4 minute read
Eva-Lynn Jagoe
Jagoe’s family finca in Spain
Every perspective tells a story
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The power of storytelling lives in our unique, individual truths
BY EVA-LYNN JAGOE, INNIS COLLEGE VICE PRINCIPAL
In my family’s finca in Spain, my ten-year-old brother was electrocuted by faulty wiring in the refrigerator. My cousin and I, playing in the garden, froze in fear when we heard his screams. He was saved by Engracia, the cook, who leapt into the air and knocked him over, breaking the circuit that had convulsed his grip around the handle. It was a story that served many purposes in my family—to admonish children who walked into the kitchen barefoot; to laugh at the image of tiny Engracia lunging at my brother; to flood us all with relief as we imagined what could have happened.
Stories tell us who we are, and where we came from, and have an important function in shaping us as individuals and as a society. They can instill compassion and understanding, as we learn about other people’s experiences and worldviews. They can reinforce a sense of belonging and history. Yet we can also become entrenched in our stories, repeating them over and over until they become the only truth.
In recent years, my brother told me that the electric-shock story had a grim counterpart. In the days after the incident, my uncle nonchalantly said, “Yes, I got a shock from that
fridge the other day, I knew it wasn’t grounded.” This addendum to what had always been prized as a close-to-death, happy-ending story turned it into a much more disturbing and chilling tale. An adult knew that there was a danger in our summer house, knew that the house was full of young children, yet irresponsibly did nothing about it?
In my work as a teacher and writer, I encourage my students and readers to rethink their own dominant stories from different perspectives. As they shift the plot, even slightly, they discover the many possible tangents, additions, variations, and different points of view. These small changes transform the narrative. Like the alternating current frequencies that transmit electricity throughout the grid, story trajectories can switch directions, sometimes even reversing the flow and producing a startling new conclusion.
The story of my brother’s accident and my uncle’s comment led me to begin writing a book about my Spanish family. Casanoble: Electricity and Inheritance in Catalonia will tell the story of my grandfather, a British industrialist who was instrumental in the early twentieth-century electrification of Barcelona. The money that he made from big projects such as the lighting of the Magic Fountains of Montjuic enabled him to buy the country house, where all his
A young Eva-Lynn (seated) with her siblings, including brother George (second from left) descendants gathered every summer to swim in the pool and wander its cool, dark, tiled rooms. Many stories were told there—about our grandparents, about the position of our family in Catalan society, about secrets that emerged as subsequent generations uncovered them.
My perspective on all these stories is slightly askew. I grew up in North America, only going to Spain for the summers, so I often felt that I couldn’t quite understand the context—social, political, historical—of the stories I was hearing. What made me feel left out when I was a child now strikes me as a unique standpoint upon which to build my story. As a humanities scholar, I have learned to read between the lines of a dominant narrative, questioning what is left out, who is ignored, and why this happens. I am now using these critical reading skills to tell a story that hinges on the irony of a boy almost being killed by the electricity that enabled his grandfather’s fortune.
How many other beings’ lives were irrevocably altered by the hydroelectric dams that Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco, made all over the country? What happened to the Republican farmers who lived at the finca before the Spanish Civil War, but were gone when my mother’s family returned from exile in England? Why did my grandparents’ legacy loom so large that the next generation felt entitled to live in the house without taking responsibility for maintaining it for their children? And how does this relate to the ongoing resource extraction going on all over the world that contributes to the climate emergency we are now beginning to experience, and our children will inherit?
Like bolts of electricity, these questions zigzag my story in surprising directions. This is what is so generative about storytelling. Each different version renews the power of the story, illuminating new understandings and imaginings. It is through this kind of retelling that we know and create the world in which we live.
