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Zach Medley

Tressie Norton

AP Language/AP U.S. History

30 July 2016

Ordinary Stories

Thomas Hardy is quoted in saying, a story must be exceptional enough to justify its

telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience of every

average man and woman. In saying this, he was referring to fiction and non-fiction works of

literature. However, his perspective of literature is incorrect. In Brave New World by Aldous

Huxley, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, and Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and

Inheritance, by Barack Obama, ideas are highlighted that proclaim Thomas Hardys statement to

be incorrect.

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley implies that a story doesnt have to be exceptional to

justify its telling. Although this book takes place in a dystopian future, many of the struggles of

the characters relate to the struggles of people today. For example, John and Linda are two

characters that are essentially outcasts in a society that they know nothing about. A prime

example of how much of outcasts they are is when John is forbidden from participating in an

important ceremony and stoned because of his white hair and his mothers promiscuity (Huxley

136). Moreover, Linda complains that people arent supposed to have intimate relations with

more than one person in the society she had to live in, and so she is labeled as wicked and anti-

social because of her refusal to conform (Huxley 121). Many people can relate to this notion,

since the idea of being an outcast is a common sentiment held among many people in modern
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society, especially among those who are a minority in areas where their culture is so starkly

different from everyone elses. Also, prejudices carried from birth are highlighted in Brave New

World. Beta children are conditioned to think that they dont want to play with Delta children,

that Epsilon children are stupid, and that Alpha children are all clever (Huxley 27). Although its

not as blatant, many children are also raised to carry stereotypes about certain types of people.

Since stereotyping is so common, the fact it was a major part of the book proves that stories

dont have to be unusual to justify being told. Plus, when Johns mother is dying, his idea of

death clashes with the societys idea of death. He is crying for her in the hospital, but the nurse is

mad because this was interfering with societys idea that death wasnt a sad event (Huxley 206).

These ideas presented in the book are very similar to events people experience in their everyday

lives, since culture shock, prejudice, and ostracism are concepts that people deal with every day.

The story is a classic despite how it addresses struggles that ordinary people deal with. Not only

does Brave New World give ideas that refute the idea that literature has to be extraordinary to

justify its telling, but also Black Like Me gives ideas to refute this.

In Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin, Griffin goes through life as an African-

American man as opposed to a white man in the South in the early 1960s. This plot as a whole

opposes the notion that a story must be more than an everyday story to justify its telling, since

the basic plot is just someone going through the everyday motions of a different person and

pointing out differences and profiling everyday people. For example, while hitchhiking, Griffin

encounters a man who talked about the sexual exploitation of black women by white men, and

Griffin encounters a lot of people who talked about this very casually (Griffin 103). This was

everyday for this person, although not everyone knew about it. Another person that Griffin
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encounters on his journey is a man and his wife who lived in a shack in the backwoods with six

kids, which was also fairly normal at the time (Griffin 108). Racism is a major point in the story,

which many people faced at the time of this books publication and some may even face in

modern times. Some examples of racism faced by Griffin when he was living as a black man is

when white racists try to tie religion into their racist beliefs to justify them (Griffin 136), when a

bus driver refused to open the door long enough so Griffin and other black people at the back of

a bus didnt have time to walk to the door (Griffin 44), and when another bus driver refused to let

black people off of a bus for a rest stop (Griffin 60). These issues were all commonplace for

African Americans in the south at the time, since African Americans were systematically

discriminated against due to the Jim Crow laws, and so the presentation of them in a literary

work proves that stories dont have to be about extraordinary events. Griffins perspective on this

issue as a White man implies that everyday issues are important enough to write about, since

even if these issues wasnt everyday for white people, they were everyday for black people in the

South at the time. In addition to Black Like Me, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and

Inheritance implies that stories can be everyday and still worth telling.

In Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama, the idea

that a story has to be extraordinary to be told is refuted, since everyday issues of race and class

politics are addressed. Some of the experiences with racial profiling Obama had were that an

older white woman told the manager of their apartment that he was following her when he got

behind her in an elevator (Obama 80) and when his grandmother was scared by a big man who

kept asking her for money supposedly because he was black (Obama 88). Both of these highlight

stereotypes that African Americans commonly face in the United States, and so they are ordinary
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events for some people. Plus, a section of this book takes place in a very real place detailing the

struggles of very ordinary people: the Altgeld ghetto of Chicago. Some of the struggles

highlighted were a lack of knowledge for how parents can provide the best environment for their

children (Obama 232), unsafe levels of asbestos in apartment buildings (Obama 244), and youth

gang violence (Obama 253). Chicago still faces many issues like this, and many ordinary people

face these struggles. Plus, real events in Kenya are highlighted throughout Obamas memoir. For

example, the division between the Luos and Kikuyus and how that affected Kenyan politics are

highlighted (Obama 214). Ethnic conflict isnt anything that is unusual in the world, and so the

fact it was discussed in the story shows that something extraordinary isnt necessary for a story

to be good. Throughout all of these texts, evidence is given that a story doesnt have to be

anything extraordinary to justify its telling.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin, and

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama all demonstrate that

a story doesnt have to be unusual to justify it being told. This contradicts Thomas Hardys quote,

a story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to

relate than the ordinary experience of every average man and woman. The average experiences

of ordinary men and women make up the majority of these three texts. Because of this, Thomas

Hardy is wrong in saying that a story has to be exceptional for it to be told. (1,260 words).
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Works Cited

Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me. New York: New American Library, 1960. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial, 1932. Print.

Obama, Barack. Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Broadway

Paperbacks, 1995. Print.