The Truth in War Stories?

So now that I’m caught up, I’m thinking that the central theme of most of the stories so far is the difference between what truth is and what storytelling is. Practically in every story Tim is questioning what the truth is compared to a war story and what listeners should believe and such. Its all up to the readers to decided whether each war story in the collection is the truth or made up to sound like a possibility that might have happened. “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (71). Over the years it seems as though the mind can play tricks on oneself, distorting the distinct line between what truly happened and what was believed to happen. A true war story can never be exactly all truth, “often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness” (71). I guess a war story has to be manipulated at some point to make it somewhat believable because without the lies embedded here and a war story may sound just unbelievable in the end.

Anyway, this leads into the whole postmodernism concept. The idea of postmodernism is always questioning the truth and what it really is. Is there ever really a truth or is it just a bundle of lies that were believed in so much they turned into truths (if you get what I’ saying). So back to the novel, I think it’s a great representation of the postmodern theory. I never really thought about it until class on Friday when Veerprit was talking about it all day from first period to sixth.

So overall, is there such a thing as a true war story or is every war a story a combination of truth and made up realities to believe the truth? I guess we will never find out unless we go back in time to experience the whole event in a first person point of view.

"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a life-time ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever" (38). So now the question is, does it really matter if a story is true? Or are the feelings and emotions experienced more important than the details?

Oh, now that i thought about it, it gets me wondering about war reenactments and how they now what is truth or not as well as history. Depending on who it is, history may be a total lie or all truth, who knows. Anyway, just a quick little thought.

Postmodernism???

Okay, so first of all super sorry for procrasitinating on the blog. I just practically forgot all about last week because of deadline and all.

Anyway, here I go…

After reading all these different books and analyzing the Postmodernism book, all together I think I have somewhat of an idea what postmodernism is. I think the concept of postmodernism is a little complicated to explain. I think it has several meanings, but the one that stands out the most to me is individuality. Postmodernism, i s all about leaving grand narratives behind and moving onto several different ideas and not just one. There is no longer one set definition for certain thoughts and ideas. Now there are”Other” influences everywhere presenting themselves forward to be heard and seen. There is no longer a definition of what is truth. Truth is what each individual define it be; therefore, it can be anything.

Then again, postmodernisn can be defined as a journey to find a perfect utopia where everywhere lives in harmony with each other and the only way to do so is to be practically be identical and exactly alike like in Brave New World. This, I think, is the total opposite of individuality. Especially several of the books we have read they depict a society where being similar and categorized is the best way to live. These books that we have read show the predictions of what our society will turn into if such ideas are forced on a society. Another example of this postmodern thought is in Cat’s Cradle, where a world revolves around lies to get by and to be happy. The perfect utopia is only found when the truth is no longer necessary.

Overall, I think postmodernism has many central ideas and not just one complete one. I really have no idea what the central idea is even though we have worked on it throughout the whole semester, but what I have so far is above. I know I’m rambling on about practically nothing and even contradicting myself at times, I think what I said above sums up what I think is postmodernism.

Maus

Okay, so I’m so sorry that this blog is so late, but honestly I’ve just been procrastinating all break. Anyway its 12:08 AM Monday morning and here I go…

So now that I’m done with the book and the essay I guess I have a lot to say for this Maus thesis blog. When I finally read the book (which was a few days ago) I really enjoyed. I was reading while in the waiting room at my doctor’s office and I couldn’t put it down. The secretary’s probably though I was a super nerd or something. Anyway, I thought the book was really interesting and easy to read. I think that one of the main reasons why I liked it so much was that it was in a comic book type of style. The graphic novel allow me to visualize the events being described which made it a lot easier for me not to put the book down.

Also with the help from reading the informative comics by Scott McCloud in class, it helped me understand why animal caricatures were used instead of humans with facial features. This now leads into my essay thesis ideas. When I was brainstorming my essay (which by the way took forever) I though a lot about how Art Spiegelman uses people with animal faces as his characters. Along with that I thought about why he chose to use a graphic novel to talk about an event that is so serious and important as the Holocaust. At first I had no idea why he would chose a type of novel that is somewhat childish to portray a critical part of history. Then after a while I decided on the thesis idea that even though the graphic novel may be childish, Spiegelman is attempting to explain such an important part of history in a simple way where it would be easy for readers to understand. The Holocaust is a very large part of history and yet it is difficult to explain and understand. Therefore, I decided to go with this essay topic.

Anyway, there you go and once again sorry for the lateness Dominguez. =]