ABSTRACT
CHAPTER FIVE LITTLE GAMES AND BIG STORIES: ACCOUNTING FOR THE PRACTICE OF PERSONALITY AND POLITICS IN THE 19^5 GENERAL ELECTION NIGEL THRIFT
Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither mean ing nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the story-telling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind him not a chaotic wake, and an empty space but the comforting marker-buoys and trailsigns of stories. He has to go on telling stories. As long as there’s a story, it's all right. Even in his last moments, it’s said, in the split second of a fatal fall - or when h e ’s about to drown - he sees, pass ing quickly before him, the story of his whole life (Swift 1 9 8 3, pp. 53-54).
