Telling The Truth In Lies Analysis

The school board is not quite certain that schools should continue to include fiction in the curriculum. However, if fiction is taught to students it may actually teach life lessons. Fictional literature can change someone's perspective on, what problems we may come across. For instance, a fictional book can help us relate to all the controversial problems that do occur in today's society. I disagree with the school board's thoughts about completely banning it. This type of literature can deepen our knowledge and teach us about things that we don’t experience on a day to day basis.

How often do we lie and never consider the outcomes? In her essay, “The Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson explores the different types of lies and the consequences of their usage. She effectively provides anecdotal and factual evidence to support her definitions of lies.

In “The Ways we Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson expresses her own life experience as an example to show, how difficult it is to balance the moral value of living a lie and the consequences of telling the truth in real life. Ericsson expresses her views thoroughly on how “we all lie” for different reasons and for different purposes. In “The Way We Lie,” informational essay, some of the words contradict each other, for example, she explains the impossibility and the consequences of telling the truth all the time, while she explains the consequences of telling a lie without taking a side. She used those statements to build a strong bond with readers by eliminating judgment and creating humble moments. Ericsson’s essay grasped my attention easily and intrigued me so much that, I couldn’t keep my eyes of the pages; the end of each paragraph brought me to have text-to-self connections.

In Stephanie Ericsson's essay, "The Ways We Lie," (1992), the author explains that a person can lie without even knowing they are doing so simply because it is part of the human nature. Ericsson uses personal life situations, such as: lying to the bank about a check being in the mail, lying about the reason why she was late to a business meeting, and telling a friend she was busy and could not go eat with her. Her main purpose is to explain the different types of lies told daily by most people in order to illustrate that although we may not realize we are lying, technically we are and sometimes it could be for the good of the person or for the worse. Ericsson relates to his target audience, everyone, by stating everyone lies one way or another,

“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live, ” explained the narrator in the book Atlas Shrugged (Rand, Atlas Shrugged). Reading helps one live a fuller, more enjoyable life. When one is taught of morality and empathy through the means of reading, they are on the path to that way of living. The fundamental empathy that connects all humans is refined and expanded upon by reading, as it exposes the readers to knowledge and morality applied in times of struggle. Books can demonstrate morals coming through in often extreme or emotionally loaded situations.

In Robert Penn Warren’s essay “Why Do We Read Fiction?” it concludes that people read fiction because it satisfies the reader’s deepest needs. Fiction itself makes people feel significant, so when we read Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace it also makes us feel significant in many unique ways. One of those ways is through making fiction novels that have people live without rules or breaking the rules. That’s what makes the reader interested.

Fiction is a powerful genre. In McMahon’s “The Function of Fiction: The Heuristic Value of Homer.” She says “(F)iction gives individuals the opportunity to explore a greater range of experiences than are actually available.” This is true on so many levels, fiction can take us to another world or realm or it can alter our reality here on earth. Fiction can pull you out of your day to day and put you somewhere more enjoyable, more exciting, more exotic than that of the four boring white walls of your dark apartment. In films and literature writers take us on adventures to millions of places, they take us to the Wild West for an exhilarating quick draw gunfight, they take us to lush rainforests filled with snakes, apes, and jaguars to find hidden treasures, they can even take us to a faraway castle where we can learn magic and go on ridiculous adventures to fight off an evil dark wizard named Voldemort. These are some situations that we are most likely never going to experience in real life ourselves but we are able to because of fiction. A favorite fiction of roughly 400 million people is the Harry Potter books and movies. This series prompts its readers to live in a world that is much like our own but with a little twist, Magic.

The motif of lies and deceit plays a big role in chapter 3 pg 95 in which a conversation at the golden day with the Vet forces the narrator and Mr.Norton to question their relationship. He states “But seriously, because you both fail to understand what is happening to you. You Cannot see or hear or smell the the truth of what you see-- and you, looking at your destiny! It’s classic!

Stephanie Klein once said, “Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.” This quote relates to Charles Van Doren and “Twenty-One, ” a famous quiz show from the 1950’s. The scandal involved more than one player receiving answers from producer, Dan Enright. This is a very well known quiz show scandal from the 1950’s. Charles Van Doren should be held accountable for his actions because, he had knowledge of what was going on, he actively searched for answers, and he lied to people about what was happening.

Fiction plays an important role in our lives as it connects to our experiences and can have

Thirteen assigned “liars” and thirteen assigned truth tellers were told to lie or tell the truth during a time period. At the start of the experiment, the number of eye blinks the volunteers took during their neutral state was recorded as a way to compare their later findings. During the experiment the liars were told to steal a piece of paper off an examiner’s desk and later deny doing the task. The truth tellers were told to sit there and not do anything for the ten-minute time span. Once the ten minutes was up, researchers asked the volunteers the question about the paper and recorded the number of eye blinks the volunteers took while being interrogated. Researchers found that liars showed a decrease in blinks during deception, which was then followed by an increase in eye blinks once the question had been answered. The reaction of the truth tellers on the other hand consisted of an increase of eye blinks during the questioning

Now, after I read the article, I'm convinced that fiction strengthens imagination. The most fascinating quote I found in this article is : "Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information.

Raymond Mar, a psychologist at Your University in Canada and Keith Oatley a professor An The University of Toronto, they both say that “individuals who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand other people, empathies with them and view the world from their perspectives.” I agree that reading certain types of books can help people further understand and see things from a different point of view. Reading helps to open people's eyes and to teach life lessons or to show there are other things to believe in and know other than what they have always been told to know. Getting different types of books, types that are not always the same as the books that you normally read can help you to view things differently. For example from personal experience a new book can help your imagination grow, readings helps me a lot when I need to come up with new ideas for an art class. The new places a book takes you the new images you see while you are reading the new stores you hear and the happy ending your book might have can change the way you are feeling it can brighten up your day.

What are lies? A lie is defined as follows: To make a statement that one knows to be false, especially with the intent to deceive. There are several ways that lies are told for instance, there are white lies, lies of omission, bold faced lies, and lies of exaggeration. No matter what type of lie that one chooses to tell many people believe that lies do more harm than good.

"Imaginative literature … does not enslave; it liberates the mind of man. Its truth is not like the canons of orthodoxy or the irrationality of prejudice and superstition. It begins as an adventure in self-discovery and ends in wisdom and humane conscience." “The Truth of Fiction” in Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays 1988