Since my mysterious cap, I have taken these prefaces with a grain of salt, and they are especially relevant in this course as shown through An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as well as Cat's Cradle. In Occurrence we discussed the many clues that Bierce includes to give clues to the reader that what we are reading is untrue. But we are left with the questions of how much is untrue? Is it the side stories? The story in itself? Or the entire thing? Are we the "doomed man" that Bierce speaks of when he writes, "these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, [are] flashed into the doomed man's brain...(Bierce, I). Once again, we are trapped in this deadly circle.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Prefacing Truth and Snapple Caps
Many years ago, I got a Snapple cap that read "43% of these facts are false." It has haunted me to this day. I remember my 12 year old self thinking, "wow what have I been believing? but also "well is this cap in the 43% percent that is false?" But if if that is false then how many caps are actually false...etc. I found myself in a deadly circle and mind-bending riddle that occurs when someone (in many cases an author) prefaces if something is going to be true or false. When an author explicitly states that the upcoming text is false, how do you know what to believe, or furthermore, believe that that statement is real?
Since my mysterious cap, I have taken these prefaces with a grain of salt, and they are especially relevant in this course as shown through An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as well as Cat's Cradle. In Occurrence we discussed the many clues that Bierce includes to give clues to the reader that what we are reading is untrue. But we are left with the questions of how much is untrue? Is it the side stories? The story in itself? Or the entire thing? Are we the "doomed man" that Bierce speaks of when he writes, "these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, [are] flashed into the doomed man's brain...(Bierce, I). Once again, we are trapped in this deadly circle.
These mind games, I have noticed, are also beginning to be played in Cat's Cradle. At the beginning of the book, our narrator states, "The first sentence in the Books of Bokonon is this: 'All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies" (Vonnegut, 5). How can true things be lies? Is this foreshadowing the book as a whole? This makes me question everything I am reading now, which I assume is Vonnegut's purpose. It's like the snapple cap brain teaser with even more complex levels...and I still can't figure that one out.
Since my mysterious cap, I have taken these prefaces with a grain of salt, and they are especially relevant in this course as shown through An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as well as Cat's Cradle. In Occurrence we discussed the many clues that Bierce includes to give clues to the reader that what we are reading is untrue. But we are left with the questions of how much is untrue? Is it the side stories? The story in itself? Or the entire thing? Are we the "doomed man" that Bierce speaks of when he writes, "these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, [are] flashed into the doomed man's brain...(Bierce, I). Once again, we are trapped in this deadly circle.
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While reading these two stories I found myself having the same internal dilemma of what to believe. When I read the first sentence in Cat’s Cradle of “Nothing in this book is true” it just confused me. When you read a fictional story, although you know that it is completely made up, it is impossible not to invest yourself enough in the story to believe at least a little bit of it. In the case of Cat’s Cradle, the author specifically takes the time to preface a fictional story, by telling the reader that everything is a lie. This one sentence completely changes the way the reader views the story. Because of this, I found myself constantly questioning everything that the author presented, instead of taking it with a grain of salt, like I do in most other fiction stories. I completely agree that the question of truth and what to believe leaves the reader in a constant deadly circle.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you on this internal dilemma. It is almost scary to start a book with the idea in your head that everything is false. Does that mean simply that it is a fictional book, or does it mean that even the ideals demonstrated by the stories in the book are false? Then, of course, the paradox really begins because the sentence "Nothing in this book is true." is actually in the book itself. Is it, then, also untrue? Although this paradox is worrisome because I am left with no idea as to what to believe and what to doubt, I find myself wondering if it even matters. Is it so harmless to dive into a fictional book and allow yourself to believe its falsities, like the people of San Lorenzo so whole-heartedly believe the "fomas" of their religion?
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