Every Story Is The Same Story (Or At Least Is On This List)

Lal Behari Dey, “Folk-Tales of Bengal,” illustrated by Warwick Goble, page 267, 1912, via Wikimedia.

I occasionally joke that if a person reads enough, she will discover that all stories are the same story. She will be able to predict narrative beats, the presence of particular characters, and how the story will end. Of course all stories aren’t really the same. Human beings may repeatedly explore certain themes, but prose, characterization, and structure change the tales with each telling. And the number of possible themes is limitless.

I always assumed the number of themes was a large, unquantifiable one. It turns out I was wrong.

All stories, or all folktales at least, have been classified and grouped.

This grouping is known as the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) Classification of Folk Tales. The system is similar to the Dewey Decimal Classification System used for books in that the ATU classification…