ABSTRACT
Grace Paley's characters cry out to be heard, to connect with others, believing that, in doing so, they will imbue their lives with meaning. In 'Listening', for example, Faith is confronted by her friend Cassie, who, angered that she has been omitted from Faith's stories, feels that her identity has been denied. Storytelling thus becomes a process of discovery, a making of selves for Paley's characters, but a making of selves in relation to others, to a community of belief, a community of shared values. Individual tragedies are embraced by the community here, as they always are in Paley's stories. But the community is selective and, more often than not, gender-defined. The dramatic situation of this story is, on the surface, relatively simple. 'Character' becomes the key in making stories real, because it creates empathy and identification. This is the responsibility that Paley gives her narrators and that she assumes herself.
