The Story: Originality Impossible?

It is really hard to come up with an original idea, especially one for a story. With so many stories and tales in this world, being original is almost like owning a talking dog, and even that idea isn't original. This has led to a debate in class; Is it possible that all stories are just a part of an unconscious tales of the past? Or are original stories possible?

I would say that original ideas are possible. They are just REALLY hard to come by this day and age. For example, Bram Stoker wrote his novel based on an older tale of vampires. But was the original based off an even older story of blood sucking beings? regardless, this novel was something that was very original in its own way, especially when it was released. Who ever heard of such horror? Of monsters and terror and of slaying said monsters? The idea has become less of a ground breaking money maker and more of a novelty over time. Still the idea of a vampire is an intriguing one, otherwise all the remakes and spin offs would not exist.

It is also possible that originality is a point of view, based of personal experiences or from the experiences of others. Of course people aren't attacked by vampires, but being attacked isn't a rare occurrence. Neither is pain or fear. They happen daily. But to someone who has never felt pain or a loss, the feeling or idea is a new experience for them. It is original, even if the feeling is not new to someone else.

What is original to one person may not be to someone else. Alice in Wonderland, for example, is not something that happens every day. People don't talk to playing cards who command be-headings every five minutes, they don't wander around with a floating cat that talks, nor do they dance with lobsters. This may all sound silly, because it is. But when we first read the story, it was unexpected. It was original to us when we first started to read it.

If a person has a new idea, even if its been thought before, to that person it is original. The same epiphany can be shared by fifty people around the globe, but to those people, this is a new thought, something that they have never thought before. An example is from Heart of Darkness. In the beginning of the story, Marlow says, "And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth." He goes on to talk of the Romans, and how they once discovered a new part of their world, something alien and unexplored. Now of course, we know of England and have no mysteries left in the area. But in the story, they had started to explore the Congo, the new dark place of the earth, which doesn't hold much mystery for us now. But at the time, this was an original place, unclaimed territory (by British standards). For us now, the so called "final frontier" of space is original, alien, and unexplored.

To me, an original idea is a point of view. Based of experience and the discovery of information for ones self, originality can be something that is wonderful to some, and lost on others.