Monday, January 22, 2018

History vs. Fiction: Age Old Battle

In my opinion, history and fiction, depending on the piece, are not that different in comparison. History is the documentation or oral passage (griots) of the significance of an event, individual, or object. Fiction, on the other hand, could be a variety of things. Such as, a slight fabrication of an event that transpired years ago, or a story set around a fictional character(s) who endured hardship within a historically significant event (holocaust).

History is often times regarded as the whole truth, but that certainly can be disputed. Of course there are undeniable facts within history, but there are many aspects of history that are disputable, such as one’s perception of a leader, the overall effectiveness of a military strategy, or the true motive behind the implementation of a policy measure.

In fiction, the author attempts to portray the experience a person would have within a certain situation. For example, in Man In The High Castle, the main characters obviously never existed and the Nazi’s were defeated in WWII. But, the author attempts to depict how the former United States and its constituents would conform to the harsh social policies implemented by the Nazi’s in this alt-history novel.

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