The Difference Between Truth and Fact in Fiction

When I was a freshman at university, I took an "Introduction to Fiction" class as part of a literature requirement. I love reading, as a hobby, but before this class I had never put a lot of time into analysis of what I read. The class turned out to be an eye-opener; it helped me to see literature from a fresh perspective and brought new meaning to the stories I would read.


One of the things that captured my interest was the discussion of the differences between "truth" and "fact." In our lectures, we examined how the lure of a story may be found in how much the readers can relate to it in some way. But at the same time, the extent to which someone can relate a story to their own life is not necessarily dependent on how factually accurate the story is. The connection between the story and the reader stems from the amount of "truth" a reader finds in it. In an essay titled A Room of One's Own, writer Virginia Woolf says, "Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact." While the term "fiction" itself is connotative of something unreal or of an absence of fact, here Woolf articulates that in reality the basis of fiction stories must be true experiences.


This concept opened the door to an even deeper examination of the varied types of fiction writing that we may encounter. At times, for instance, fiction writing is sometimes a way for many people not necessarily to write about traceable, factual experiences but rather to write about reality in ways which they perceive it to have happened. Think about historical novelists, for instance. While it is beyond our capabilities to revisit the past to see and experience things first-hand, we may use accounts of the people, places and things as source material for the story we choose to tell. Likewise, stories can also be representations of possibility. Narratives may be written about events that have not yet occurred but have the capability of one day being truth. We may be able to use science fiction as our exemplar for this situation. Think about books or movies of this genre and it's easy to understand how, without any evidence or "facts" about what lies ahead, we can still imagine the plausibility of the scenarios.


How, then, do we relate to fictional stories? We are often able to connect to the story through emotional reactions. Maybe we haven't had the same experience as a particular character, but we can sympathize with the "truth" of their feelings and reactions. Or maybe we recognize pieces of some other "universal truth" in a story; a fictional work does not limit itself to the truth or reality of just one person; it has the ability to contain the reality of many.


In A Room of One's Own Woolf goes on to say, "Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the waste-paper basket and forget all about it." The same sentiment is valid with regard to any fiction we encounter. Each work of fiction is not a lie, but neither is it absolute "fact": it is left up to the reader which pieces of the material will hold the most truth for them, which aspects will they be able to relate to the most. This combination of truth and imagination is perhaps one of the components of fiction that readers find so appealing.


It is right that many fictional narratives are factual based, but it is the truth of the narrative that will most capture the reader. It is through the reader's connection to the story that fiction has the ability to communicate experiences and feelings and paint a realistic picture of life. For this reason, fiction may be considered a fabrication, but it cannot be considered a lie.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Melanie先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Life Not According to Plan】2009.09.11 (Fri)