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Recap of Assigned Readings and Major Ideas

Mary Blew's "Sow in the River" sand Patricia Hampl's "Memory and Imagination" explain how nonfiction is truthful despite the fallibility of memory. While Blew describes an instance in which the dream world flooded into the material world and created a false memory, Hample describes the power of desire to alter her memory, allowing her to describe what she wished was true and not actually what was true. While Blew focuses on the power of storytelling to connect the interior world (mind) with the exterior world (landscape), Hampl puts more emphasis on the internal world and the writer task to stalk "the congruence between stored image and hidden emotion." For both Blew and Hampl, making connections--between the interior and exterior or stored image and hidden emotion--is a necessity for us to make meaning of the world and our lives, but in doing so, the writer has the responsibility to question her authority. Thus, writers of creative nonfiction are curious observers who are not merely concerned with what they see but with how they see. The memoirist evaluates what she perceives while taking into account her perspective, something that forces her to recognize her biases, shortcomings, and contradictions.

In more experimental styles, Jill Christman and Jo Ann Beard confront the uncertainty of memory. In "Three Takes on a Jump," Christman gives two accounts of the same story, leaving the reader with but one truth--that jumping from the roof into the sand hurts. In "Maybe it Happen," Beard leaves the reader in total uncertainty, as she writes from the third person and qualifies every detail with the phrase "perhaps it happen."

What makes this genre complicated once more is the idea that it is not only the memory that changes but the truth that changes. Blew, Hampl, and Christman discuss the power of language to create reality, and, therefore, create the "truth." For Blew, the Judith River was never the same after Lewis and Clark named it. For Hampl, this is a scary political fact-- that whole histories can be rewritten to deny tragedies like Nazi death camps. For Christman, it is "Sharability," when the story is more about the telling and retelling than the memory itself. But this is why the personal narrative is so important--it has the power to overturn the (re)written history. At the end of the article, the author says that he loved everything about the military but now hates it. This statement shows that Sabrina puts his personality in the shoes of Rebecca and takes the objectiveness out of a journalistic process to reflect the military culture in real life. As well, Charlie impersonates himself to a voice that was present during the death of Aiyana. For instance, he reports that the seven-year-old girl was sleeping on her couch while her grandmother was watching the television when an officer shot her. The aspect of narrating a story from an impersonated voice stretches the idea of fiction facts to that of reality in creative narratives. Consequently, readers feel that the presence of the persona voice in the dilemma is an evidence of a real topic. Both the two authors describe the scenes in the two narratives rather than using the elements of full dialogue. For instance, Charlie does not involve the voice of Rebecca and instead narrates how she felt when she woke up while in jail. Thus, the authors present the story from their point of view.

In the two articles, the creation of tension and suspense makes the story to appear as fiction. However, these are elements that the authors employ to report factual happening. In the story of the rape of Officer Blumer, it starts in a circumstance where she is freezing and naked. After this scene, the story develops into another revelation where the reader realizes that she was raped. Throughout the storyline, several episodes develop, which increases the readers’ urge of knowing what will happen afterward. As well, the story creates nervousness. For example, while she was in jail, she yelled and fought with cops such that she sustained swollen jaw and bruises. On the other hand, Charlie steals the readers’ attention in describing the scene where Aiyana was killed. For example, “the weapon released a bullet, which struck Aiyana on her head and exited through her neck.” The author uses such statements to create apprehension in the readers so that they seek to know the cause of the shooting, as well as the people behind it. Moreover, the two articles portray both Blumer and Aiyana as strong characters. For example, readers sympathize with Blumer for the tragedy she has undergone, as well as mourn the death of Aiyana.In conclusion, despite the use of creative techniques associated with fiction in literary journalism, it is not fiction. The authors describe the happening of the scenes rather than involving accurate dialogue that took place, which makes their work appear unreal. This paper has shown how the two authors use the creative techniques to report about the rape case of a military officer and the death of a young girl. Readers feel that what is happening is like an imaginary thing, and yet it is a real situation that occurred.