Paradox Of Fiction

Are fiction stories always based on imagination? Or does it come from someone’s reality? Have you ever asked yourself why people read fiction stories? Either told through movies or books, fiction stories are ways people find to escape from their reality. However, most of the fiction stories come from people’s life, or are based in a real fact in order to be credible. In some ways, the truth must be distorted to be understandable, because sometimes it can be too complex to be explained. Both Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, and How To Tell a True Story, by Tim O’Brien, attempt to discover the truth even if it was exemplified by fiction,

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

This happens due to the high imaginative activity while empathizing to fiction. Thus, after reading and analyzing all three parts of this paper it becomes clear that Neill does not research the issue of the empathetic relation to fiction in order to prove the empathy being prior to sympathy; however he wants to show us the veritable value of empathetic responses to the film fiction, which is our emotional education.

It is unrealistic that a teenage boy could survive upwards of 200 days in the middle of the Pacific Ocean alongside a 450-pound tiger. But literature does not reflect ordinary life, therefore it is important in the study of literature to separate the two, because literature is not about being practical or realistic, it is about being imaginative. The unreality of Life of Pi allows the Hero’s Journey archetype to be easily identifiable, for example, as literature provides the extremes of scenarios, stretching the capacity of the imagination to the very heights and depths of what the human mind can conceive. Literature provides us with an experience that reality cannot, because in reality, the imagination is limited to what is physically possible, but in literature, the imagination is able to be free. Through understanding the conventions of literature, the individual, in studying more complex works, is able to appreciate the use of the imagination to reach beyond what reality offers us and is able to refine his sensibilities as he recognizes the partition between life and literature.

Reality and Fiction: the True View 1 Reality and Fiction: the True View Americans rely a great deal on their entertainment to educate them about life. In many ways Americans live vicariously through the experiences of fictional characters and believe themselves to learn many things from fictional characters. For example, many persons have said they learned CPR by watching medical shows on television or believe they can assist in a medical emergency because they have seen “experts” on television handle similar situations.

Without fiction our imaginations will never be achieved, everything will be boring and too real.

a fictional audience, and the reader is seen as an unnoticed third party. It is because of this

In the words of one critic, superior works of literature should invoke a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘pleasure’ as “joyful amusement”, while 'disquietude’ is defined as “anxiety”. Although these words seem to oppose each other, they both occur in frequently and simultaneously in every person’s life. Emotions caused by people and circumstances in one’s life allow these feelings of pleasure and disquietude to overlap. Similarly, an inclusion of both elements in a literary work result in this feeling of “healthy confusion” for the reader. A lot of novels entertain the reader with

Hollywood cinema also produces its own realities on the big screen. As Cecil B. De Mille. Goldfish and Samuel Goldfish claimed during the production of the first motion picture, “when real life doesn’t fit a preconceived image, create another reality” (xi). Since that 1913 statement, Hollywood has fostered this type of reality-making that results into an escape for its audiences. Aside from the physical escape of traveling to the movies or Blockbuster in order to view these films, audiences are also invested in the characters they view on screen. However, Webb informs the public that “what appears on the screen is a stylized version of real life (or a plausible vision of imaginary worlds) that is made possible by the prolonged collaborative effort of hundreds, working in support of a celebrated few” (3). The “reality” of the cinema lies in producers, directors, actors, back-lots, etc. involved in its creation rather

When one thinks of a novel, a word that usually will come to mind is fiction. In fact, other meanings for the word novel are new and unique. Although an author may use real places, real time, or base their story on real events in part, their outcome is essentially a creation. We, as readers, are in a sense captive to the writer's imagination and must conform to the rules of the worlds they create.

“In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can revenge” (Picoult). Those words are of the opening lines of Jodi Picoult’s best seller, Nineteen Minutes. Although this novel is heart wrenching, and cuts into the ‘grays’ of school shootings, it is anything but original. Lead character, Peter Houghton, is an almost perfect profile replication of 1999’s Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. A simple personaltiy analysis will reveal that both Peter and Columbine Shooters suffer from parental neglect, the violent virtual world, ruthless peers, as well as easy access to weapons.

Horror movies. The type of genre that gives a thrill of adrenaline, yet also gives nightmares late at night. Everyone has watched a horror movie at least once in their lives. And during the movie there is also a time in which the viewer just wants to punch the TV screen and call it quits. Whether it is because their favorite character just did something dumb, or because the ending was horrible, there is always a moment in which one thinks: I would have chosen a better option. I could have survived. In literature, it is often the same thing. Believe it or not, fear is a huge contributor to how the story goes; how it ends, and who dies. Fear either motivates the character to take action or, defeats them. But fear doesn’t act alone. Fear influences people, but what influences the fear? The answer is quite simple, no matter how shocking it can be. Just as love brings happiness, it also brings forth the poison of fear. Whether it is the fear of losing the person they love, or fear that they are no longer loved, both of them are huge contributors on how a character’s actions or decisions are influenced.

In the story “Popular Mechanics,” written by Raymond Carver, the author heavily influences what the reader feels by carefully choosing what words he puts in his story. A story can not be a story unless the reader can be able to feel what the characters go through. A story can not be a story if the reader can not see where the story takes place. A story can not be a story unless the reader can feel the story inside themselves.

Contrary to what Atwood articulates, fictional writing has been viewed as a way of writing that grants freedom to the writer. The writer can end the story with suspense, ending at just that point that a character is phased with a huge obstacle or immense passion (Nodelman, 1). This is believed to set the reader up into believing that overcoming such obstacles in real life brings about immense rewards and therefore such kind of writing is always motivational to the reader. This is a point of view that Atwood is quick to rubbish by pointing out that all other endings that are not ‘happy endings’ in fiction are delusionary. “Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality” (Atwood, 3).

With the constant streaming of new movies and television shows available, moviegoers tend to watch them for fun. They see an entertaining movie about conflict that sparks the sense of adventure in them. But do they really grasp what the movie can teach the viewers? With today’s society, the themes are lost in the entertainment purposes. However, books have developed to do what a movie does and so much more. In this way books give life to all people that read them.