SP4 – Writing, deception and Authenticity – Week 1

Write: Start a journal (or a file on your computer) for this unit.

Write (or type) in it every week, starting now, and keep all your work. The form of the journal is up to you. It is simply a place to keep together all of the writing you will be doing in this unit. You will be asked to share some pieces of writing from this journal, as outlined in the weekly study topics. The rest of the writing you keep in the journal can be kept private and does not need to be shared with anyone in the unit.

This week, there is one exercise to try:

Write 2-3 paragraphs about an incident from your childhood. Your account should be mostly truthful but include some lies as well. You do not have to share this with the group, although you may if you wish. In your own time, think about the account you wrote and what bearing it might have on the topics we will cover in this unit:

• What lies did you tell and how did this allow you to change the account, e.g. present yourself more positively or make the story more interesting? Is it sometimes hard to distinguish between lies and incorrect memory or your subjective perception of events?
• Why do we find it pleasurable or comforting to write/read about real lives? Is this enjoyment universal and timeless, or might it be historically and culturally specific?
• What ethical or legal issues arise as a result of the lies you told and the other people whom you represented? Are you comfortable signing this account with your real name?
• How was your framing of the incident shaped in advance for you by your knowledge of the genre of life writing, or the influence of other accounts of childhood you have read?
• In writing the account, did you seek to meet, challenge, or satirise the reader's assumptions about your identity, for example in relation to ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality or social class?

The lies I told were all in the 3rd paragraph (with the exception of how I was positioned under the swing in the 2nd paragraph, which was on my back, not on my side).  Both legs weren't badly crushed, although I did have multiple fractions in one leg.  An ambulance didn't rush me to hospital although it did try.  2 teachers carried me to the back of my parent's car, and I was lying in the back seat by the time the ambulance arrived.  I absolutely refused to let them budge me, and I was in hysterics.  It felt like both legs were broken, because they had naturally stuck to each other, one leg seemingly acting like a splint for the other leg.  So I was driven to hospital in my parents car.  There were no school excursions to the hospital, none of the kids visited me although they did send get well messages on a tape recorded at the school.  The only visits I got was from my parents.  I was actually in traction for only 6 months, not one year.  All the rest, however, was true.

I feel the lies I told made it look slightly more interesting and made me appear more popular than I actually was at that time.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between memory and perception of events, but not so hard between the lies I've told (in my own mind), although others might find these lies believable.

• Why do we find it pleasurable or comforting to write/read about real lives? Is this enjoyment universal and timeless, or might it be historically and culturally specific?

• What ethical or legal issues arise as a result of the lies you told and the other people whom you represented? Are you comfortable signing this account with your real name?

• How was your framing of the incident shaped in advance for you by your knowledge of the genre of life writing, or the influence of other accounts of childhood you have read?