The Truth of Reality

The Truth of Reality

Every person has his own perception, known as a personal reality, which is shaped by his interpretation of his surroundings. Tim O’Brien, in “How to Tell a True War Story”, recounts personal experiences of war and discusses how war stories are not completely true or false, rather the truth is determined by the listener (because the truth is shaped according to the beholder’s experience). He concludes by stating that while two people may have differing interpretations of a story, neither of them is wrong. This idea is also seen in Oliver Sacks’ “The Mind’s Eye: What the Blind See”. Sacks studies the affect of the loss of sight on a person’s personal reality. Jonathan Boyarin, in “Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eight Street Shul”, tells a story of his journey through Jewish culture and how his memories affect him. These three authors discuss the idea that there are numerous ways an event and its truth can be interpreted and one way is not necessarily better than the other. A person’s personal reality is not affected by what he is told, but by the way he interprets what he is told.

Every time a story is told, the listener interprets it differently and none of the interpretations are truer than the other. O’Brien explores this idea in his essay in how people interpret his story. When telling his story, O’Brien encounters a woman who approaches him and says, “as a rule [I] hate war stories” (396), to which he replies, “It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story” (396). Even though his story took place during the war, to him, it is a story of love. Although both O’Brien and the woman have different interpretations of the story, neither is wrong. This idea is also seen in Sacks studies of loss of sight. Sacks learns that every person adapts to the loss of sight in