When I first read the title of this course, I thought it was kind of funny. I didn't think there was any way that the name would be so accurate. Then I wrote my thesis statement for this first essay, in which I used the words "truth," "lies" and "literature." Funny how that works. Anyway, here is the gist of my rough draft:
Cat’s Cradle and The Things They Carried are both works of fiction, as noted externally from the text. However, in each novel, it is brought to the attention of the reader within the text itself that the story is made up of lies created by the author. The pretext of Cat’s Cradle reads “nothing in this book is true.” In The Things They Carried, O’Brien writes: “Almost everything else is invented. But it’s not a game. It’s a form…I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” The purpose for bringing the lies of each novel to the forefront is to show that something that is entirely lies can still have some value or purpose. In the case of Cat’s Cradle, the lies can provide entertainment and distraction from the reality of life, such as Bokononism does for the people of San Lorenzo. In The Things They Carried, the invented stories serve to better convey the true emotions of the situation to the reader.
Cat’s Cradle and The Things They Carried are both works of fiction, as noted externally from the text. However, in each novel, it is brought to the attention of the reader within the text itself that the story is made up of lies created by the author. The pretext of Cat’s Cradle reads “nothing in this book is true.” In The Things They Carried, O’Brien writes: “Almost everything else is invented. But it’s not a game. It’s a form…I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” The purpose for bringing the lies of each novel to the forefront is to show that something that is entirely lies can still have some value or purpose. In the case of Cat’s Cradle, the lies can provide entertainment and distraction from the reality of life, such as Bokononism does for the people of San Lorenzo. In The Things They Carried, the invented stories serve to better convey the true emotions of the situation to the reader.
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