Thursday, June 3, 2010

truth Big fish and TTTC

The affects of telling a story with only facts leaves the story dry and boring, but with adding your own opinion and twist to a story the story can become much more entertaining and enjoyable. Both the movie Big Fish and The Things The Carried have taken the truth to make a story as great as it can be told.
The movie Big fish uses stories that can clearly be seen to stretch the truth, the witch was clearly an example of how far the truth can be stretched. If he had shown a plain old lady who had caught him it would be just like every other story, boring, but instead the story takes a twist. He goes up straight to the witch knocks on her door and says “can I see your eye please”. Instead of the plain truth that could have been he sneaked into the lady’s house and he got caught. By making the lady show her eye the story seems more interesting as to how he dies and such. Also during the circus act of the movie he agrees to work only for information, clearly the jobs that he has to do such as cleaning elephant excretion and washing someone’s back are not something most if not all people would put up for, for just one piece of information every day, especially for a girl that you have not met nor knows you exist nonetheless. By putting him trough all of this in the movie it shows the viewer a much interesting time, it takes the love of the character and stretches it so far that it shows how determined he is to prove his love. Then as he went to war his way of getting back home he describes it as “ a whaling ship to Russia, a barge to Cuba and a small dirty canoe to Miami” his description and word choice stretches the truth of the story even more. By putting this in he makes the journey seem so much harder than it was, it could have just been one simple boat ride to another but the description on the trip keeps the viewer on their seats begging for more of what is to come.


The book the Things The Carried also uses the advantage of stretching the truth in order to tell its story. For example, as the chapter ends with the necklace of tongues around Linda it seems as is the truth was highly stretched there, instead of saying she has a beaded necklace, Tim O’Brien uses tongues which shows how much he was willing to use this body parts to make this part of the story give the reader a sensation of being disturbed. If not he could have used something less disturbing such as a finger. Also by using the strongest part of the human body it could represent her strength to fight and much more emphasis that she is just as strong as the males in the book, if not stronger.
Unlike the movie Big Fish the book The things they carried uses the way of stretching the truth to not only enhance the experience of the journey but to try and use it in order to make to reflect on a war that was just as bad. For example during the Vietnam war thousands of children were killed, in the book Tim O’Brien describes the boy he kills in the most gruesome way he thought of possible, he uses this to show the reader that the time was not fun and games it was death everywhere, when describing the boy he never referred to him as man once . By calling the corps “boy” Tim O’Brien shows that the war children and women were also getting hurt. While the movie Big Fish uses the ability of stretching the truth to only tell a great story. As the story is not based off of an event but a man with extreme determination to get what he wants when he wants it and to feel invincible just because he saw in an eye he will not die trough cancer.
As both the Things The Carried and Big Fish takes the facts and put their own spin onto it leaving the reader and viewer wanting more and begging. If this was not done the book and movie would be so boring no one would want to read it. But the ways of stretching the truth can be very different. There is a difference in stretching the truth just for a good story like Big Fish and stretching the truth for a much more accurate and here is a difference in stretching the truth just for a good story like Big Fish and stretching the truth for a much more accurate reflecting the time it was happening. However if sacrificing the facts for a good story really worth the price?

1 comment:

  1. Your introducation paragraph needs work. Expand your hook and create a specific thesis. What exactly are you proving about both pieces?

    Besides exaggerating to engage the audience, what is the purpose of truth in storytelling? You discuss only the surface of this topic. How can truth be defined in each of the pieces and how does not knowing what's true affect the audience? What is the point of manipulating the truth through storytelling in each piece?

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