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.

Final Exam, etc.

By way of clarification, the final exam is not on May 5. There is an error on the assignment schedule (thanks to Jessica and Margie for pointing this out). The final exam is on May 3 (next Tuesday), from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This is obviously earlier than we usually meet, so please make arrangements to be there. I will discuss the final exam with you when I see you on Thursday so that you will know what to expect.

I also mentioned the possibility of making up some blogs. For every one of the following poems, stories, or films you read/watch and post a response to, I will make up one missed blog. (I'm putting you on your honor here. If you have already seen one of these films you will need to watch it again in order to post about it.) The responses should be of (at least) normal length, and they should discuss how these works fit in with what we have already read this semester. What themes are the same? How are they treated similarly or differently? What new insight do they offer into the questions we have been asking?

Poems:
1. Philip Levine: "The Simple Truth"
2. Lucille Clifton: "Why Some People Be Mad at Me Sometimes"
3. Emily Dickinson: "Tell All the Truth"
4. Robert Penn Warren: "A Way to Love God"
5. William Shakespeare: Sonnet 138
6. Edward Thomas: "Old Man"

Stories:
1. John Cheever: "The Swimmer"
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper"
3. John Updike: "A&P"

Films:
1. Memento
2. Fight Club
3. Big Fish
4. The Usual Suspects
5. The Neverending Story

Self-Forgiveness

Briony is able to atone for her actions, in her mind, by forgiving herself. She says she wanted to give Cecilia and Robbie the happy life they deserved. She convinces herself that by giving them a faux life by means of literature, she has redeemed herself. She was able to bear her mistake, and instead of sulking about it, she did the best thing of which she could think by giving them the happy life they deserved in her novel, albeit a fantasy. It was a grave mistake, and I think she would have found more efficacy by making amends with Cecilia, rather than keeping it all to herself and living in a land as real as Hoth or Tatooine.

Subtlety, Rather Than Blatancy

The ending of Atonement had a unique feel to it, almost as if I already knew the ending; or that I have already accepted it. I do not mean that I knew the exact ending or the events that would occur, but rather I knew the emotion or reaction I would give. Surely enough, I had the feeling of indifference or more appropriately, contentment. In the other books I always had this lingering longing for closure in the endings. The open-ended interpretations kept expanding the boundaries of truth. In, The Things They Carried, there was an obvious contrast between story-truth and happening-truth since O'Brien directly tells you what is fact and fiction. Through this, O'Brien made the reader wonder what is actually considered truth and what is not. In, Life of Pi, Pi describes two ideal stories of which both fully explain what had happened to Pi. The two contrasting stories gave the reader a sense of truth being used in a unique manner. By Pi using animals in his first story, he gave a deeper meaning it rather than giving dry, yeastless facts. In, Lying, Slater presents this idea of lying as being actual truth. Despite her lying about her epilepsy, or her lying about not having epilepsy, she ultimately wrote a memoir about her life by using epilepsy as the main focus. This basically forced the reader into thinking about lies being used as a way to convey truth. However, in, Atonement, the word truth is never really covered. Granted, though, that there is an interesting concept of truth in the book. The idea that what you fully believe may not be true, and the way it is done is elegantly subtle. There isn't this harsh contrast away from the actual story, so the author can explain or deduce what is happening or what they are trying to convey. This book had a more realistic feel to it, straying away from its philosophical brethren. The reason I think of realism is because this concept of truth directly related to a believable tragedy; because of that I believe that it is unique when put against the other books we have read.

Unable to Atone

By the end of the book, I feel that Briony has not completely atoned for her childhood 'crime'. Although I do believe that stories have to power to change things and make bad things right, I also believe that this only extends to a certain point.

I think that Briony's character expresses a great deal of guilt throughout the third part of the book, and I do believe that part of that is alleviated through the fictitious moments of happiness that she creates for her sister and Robbie. I also think that the character's very public admission of her 'crime' in the form of a novel helps to sponge away some of the guilt as well. However, I do not think that her guilt could ever be erased or that her 'crime' could ever be corrected or forgiven. It can be understood, because of her age at the time. Although I just do not believe that even her best efforts to punish herself or correct the past can make the pain that her sister and especially Robbie had to endure. Nothing short of going back in time and making it so that it never happened could fully make up for what she did, but it is endearing that she immortalized the ones she hurt most in her novel, giving them the happy ending that they so deserved, but were denied due to her actions of youthful ignorance.