For the first few weeks of taking this course, my friend Sami was convinced that I was taking a class called "Truth Lies in Literature" as opposed to the phonetically similar "Truth, Lies and Literature." But after reaching the end of this course I think that I can safely say that Sami is right--truth does lie in literature (not in the sense that truth is geographically situated in literature but that it actually lies to us). In almost every text we have studied, the truth has manipulated us, made us buy into a "truth" that isn't actually very true at all. What each work has showed us this semester is that there is always a "story-truth" and a "happening-truth" and, even more important, is that the the relative truth of either one is irrelevant. Although we may never be able to tell for sure what is the "real truth" in any story, we make whichever truth we choose to believe in "real" simply by believing in it. Ultimately, truth--or the pursuit of truth--is manipulative; it is confusing and abstract, misleading and frustrating, but it is also rewarding. Truth does not have to mean just one thing, but it can be interpreted in the way that its audience (or its manipulator) needs it to be in that immediate moment--and it is precisely this ability to be manipulated that gives truth its potency; it is precisely this ability that explains why so much truth lies in literature.
well... i think you've just convinced me to retitle my course! excellent!
ReplyDeleteI think that you are entirely right. There really isn’t any way for us to know if anything we read is the truth. Even if something is claiming to be “real”, there is no way to capture actual events perfectly into words, so even that is in some way a lie. I think that the difference between the “story-truth” and the “happening-truth” is important for every person to understand. It is not every detail that we are buying into, but the experience we get after hearing, or reading the story. As you said, we make it real “simply by believing in it”.
ReplyDeleteStellar. Brilliant. Honored to call myself your roommate.
ReplyDelete