Sometimes a story is more accurate than facts. Presenting only facts about an experience, is boring, and creates pockets in the truth. You may get the setting, but nothing about the “feeling in the air” at the setting when the experience took place. You may get the people involved, but no descriptions about their reactions to the experience. O'Brien calls this happening-truth, and he chose to not write it because it isn't as true as what he calls story-truth, evidenced when he says; "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth" (O'Brien 203). You see, happening-truths don't tell you about the terror in the soldier's eyes as he lie in his trench, or how the little girl jumped up and down when she saw Cinderella at Disney World. Story-truths give you the full... story. They tell you all the actions, dialogue, and emotions of the people involved in the experience. They even give you all the imagery details such as what you smelled, tasted, and touched while you were there. That is much more realistic and relatable than just facts! It’s also easier to believe, because how could anyone lie about something so profound? Facts alone, make the truth feel empty, but emotions make the truth significant. They make you feel the truth’s power and magnitude, because truth is only powerful when you get the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So never leave pockets in truth.
Ahh Brenna I love this post!! I think your theme is really cute and it's real nice how you tied it all together at the end. Very much agree with your idea how emotion gives the truth more meaning and reality. Yes facts are facts, but some people refuse to believe them. If you mix a little bit of personal experience and emotion in there, then bam!! You got a believable and relatable story!
ReplyDeleteI love how you describe gaps in truth as pockets - it's genius! It's the perfect way to describe partly hidden truth in an accurate, concise, and vivid manner. The idea of emotions having to be included into truth is something that resonates with me a lot. I'm definitely a more emotional/passionate person in general and your description of how emotions bring facts to life was spot on - that's why we are drawn to fiction over encyclopedias!
ReplyDelete(a little off topic but I like your blog design and title a lot :) )
Hey Brenna I think the way you chose to support story-truth is really easy to agree with and concise! Every time I listen to someone new on this particular discussion my mind slightly changes and I think that has to do with the fact that truth and story telling is so diverse and happens in every instance. For example, this blog was almost a story in itself
ReplyDeleteBrenna, I love the theme of this post!! I can definitely agree that the true emotions of an experience are much more realistic than the facts. By having these specific details, stories aren’t detached as they would be with just stating facts of what occurred. I especially loved how you said that the truth alone makes a story feel empty, yet emotions are what make it significant. Whenever I try to think back on anything, I realized that all I focus on are the emotions that I felt, and all my senses; I didn’t think about any of the facts of what happened first. What you wrote about is so true, yet never thought about!
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