Question

How does Forster trace the human interest in the story to primitive times?

Answer 1

Forster traces the human interest in the story to primitive times by describing that the art of story telling is immensely old. It goes back to Neolithic times, perhaps to palaeolithic times. He refers to the Neanderthal man's liking of stories by referring to the anthropological evidence of the shape of the skull. To bring home the point further, Forster conjectures a picture of the primitive audience as an audience of shock heads, gaping round the camp fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or the woolly rhinoceros and only kept awake by suspense. The novelist drones on and, as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him. Forster also refers to the character of Scheherazade who had to tell stories one after another to evade the danger of being killed by her husband. Forster mentions that Scheherazade's talent to tell suspense stories made her survive. In this way, Forster traces the human interest in the story to primitive times.