It’s a legitimate question, don’t you think? One that almost certainly stirs debate and the occasional argument. Many may say non-fiction has a greater impact than fiction on the mind and emotions of the responder because non-fiction literature is based on a true story.
Non-fiction authors give responders the ability to understand the experiences and difficulties that they have faced and gone through. For example taking a look at the diary of Anne Frank creates an eagerness as you read from one line to the next. Wednesday the 13th of January 1943 - top of page 84: “I could spend hours telling you about the suffering the war has brought, but I’d only make myself more miserable. All we can do is wait, as calmly as possible, for it to end.
Jews and Christians alike are waiting, the whole world is waiting, and many are waiting for death. ”) The diary of Anne Frank is about a young, Jewish teenage girl (Anne) writing in her diary to (Kitty), and it revolves around the thoughts and feelings she experiences in her everyday life while at the same time, hiding in an Annexe of an apartment from the Germans during the Second World War.After a year or so in hiding, she comments, “What we each want to do first when we’re able to go outside again. ” Her situation was difficult, tough, scary and dangerous, always worried about the day the Germans would arrest her and her family. In fiction books, these situations are make believe, even though some fictional situations have the capacity to seriously involve the reader, the reader still is somehow detached and isn’t made to feel the angst and desperation an individual like Anne is going through, as in her real life experience.
Sunday the 11th of July 1943 - Bottom of page 109: “Going outside! Just think of it, walking down the street! I can’t imagine it. ”) Anne Frank’s diary draws the reader in and personally involves them in her experiences, fiction may draw readers in with its settings, plots and characters but non-fiction goes one step further, it connects its audience because it is real. (Sunday the 11th of July 1943 – bottom of page 109: “I was petrified at first and then glad. ”) Her life may seem like a rollercoaster ride of emotions, full of an air of uncertainty and terror.In her diary, Anne Frank comes across as cheerful and optimistic individual (Friday the 16th of July 1943 - bottom of page 114: “Landing in Sicily. Another step closer to the .
.. ”) but Otto Frank (her father) comments in an interview he held with the BBC many years after Anne Frank’s material was discovered, that he only really understood her character through her writing. His view of Anne was completely different after he read the diary as he believed that Anne was more like your typical young girl. Instead, Anne’s work was serious and quite deep in its emotion, and this emotion resonates with readers world-wide due to its realism. Monday the 26th of July 1943 - top of page 116: “In other words, to go back to school.
”) – She cherishes her education very much. Her writing proves, under difficult circumstances and at such a tender age that she is imaginative, courageous, displays good perception and that there is a lot of maturity in her writing. She has connected her inner thoughts making it very personal. (Friday the 12th of June 1942 – top of page 1: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support”) Anne Frank’s diary is not fantasy.Everything that occurs is reality. All of the events and situations are real.
Fiction provides us with entertainment and takes us to another place which lets us escape. Anne Frank’s diary captures us and takes us along for the ride, a ride that becomes all the more emotional, because it is non-fiction. As a visual medium, portrayal of fiction and non-fiction in film also causes debate as to which has the greater impact on mind and emotion.The film Rabbit Proof Fence made in 2002 and directed by Phillip Noyce, had viewers compelled in the story of three aboriginal women and the desperate journey of survival they endured after capture, then escape.
A story all the more remarkable, because it is non-fiction. The film, based on a true story from the book by Doris Pilkington, documents her mother’s (Molly Craig) difficulties as she was trying to get back home from the Moore River Native Settlement with her sister Daisy and her cousin Gracie in the year 1931.Molly led her sister and cousin on an extraordinary 1600 kilometre walk across remote Western Australia. If this was written as a fictional storyline, it would have come across as unbelievable, some might say outlandish. Unfortunately, for the characters, this was all too real as Molly, Gracie and Daisy did experience these horrible hardships and so, this piece of non-fiction text, as unbelievable and outlandish the storyline may appear to some, because of the nature and truth of the struggle, has a greater effect on mind and emotion.
It is a marvellous and dramatic film hat has made people celebrate courage and the resilience of the human heart. At that time, Mr. A. O.
Neville was the Chief Protector of Aborigines and the legal guardian of every Aborigine in the state of Western Australia. He had the power, “to remove any half-caste child” from their family, from anywhere within the state. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families throughout Australia until 1970. Molly and the 2 girls escaped the captivity of a government institution for Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families.
Barefoot, without provisions or maps, tracked by Native Police and search plane, the girls followed the rabbit-proof-fence, knowing that it will lead them home. When Molly arrived back home, she married and had 2 daughters; one who is the author of this book and one who was taken to a camp and never seen again. Such stories of bravery of the human spirit are made more engaging when they are conveyed through non-fiction because of the connection through experience and reality.The issue of the Stolen Generation, a real-life situation, involves the viewer in a more connected way due to the nature of the subject matter and also due to the fact that what these three brave aboriginal women went through was real. Reading a piece of non-fiction, is more engrossing than reading fiction as non-fiction is fact, there are no hidden truths, no half-truths, everything canvassed has taken place, whereas writing fiction is the art of lying in an entertaining way.As mentioned earlier, fiction has a way of tantalising the mind and emotions of many readers but it lacks the integrity of non-fiction, regardless of how many plots, characters and settings are incorporated.
When you read fiction books, you’re basically being open to the imagination of a particular person, but when you read non-fiction books, you’re imagination is tempered by reality. The real world is a far more interesting place than the make believe world of someone else’s fantasy.
