The abstraction called “truth” is identified as a
priority for humans. However, though truth has “not deprived anyone of the hope
of attaining it,” it has at the same time “not made for anyone a path to it”
(Mahfouz 228). And rightly so: truth holds immense power. In several works of
contemporary world literature, the idea of truth has the power to drive apart
or reassemble families, legitimize people and their voices, and even overcome
supernatural trickery.
While an acceptance
and understanding of truth and reality holds the potential for human rising
above adversity, a rejection of the same truths can be equally influential,
though destructive. In Amos Oz’s novel My
Michael, young wife and mother Hannah does not accept in full the reality
of her life. As the narrator, she helps the reader understand why, quoting her
late father: “[P]ure truth . . . is thoroughly destructive and leads nowhere.
What can ordinary people do? All we can do is silently stand and stare” (Oz
37). Instead of embracing this “pure truth,” Hannah clings to an unrealistic
vision of her future, hoping to “marry a young scholar who was destined to
become world-famous” (Oz 37, 48). But her visions are not limited to scenes of
idealized happiness; Hannah’s escape into unreality includes the terrific and
the dark. As “Yvonne Azulai,” her dream alias, Hannah is the “Princess” (Oz 174).
She rules the city of Danzig as it is seized by “the heavy breathing of a
brooding evil” (Oz 175). She, the Princess, also succumbs to this evil as “the
assassins’ hands” grab her (Oz 177). In these dark daydreams, she can
feel--unlike during the numbing “sameness” of her days at home (Oz 89). She
explains the draw of this type of masochism: “I had a body and it was mine and
it throbbed and thrilled and was alive” (Oz 173). Still, though her techniques
of escape reconnect Hannah with her body and life, her preference for the world
of her dreams may serve as the primary obstacle in Hannah and Michael’s
marriage. Michael “can’t understand what’s got into” her, and the two suffer
through this disconnect (Oz 164).
On the other hand,
the uncovering of truth has empowering and constructive capabilities. In Derek
Walcott’s epic poem Omeros, the
forgotten past of the island of St. Lucia is brought to the forefront and the
voice of a diverse people is reconstructed. Walcott’s documentation serves to
rewrite history; the colonial British rulers of the island no longer serve as
the only historians. While “Major” Sergeant Plunkett and the British remember
the “Battle of the Saints” in which St. Lucia was acquired as a colony, they
may not remember the island’s first name, “Iounalao,” or the island’s first
inhabitants, the “Aruacs” (Walcott 28, 4, 5). And the story of the St. Lucians
with African ancestry is different from that of the British, too: “Herdsmen
haieing cattle / who set out to found no cities; they were found, / who were
bound for no victories; they were the bound, / who leveled nothing before them;
they were the ground” (Walcott 22). “History saw [the African villages]” of St.
Lucia merely as “shacks [that] would creep down the ridges to become towns”
(Walcott 57). But this can change. Plunkett admits, “Helen needed a history, /
. . . / Not his, but her story. Not theirs, but Helen’s war” (Walcott 30). It
is prophesied: “History will be revised” (Walcott 92). The call for a retelling
of the island’s history is answered by Derek Walcott. As a sort of mission
statement, Walcott writes:
Look,
they climb, and no one knows them;
they take their copper pittances, and your duty
from the time you watched them from your
grandmother’s house
as a child wounded by their power and beauty
is the chance you now have, to give those feet a
voice. (75-6)
Walcott, by offering a more complete picture of the truth, redeems the
voice and heritage of entire people groups of St. Lucia. The truth communicated
validates the stories and existence of the people themselves. The
centuries-long silence is broken.
Human apprehension
and speaking of truth similarly holds the power to alter history in Naguib
Mahfouz’s novel Arabian Nights and Days,
even when the supernatural in the form of a genie interferes. At first, Sanaan
al-Gamali’s interaction with the genie Qumqam leaves him lost; his “confused
mind . . . chewed over memories as though they were delusions” (Mahfouz 21). But
Gamasa al-Bulti, charged to kill the governor by the genie Singam, claims to
see the truth clearer than before. As Gamasa draws his sword for the murder, he
claims that “the truth is being spoken for the first time” (Mahfouz 46). Ma’rouf
the cobbler, though he lies about his possession of Solomon’s ring, is truly a
fair and pleasing ruler to the people of his quarter. The truth--that he does
not own the ring--does not lead to his execution but rather to his promotion to
governor (Mahfouz 206). The genie Zarmabaha disguises herself as the beautiful
Anees al-Galees to trick powerful men into humiliation (Mahfouz 137). But the
wisdom of the “madman,” who was formerly called Gamasa, sheds light on the
genie’s trickery, saying, “I see nothing but walls between which the breaths of
the ancient plague rebound” (Mahfouz 143). This truth dissolves the plot: “With
extraordinary speed there was nothing left of her but disparate parts, which
themselves were transformed into smoke that simply disappeared and left no
trace” (Mahfouz 143). The verbalization of what is honest trumps the deceptive
plots of the genies and instills in humans an almost supernatural power.
For those in the
modern West, perhaps a more understandable portrayal of truth’s power may be
found in the universal context of the family in Please Look After Mom, a story set in South Korea. Before the
disappearance of the family’s mother, the children and father do not know the
truth about her. Chi-hon, the mother Park So-nyo’s eldest daughter, suggests
that “either a mother and daughter know each other very well, or they are
strangers” (Shin 18). Chi-hon and her mother belong to the latter group. Chi-hon
and her mother had superficial conversations: “Your words had to with whether
she ate, whether she was healthy, how Father was, that she should be careful
not to catch cold, that you were sending money” (Shin 35). While Chi-hon had
“never thought of Mom as separate from the kitchen,” Park So-nyo herself
sometimes felt as if the kitchen was a “prison” (Shin 55, 61). After learning
that her mother had long-lasting and paralyzing headaches, Chi-hon admits to
herself: “You could no longer say you knew Mom” (Shin 25). In fact, Chi-hon,
like her siblings, realizes the misconceptions she has passively accepted her
whole life: “To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had
once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years
old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom” (Shin 27). But Park So-nyo’s physical
disappearance prompts her family to discover the truth about her life--her
condition, birth year, relationships, pastimes, and feelings. Uncovering this
truth proves to hold restorative power for the family’s relationship: “Only
after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you,
in endless stacks. . . . Her everyday words, which you didn’t think deeply
about and sometimes dismissed as useless when she was with you, awoke in your
heart, creating tidal waves” (Shin 246). Hearing the truth about Park So-nyo,
rather than accepting the silence surrounding her personal life and thought,
energizes her family to overcome isolation and recognize that they have “needed
her [their] entire [lives]” (Shin 228).
Though the quest
for truth is not a new idea in literature, the modern era presents endless
challenges to ideas of reality. In the characters’ searches, truth is
obfuscated by ideas absorbed in earlier years, histories written by the
powerful, interferences of the supernatural, and silence. However, when this
silence is broken, when the truth about family and history is discovered and
spoken, characters find the strength to overcome--to be legitimized in their
voices, to live with dignity, and to restore relationships.
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