The power of stories is well-known by Lisamarie Hill, the protagonist of Monkey Beach. Her father's tales of the mythic b'gwus and her grandmother's recounting of the many educational Haisla legends play an important role in Lisa's upbringing, giving her the sense of magic and wonder in the mysterious forces of life. Lisa's narration emphasizes the importance of stories in Haisla life as key to understanding reality, such as the "medicine" of a specific animal or plant. The First Cultures style of storytelling uses symbols and archetypes to bring a deeper understanding of the world, beyond what is merely observable to the analytic mind.
The Native writer and scholar James David Audlin (Distant Eagle) writes about the role of storytelling in indigenous cultures as a practice which helps a group connect to their history and thus define who they are. Audlin states that stories are not for entertainment but are meant as "powerful ceremonies" that evoke "sacred presences." Lakota educator Arthur Amiotte echoes this sentiment in his essay "The Call to Remember," where he posits that stories are "not mere random tales from some eclectic collection that old people remember... but are part of a larger body of lore incorporated into the psyche of generations of listeners through the very rhythm or cadence of the telling." In this sense we can better understand the tragedy of the Haisla language being lost to the younger generations: the old stories come not in the information they impart, but in the very way they are spoken.
Although the oral tradition has mostly disappeared, the mysterious and symbolic style of native storytelling lives on through Eden Robinson's prose. Many aspects of the plot of Monkey Beach are left ambiguous, which is a characteristic touch in much folklore. Rather than forcing on the reader any sort of objective conclusion about the novel, Robinson tells the story in a way which leaves in the magic, letting the reader come to his or her own conclusions based on subjective perspective.
