. It is a story which is demonstrative of the use of story in constructing meaning, as well as exemplifying the subtle, yet fundamental shift in the author's way of perceiving his questions: "Why did I become a teacher?", "Am I the person I'm supposed to be?," and of being in the world.