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Definition Essay: What Is Truth?

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What is Truth? Without thinking deeply about it, truth seems like a concrete concept. As children, we learn that everything we do, or say, fits in a box of either true or false. A statement or story is correct, real or genuine and anything else is a lie, deceitful or incorrect. The reality is that some stories do not necessarily fit in those boxes, and truth is more fluid than we learn. The definition given by Merriam Webster is “agreeing with the facts : not false : real or genuine.” Understandably, there are some truths that are irrefutable. It is a fact that the sky is blue, and that we breathe oxygen. Storytelling, however, does not have to be so concrete. I believe that truth can be concrete, fluid or ambiguous in certain situations depending on what the speaker is trying to express. There will always be concrete truth. These are details that are told with such certainty that nothing contradicts it. Those details are the ones we can identify as children. We all learned things about ourselves and the earth that are correct one hundred percent of the time and the authenticity is …show more content…
Truth can change based on what you are exploring and what you learn and portray. At one point, many people thought the world was flat, as a fact. At the time, it was the truth to those that had learned that with their experiences. As understanding changes, so does truth. Whether something is correct or not, it can be truth to those who say it. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien says “Norman is back in the story, where he belongs, and I don't think he would mind that his real name appears.” So, for almost the entire book, the truth was that Norman was a real person that O’Brien wanted to be in the novel. Then, in the end, the truth is that he wasn’t a real man at all and with this quote the truth changes back to the belief that he is a real man. The truth was fluid in this instance because it changed how the reader viewed the characters

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