Stories are an important part of society, an element that provides humanity with a way to connect, separate, cry, laugh, be happy, or be sad. Indeed, life is nothing but a story. Human history is a story. The universe is just a huge collection of stories that make up one big dissertation that puts you in the current position of reading this collection of ideas on this article. The stories that create human history are not only influenced by events, but also by myths. Myths are sacred stories that are not to be taken literally and influence the everyday individual decisions that people make. They convey an idea that an author or narrator considers important, an explanation of why something is the way it is or how people should act. These myths attempt to show how people should behave in certain situations. Plato realized the importance of these myths and ensured that the population of his ideal society was given a mythology to protect them, as exemplified in the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay We know that Plato considers the relationship between people and the myths they are taught to be important because, in The Republic, it is written "'About the gods «So», I said, «these, it seems, are the things that should and should not be heard, from childhood, by men who honored the gods and ancestors and did not take their mutual friendship lightly"" (386a) . This means that people know the power of the relationship between the gods and the mythology and the decisions they make. The heroes of mythology show how to gain glory, popularity and fame. Plato knows that people want these things, so he doesn't trust them to interpret the myths correctly, because instead they will interpret them in a way that they. makes you feel good, which may not be how the myth was supposed to be portrayed. There may be an overarching theme in a story that is about a good thing, such as forgiveness, but if the hero seeks revenge on someone in the story in the. attempt to learn forgiveness, people may misunderstand the purpose of the story and act out with vengeance. the reason people don't understand the stories is the symbolism. Plato does not think that people will understand symbolism in stories, as symbolism, while usually having a specific meaning, has room for interpretation, as different symbolic ideas can mean different things to different people due to differences in experience and perspective. In the novel, Jimmy recalls, "Beware of art, Crake said. As soon as they start making art, we're in trouble." (361). Art, a form of symbolism, would destroy everything Crake had done. Art, considered by many to be a means of expression, is a form of worship in Crake's mind. Making something more beautiful than it actually is, or making it represent an idea, would flirt with the creation of gods, idols, new mythology different from what Snowman taught them, afterlife, war, and so on . The symbolism is particularly troubling because of the idea that people have difficulty realizing what the symbolism truly represents. In the novel it says, "At first they struggled with the images: flowers on beach trash lotion bottles, fruit on juice cans. Is it real? No, it's not real. What's not real? Not real can tell us of reality" (102). Crakers do not understand the connections between what is real and what represents real, which leads to a misinterpretation of anything symbolic, which would be harmful to Crakers in the eyes ofCrake. Plato also explains that stories must be told carefully, because he says ""And we must, moreover, eliminate all those terrible and fearful names applied to this domain: Cocytus, Styx, 'those below', 'withered dead', and all the other names that are part of this pattern and that make all who hear them shudder, as one thinks,” (387b). This suggests that the society par excellence must be nurtured with its own stories with care, and one reason for this is that the heroes in these stories that people look up to have to do heroic things, such as being kind, protecting, and forgiving. If the heroes do these actions, it encourages the population to do such evil actions, such as seeking revenge, retaliation and hatred, will encourage behavior that is not beneficial to society. This leads to an important concept in Plato's myth creation, which is trust. Plato does not trust myth makers to create myths that portray heroes in an entirely positive light . The myths must also be easy to understand and be told with precision and coherence, as is shown after Snowman explains how the Crakers came to be. The novel says: "Snowman learned [internal consistency is best] early in his life, when lying had posed a greater challenge to him. Now, even when he is trapped in a small contradiction, he can do it" ( 96). This shows the difficulty in creating these stories and how Snowman has to remember every little detail he includes in each of his stories. When he messes up, like when he tells the Crakers to "get pissed off", or when he mentions toast, he gets angry because he knows they don't know these phrases, and has to struggle to explain things in a way that will make sense to the Crakers. The difficulty of crafting these stories is no small task and requires great trust. Crake trusts Snowman to take care of the Crakers and follow his rules about speaking to Crakers. Plato's lack of confidence seems justified in the novel because Snowman thinks that "These people were like blank pages, he could write about them whatever he wanted" (Atwood 349). This represents the fact that people are naive and believe whatever someone tells them and giving someone such power starts to make them seem more like a god than the gods in their stories. Plato also discusses the importance of guardians not fearing death. . He says "Do you think that anyone who believes that Hades' domain exists and is filled with terror will not fear in the face of death and will choose death in battles over defeat and slavery?" (386b). If the guardians fear death, they will not be brave or bold, and neither will the people, because they will imitate their leaders. Those who enter battle will not win due to the fear of death and a potential enemy could overwhelm them and potentially take control of the city. The type of protection that distances civilization from fear is explored in the novel. When the Crakers ask about Crake's exploits, Snowman explains that "In the chaos, everything was mixed together. There were too many people, and the people were all mixed with the earth... The people in the chaos were themselves full of chaos". , and the chaos made them do bad things. They killed other people all the time... They ate [the Children of Oryx] even when they weren't hungry," (103). Snowman doesn't want to lie, so he tells some kind of twisted truth. The Crakers ask about the events Crake decreed, but instead he provides a symbolic truth about values, about how Crake felt and the truth about why Crake did what he did Snowman has to do it because he doesn't want to plant seeds of fear in the minds of the Crakers. This is interesting because Snowman creates a loophole in the logic of Plato's guardians.