Summary Of Let's Pretend This Never Happened By Jenny Lawson

Are moral standards in the eye of the beholder? According to one author, “we’ve seriously lost our way”, going on to state, “we are like mean adrift at sea without a compass” (Hulme). In literature as in biology, the mantra of form fits function applies and heightens a reader’s appreciation of a writer’s choice and how they contribute to a work of literature. In Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, the narrative, the experience of reading and the alternating Vietnam and modern day settings not only shape the author’s world view, but reflect upon his own experiences in the 1960’s and 1970’s war. The short stories within this work, “On the Rainy River” and “Speaking of Courage”, set at the American-Canadian border and a Vietnamese field of excretions, respectively, establish the overwhelming ambiguity, constant flux and uncertainty that characterizes the experiences of O’Brien’s protagonist (himself) thus reinforcing the author’s message about the relativity of truth. What they did was morally wrong.

Alice Munro is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize Winner. In her article “What is Real”, Alice Munro discusses the difficulty many of her readers seem to have in telling fact from fiction as she writes about her own fictional works. Her readers, she recounts, often ask her if she writes about real people, or real events, apparently unable to comprehend “the difference between autobiography and fiction” (Munro). However, by the end of her article on the subject, “What Is Real?” Munro admits that the imagination is one she herself often blurs. “Yes,” she writes, “I use bits of what is real, in the sense of being really there and really happening, in the world, as most people see it, and I transform it into something […] in my story” (Munro). In other words, Munro sees her work as a kind of fiction because she uses both reality and fact. This makes her work honest but yet not real at the

was the step-mother’s interest to make sure that his children were gotten rid of, for she wanted

In 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, Stephanie Ericsson’s essay “The Ways We Lie” focuses on the many ways society lies today. “We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutions” (159). It is common for many people to think of lying exactly how it is on the surface, not telling the truth. Ericsson’s essay forces you to second guess this stereotype and begin to realize that lying is even more prevalent in today’s society than most people might imagine. Looking around today with this mindset would help us make more informed political decisions, better decisions on friends, and better “next-step” positions. Our lives are not horrible places, but better steps for these areas of our lives could improve our lives dramatically.

For instance, Walls had fallen out of the car, and was left on her own for a period of time, waiting for her dad to realize that she had tumbled out. Once her dad realized and retrieved her, “[she] started laughing really hard,” because “‘snot locker’ was the funniest name [she’d] ever heard for a nose”(Walls 31). Anyone else would have held some form of resentment if they had fallen out of a car and was not immediately acknowledged by their parents, on the other hand, Walls had simply laughed it off as her dad unblemished her face of pebbles. Unique experiences like the ones that Jeannette and her siblings had do not seem nonfictional, yet they are, which brings out the humor in the situation. Furthermore, the humor in the situation contrasts the opinions of a nonfiction novel, and students usually opted for fiction rather than its

To begin, the protagonist of the story is Connie, is a rebellious eighteen year old blonde, who does not accept the role that her mother puts her in. The mother expects Connie to be the “nice” girl, who dresses and acts like her

Book are magnificent things. Fiction books are created with such details, they only hold small or no real life facts or events. In contrast, nonfiction books do the complete opposite. Nonfiction books contain facts or events from the past that occurred, they are also incorporated with details to make the story more interesting, to give it more imagery, feel, and a better tone. When an author does so, they manage to make the book have a “timeless quality,” which is incredibly important to a nonfiction book. An author is capable of getting this quality in their books by incorporating the facts or events, alongside rhetorical strategies to give life and meaning to their book. Not every author can manage to do this, although, the author by the name of Erik Larson did so, in his book, The Devil in the White City: Murder,

Have you ever been hesitant to share a true story because you suspected that it would appear as a fabricated anecdote to your audience? Well, most of the time we add bunch of things or change a true story to make it sound genuine to our audience. We live in a judgmental and complex world where lying has become a part of our daily lives. Because of this habit, it is hard to differentiate the truth from a fabricated lie. Since I was a child, my parents always talked about battle of Adwa and many events that took place centuries ago. It is always amusing to listen to those stories because it is about heroic act that most of the kings of Ethiopia accomplished. Although I heard different versions of these stories, I always tend to believe my parents’ version. The reason is not simply the credibility of my parents’, but the way it was presented. According to the short story, “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’ Brien, a true war story is hard to accept as true because some of the most agonizing parts are true, while some of the natural parts are not. Tim O’Brien’s narrative shows that a storyteller has the power to shape listeners’ views. We can change our perception because of the story teller, and neglect the fact that we are avoiding the actuality. Therefore by listening to different versions of a story, it will actually help the reader find greater truth of the story.

“This is true.” (O’Brien, 420) – with this simple statement which also represents a first, three-word introductory paragraph to Tim O’Brien’s short story, “How to Tell a True War Story”, the author reveals the main problem of what will follow. “Truth” – when looked up in a dictionary, we would probably find definitions similar to sincerity and honesty on the one hand, and correctness, accuracy or reality on the other hand. When looking at these definitions, one can make out two groups of meaning: While sincerity and honesty are very subjective, correctness or accuracy are supposed to be objective by nature. One can be sincere and still not report the truth, due to the simple fact

Stephanie Ericsson and Langston Hughes both confront dishonesty in The Ways We Lie and Salvation respectively. These authors present the deviation from the truth as a main theme and maintain that it produces negative impacts on life. However, The Ways We Lie more effectively supported its purpose than Langston Hughes’s Salvation.

In Amanda Lindhout’s New York Times bestseller A House in the Sky, Lindhout masterfully delivers a chilling tale of being in the wrong place leaving reader’s in chills. A House in the Sky is an inside look into the unpredictable field of journalism. Lindhout recalls a grueling account of being captured for 460 days in Somalia. She presents this story in the form of a memoir, which Lindhout shares in chronological order. While religious overload plagues some of the latter chapters, the overall story is compelling. The overload was only a minor distraction to the storytelling.

The story is written like a diary of Paula Spencer’s good and bad memories in her life and gives the reader the impression that Paula is sharing her life story with us and she is also narrating her life as we read.

The film Shattered Glass presents the ethical issues of fabrication and the deception of the writer, Stephen Glass, to his editor and co-workers. He deliberately sensationalized his stories in order to gain his reader’s attention. His facts were partially, if not completely, inaccurate and he presented notes that he fabricated as facts for each of his pieces at the New Republic. Journalists in the media have a duty to the people to report the truth and follow an ethical code whenever reporting stories.

Taken at face value, Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test may seem very similar. They are both centered on a major author of the 1960s and his experiencing of historical events of the time, while set in the style of New Journalism. When examined closer, though, it becomes apparent that these novels represent two very different sides of New Journalism – Armies of the Night an autobiography with personal and political motivations, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test a sociological piece which tries to capture the essence of its subjects rather than the absolute facts. By looking at the form and style which the novels were written in and the motives behind Mailer’s Armies of the Night and Wolfe’s The

The story is written like a diary of Paula Spencer's good and bad memories in her life and gives the reader the impression that Paula is sharing her life story with us and she is also narrating her life as we read.