Situational storytelling for children and young adults in Bengali households: a study of texts in contexts

Abstract

This thesis is an ethnographic study of storytelling traditions in Bengali households in Calcutta, India. I examine and analyze situational storytelling traditions in private family settings and show how sessions serve the dual purpose of entertaining and instilling in children a sense of cultural norms and values. It is an investigation of the telling of oral folk narratives, observing the narrators and the audiences as a complex whole, in expressing a culture. I explore situational storytelling sessions in family settings from three perspectives: i) the contexts and situations under which stories are told ii) what meanings the stories hold in the life of the narrator and iii) how stories are used as a medium of social control. I also analyze how the genre and content of women's stories reflect their perspectives on their positions in the family and how these narratives lend women a voice to express their deepest feelings and thoughts in the garb of a simple tale.