Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction"

Okay, so you might be reading the title and be like, 'what?!'

Don't worry, I get you. I was in the same boat at the beginning of my Myth and Sacred Symbols course.

This was by far one of my favorite short stories I read during the entire class content, and I will explain to you why.

Ursula Le Guin

So first a little bit on Ursula Le Guin.

She was a well-known author who passed away in January 2018. She is best known as a writer of speculative fiction, i.e. works where the setting is that other than our own world, and oftentimes involves supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.

Her parents were Theodora Kroeber, a writer and anthropologist, and Alfred Louis Kroeber, a cultural anthropologist who received his PhD under Franz Boas.

Her writing, and her life, were heavily influenced by cultural anthropology, Taoism, feminism, and Jungian psychology. She won many awards for her pieces, including 7 Hugo's, 6 Nebulas, and 22 Locus Awards.

So what's the 'Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction' then?

The 'Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,' is, well, a theory. In a section of her book, Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989, Grove Press), Le Guin discusses the story of man.

Le Guin seems to refer to man as the 'hero' story. Man conquers earth, space, aliens, death, the future, the apocalypse, the holocaust, etc. Man is seen as a hero for 'conquering' these things, yet bringing so much destruction in his wake. Stories are told throughout history of man, "bashing, thrusting, raping, killing," and so on. This is why it can be seen as a 'killer story' more or less.

So why is this the story that gets told over and over?

'Hero' Stories in Hollywood

Star Wars

Avengers

The Incredibles

Well, Le Guin believes the 'hero story' is so predominant in human storytelling because it brings action into the fold. Telling a story about how you monotonously picked berries and saw a cool bug isn’t really something to remember. But if you told a story about you out picking berries and then came across a wolf attacking another person and you fought the wolf away? Now that would be a story people would remember. It’s the fact that man is painted in a positive light, as a sort of savior, taking action against nature, that makes these kinds of stories prominent.

So the main thing Le Guin tries to get at is the real story of man. She tries to get to the idea that the first tool we created wasn't something to poke or stab something with, but was instead something akin to a bag. Something to carry items with. Therefore, the 'Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.'

Daasanach tribe - Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan

This is important for more reasons then we might realize. People think of storytelling, and images of past wars and heroes come to mind, things like mythological figures and cryptids. She’s trying to say that there is more to stories than we give them credit for. Hidden within them are cultural values, the importance of certain skills in a culture, etc. The carrier bag is the thing that humans made that was more important than the weapon. It was the thing that allowed us to collect more things, to sustain ourselves more efficiently. It shows that within storytelling, we need to look past the ‘hero archetype,’ and see what’s really happening in the story.