Shakespeare's Sonnet 138

SONNET 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

This poem has a speaker who says he knows his love is lying to him but he believes her anyway. Or at least he pretends to believe her so she will think he is young and naive and not as old as he really is. And she apparently pretends to believe this of him, although she knows he is not young. Both parties know the other is lying, and they also know the other knows of both sets of falsehoods. They tolerate each other's lies because they wish to have their own lies tolerated. So that's what they do and are flattered and seemingly happy with the situation. This is just another good example of why people tell lies, and how we can accept lies as truth even when we know they're not. People choose to believe what they will, for whatever reasons they will. Our truth is what we choose it to be, just like the two lovers in this poem. Our own versions of the truth do not depend on actual factuality necessarily; sometimes we all choose to believe something different. It may be because we need to, like in Life of Pi, or it may be for far less noble reasons, like in this sonnet where it's born of vanity and ego and a desire to be flattered. For whatever reasons, we all choose what "truth" we will believe.

Emily Dickenson's Tell All the Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant, Success in circuit lies, Too bright for our infirm delight The truth's superb surprise; As lightning to the children eased With explanation kind, The truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind. This is a very short poem, but it states quite succinctly the sort of ideas we have been discussing in class. Dickenson says one should tell all the truth, but tell it slant. So she's saying that a person can actually tell the "truth" while not exactly telling the entire facts. She goes on to say why it's okay to do that--that the truth can be too bright a surprise for people, that the truth must be eased into kindly and gently or else it would overwhelm us all. I like how she compares it to explaining lightning to children. That's something that could easily frighten a child a lot, much like the truth can frighten any one of us. But then she says it "dazzles", and I love that too--the truth as something that can enlighten us, impress us, inspire us. Dickenson knows that's something we have to come to gradually. I like this take on why the truth can be slanted; for such a short poem it has quite a message, even though it's presented subtly.

Memories

This semester we discussed memory, truth, and lies, during every meeting. Lucille Clifton’s poem relates well with our topics. In our four books we are constantly reminded that the authors were lying to us, but we were given the choice to choose which version we like better. Clifton’s poem does not tell us if her memories are lies or if “their” memories are lies but it shows the controversy between author and reader. She is choosing her memories rather than “theirs”, just like how Martel gave us the opportunity to believe the “better story” or how O’Brien gave us “story-truth”. During an interview, Clifton tells her readers that she wrote this poem because her and her sister had been discussing childhood memories for a book, but it was difficult to pinpoint all the details. This relates to the way Briony believed her story but did not know all of the details. The lacks of lines symbolize the lack of details she has in her actual memories, still she chooses to believe them. “Why Some People Be Mad at Me Sometimes” basically just wrapped up our class in four lines.