The Russian Doll of Theory of Identity goes something like this: Every person has a story of their own going on right now in their minds. There are many stories. The stories are nested in bigger, larger stories, on-and-on.
For example:
The personal story of your life -> Your position in your family story -> Your family story -> Where your family lived in a certain part of neighborhood story -> Your town's story -> Your city's story -> Your story of your state -> Your state's story in the group of states around itself -> Your section of the country -> Your country's story -> Your country's story in the region -> Your country's story of the West -> Your Western heritage story -> Story of the world
Our stories create identity. Identities have to meld with the story, so that means your behaviors and actions need to be consistent with your identity and your ultimately your story.
Each one of those stories has a whole world of meaning in itself. Even your own story of who you are, what you do for work, what birth order you are in, what your relationship is to your siblings, your siblings relationship to their parents, your parents relationship to their parents, your families relationship to their house, to their neighborhood, to their part of town and their church, etc.,
It's almost an infinite amount of meaning and stories within stories. Each story you can break down and find out more about it, with each new detail, a more layered understanding of the story takes place, giving more meaning to the story.
The thing is, all these are just stories, mostly made-up. There are real things that happen in the world, but the meaning behind those facts, the story, is made-up by us. Some people are trapped in their own story, thinking and feeling as though it is more than real. Others are propelled to do great things in life by their stories.
Here's the thing about studying literature: your story changes. As you read these other stories of human beings by authors whose depth of feeling is more than anyone you have ever met in your life, the stories they tell start to leave an impression on you. The story you had before you read them start to lose some of their power, because our own stories aren't that great, really.
Like Kafka says:
"All is imaginary – family, office, friends, the street, all imaginary, far away or close at hand, the woman; the truth that lies closest, however is only this, that you are beating your head against the wall of a windowless and doorless cell."
Literature opens us up to more stories about the world, broadening and enriching the meaning we have in our own stories, and many times erasing the importance of them, but in a good way, in a relieving way that helps us to be more true to what we want out of life, and not simply going through the story of our current cultures.
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