The Is The Witness Of The Times

One common fact in the short stories that all authors let the audience know is their

E.M Forster said "A work of literature must provide more than factual accuracy or vivid physical reality... it must tell us more than we already know," meaning that literature doesn't need factual information to mean something to the audience, and I agree. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry supports this claim, because it is fictional, and still provides emotional appeals. This novel is a good example of how literature can be effective while being fictional. It is based in a futuristic dystopian society. By examining all of the flaws in society today, it shows that there is room for improvement without being controversial. Lowry wrote the book to give us a general idea of his opinion on issues in modern society, and to foreshadow the larger issues that will eventually be created.

Every young child is told to always tell the truth and that being honest is good. However, some information can create much chaos and is sometimes better unspoken. R.K. Narayan demonstrates the importance this of balance in his story “Like The Sun.” By using dramatic irony, figurative language, and situational irony, Narayan shows that the truth can have consequences.

“For when textbook authors leave out the warts, the problems, the unfortunate character traits, and the mistaken ideas, they reduce heroes from dramatic men and women to melodramatic stick figures. Their inner struggles disappear and they become goody- goody, not just merely good.” (Loewen, pg. 29). “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is a non- fiction book written by author, American sociologist, and historian, James W. Loewen. The popular belief is that schools buy the textbook that best fits the curriculum, and by following these textbooks, students are learning to the best of their ability. However, Loewen challenges this belief by providing evidence from eighteen different American history textbooks. He believes that people in history should not be depicted as heroes when they simply are not. To continue, Loewen states that students find history to be so boring since they can not relate to it or the people in it. On page 354, he even concludes his book by stating, “Students will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbook stop lying to them.”

Throughout time, there will continue to be a considerable divorce between academic and popular historians. As Margaret Conrad argues, popular historians have established the tension, by recreating “historical films without the involvement of trained historians”. This underscores the troubling gulf that sometimes separates public academics approaches to the past. Academic historians have been “too long focused” on professionalism, and discarded “generating” a “dialogue” (Conrad) with their contextual audiences. The substantial dissolution between academic and popular historians is evident in a range of sources, essentially from Michelle Arrows to Herodotus and Thucydides to Bury.

In the novel, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the theme of truth is seen most prominently in the last part of the book when main character, Piscine Patel is being interviewed by two Japanese men. Pi defines truth as being relative and an invention of man, when the believability of his story is questioned. He argues that even stories, such as his, can still be true to some no matter how difficult to believe they are.

Literature is defined as written works published on a particular subject. Literature can also be viewed as witness, because it can be a source of proof based on the events it was written on. Literature as witness allows readers to get a deeper understanding of the issues that have happened based off of what the books are about. Those who read literary texts such as historical novels, memoirs and novels are witness to historical events. These texts can be viewed as witness because the events mentioned are based off of true life events. Some may argue historical fiction is not real and therefore could not be viewed as a reliable source. Even though historical fiction is made up of fictional characters, the conflicts that are mentioned are based

Significance: To tell a story right, you have to tell it the way it happened. Get all of your opinions out of the way and tell it the way it’s supposed to go.

The world is a massive place full of endless literature, beginning from ancient scrolls to daily news articles, filled with many secrets, perspectives and surroundings that help connect literature to an individual’s daily life. Some writers use the skills of literary elements to express and discuss an event that has happened to them or what has happened to others. This helps others to comprehend the perspectives of the author’s understanding toward an incident that one might experience. For instance in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, she uses many literary elements to express her views over most of her stories. O’Connor expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary elements of point of view, irony, and setting.

As an example from “The Drummer Boy” of Shiloh by Ray Bradbury, “In the April night, more than once, blossoms fell from the orchard trees and lit with rustling tops on the drumskin. At Midnight a peach stone left miraculously on a branch through winter flickered by a bird, fell swift and unseen. Struck once like panic, which jerked the boy upright” (Bradbury 318). Already stated from the text is how the literature information is not accurate. Nothing from this is facts from the Civil war. Throughout the text it tells a story from that time and what it could be like, the actual story does not have the basic facts as would a informational text would. On the other hand, from an informational text, “Battle of Shiloh”, “The Battle of Shiloh began at sunrise on April 6, 1862 -- the Sabbath -- as 44,000 Confederate soldiers swooped down on an unsuspecting Union Army encampment near Pittsburgh Landing, a nondescript hog-and-cotton steamboat dock on the Tennessee River.” This is a clear fact with numbers involved. So this tells the reader what was going on and does not have any made up people to fill in the story. It is just simply what had happened. So all in all when comparing two texts one from literature and and informational text they differ in how the reader can learn about the

There is a fine line between truth and fiction, but both have their ups and downs. Honesty is the best policy, but the truth can lackluster sometimes; hence why one might spice up their reality with half-truths. With the added twist of fiction, readers are given a doorway to a whole new world to experience and love. However, there are times when too much exaggeration or too much truth can elevate and ruin the overall meaning to a writer’s work. In Matthew Lippman’s, A New Year of Yellow; and Rob MacDonald’s, Resuscitation Party, readers will wonder what aspects of the writers’ poems are truth or fiction. By using embellishment as an effective writing tool, Lippman and MacDonald are able to capture their audience’s attention, making them want

A historian picks and chooses what information to analyze. By leaving out some information it is also a form of manipulation and twisting the past. I think that this shows a direct link between a historian and a mythologizer, whose job it is to twist history for another purpose.

Stories are told through various forms of literature, and the overall point of telling a story is to convey a message, a meaning that the author wants the reader to interpret and understand. The author does

The contrary side may infer that all students of high school English must read particular texts, such as literary canon books because they are most genuine, preeminent and beneficial. This is quite erroneous, though. According to George P. Landow’s article, “The Literary Canon,” “To enter the canon, or more properly, to be entered into the canon is to gain certain obvious privileges” (Source A). Landow, in essence, states that to become part of a “canon,” a literary work must transcend certain criteria. For example, dramatic works, such as “To Kill Mockingbird” and “Romeo and Juliet,” have been inaugurated into a canon, known as the “literary canon,” due to their profound, cohesive and well-accepted form of writing. Consequently, the opposition desires for all students of

Historians use literary techniques and even poetic devices to craft historiographies that are compelling for readers. For example, a historian may construct a plot or narrative based on a series of events or on biographical data. A fiction author likewise relies on historical events and biographical data to construct plots: a process White calls "emplotment," (1714). Emplotment is basically the "encodation of facts," (White 1714). The storyteller is a historian, for no fiction is created out of thin air. Likewise, the historian is a storyteller, for readers of history require a