How Can A Memoir Be Truthful?

There is always more than one truth to a story. Some people can speak one side of the story, that is definitely true to them, but seem false to others. People often wonder the validity of a memoir due to different perspectives. A memoir cannot be accurate, but can and should be truthful because the writer can create different perspectives of the truth based on his or her own experience. Additionally, a memoir should be accurate because a memoir is a combination of different views. A memoir cannot be accurate, but can and should be truthful because the writer can create different perspectives of the truth based on his or her own experience. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” literary critic, Kea Trevett, writes, that memory “[b]eing the product
Thus, we can see how a memoir cannot be accurate, but can and should be truthful, because the writer can create different perspectives of the truth based on his or her own experience. When writing a true story, the writer interprets the way they experienced the event, as Trevett mentions, which removes the objectivity of the truth because the writer’s interpretation is different from someone else’s interpretation . Writer, Tim O’Brien reiterates this point in his memoir arguing, “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way” (175). O’Brien argues that to tell a true story, we have to tell it the way we see it happen. Thus, just as Trevett demonstrates, O’Brien shows us that a memoir cannot be accurate, but can and should be truthful because the writer can create different perspectives of the truth based on his or her own experience. Every person experiences things differently and a writer must describe the event in the way they
On the dedication page of Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life, he writes,“I would also like to thank Rosemary Hutchins, Geoffrey Wolff, Gary Fisketjon, and Amanda Urban for their help and support. I have been corrected on some points, mostly of chronology...But I have done my best to make it tell a truthful story.” Tobias discusses how he tried to make his memoir as accurate and correct as it could be. Thus, we can see how a memoir should be accurate because a memoir is a combination of different views. Writers have to make sure their writing is accurate by having other peers reassure the accuracy of their work by inputting their view of the story, just like Wolff has done with his memoir, because the point of a memoir is to show the accurate account of the author’s life. For example, when a fight breaks out, authorities ask multiple witnesses to get the truth about who started the fight. The authorities use all of the witnesses testimonies in order to get to one overall truth since there is not just one exact truth. Accuracy relies on the combination of different views to reach the truth. People tend to get different accounts of an event because there is not just one exact truth so the multiple accounts given reaches a more accurate truth. Thus, a memoir should be accurate because a memoir is a combination of different