This focus of this week’s lectorial was narrative. The significance of humans beings being able to create narrative was pointed out to us as we were told that stories are what separate us from other species as we are the only species that construct and present them. Narrative is where our humanity lies. This sense of humanity inherent in narrative creation brought my attention to a documentary I had recently seen. It was the celebrated Werner Herzog’s ‘Grizzly Man.’In this documentary bear enthusiast Timothy treadwell is depicted spending his summers living amongst grizzly bears. Treadwell was collecting footage of both himself and the bears in the hope of putting together his own documentary. However Treadwell was tragically killed by a grizzly bear before he could do so. This week’s topic reminded me of Treadwell’s character as he seems determined to shy away from society and avoid social constructs and yet insists on telling his story and is a passionate film maker. The peculiarity of this is that Treadwell seems as though he wants to transform himself into a bear and even goes so far as to call the bears his friends. However his human nature won’t allow this as he insists on telling his story and demands recognition for it, even going so far as to call himself a celebrity. Again in his narrative he tries to appear grizzly like as he claims he is alone in the wilderness just as the solo grizzly is. However this is a lie as he has a female companion who accompanies him on his journey. Treadwell is ultimately unable to separate himself from the society in which he struggles immensely to fit into as he replies upon it heavily to be able to tell and spread his story. It is this pervasiveness of narrative that separates him from the bears.

“The stuff of story is alive but intangible”- Robert McKee