Truth
Truth is the most sought virtue in society. People trusts individuals who they believe to be truthful. Even in workplaces, employees who are always believed to say the truth is entrusted with higher positions. Departments such as finance are sensitive, and therefore, truthful people are ever put in charge of such departments. The issues of corruption that we have heard of for many decades occurs because of lack of truth among the perpetrators. In courts, both the plaintiff and the accused are required to say the truth in order judges to rule out the verdict. So the truth is such an important factor that the society needs to uphold for peaceful co-existence. However, in some cases, an individual may tell the truth, but people do not believe. Psychological perceptions and evidence play a significant role in telling whether a person is truthful or not. In “How to tell a true story” and “Allowables” truth is explored in depth.
Rat in “How to tell a true story” wrote a letter to the sister of a deceased friend explaining how good the guy was in their interactions before his death. Rat explained that the deceased was such a good friend he had ever met. “Then he tells a few stories to make the point, how her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else would always volunteer for in a million years…” (O’Brien 67). Rat observed truth in the deceased from how he dedicated himself to his work. He would engage in dangerous activities that would cost his life not because he wanted to benefit in any way but for the betterment of others. Most of these activities were volunteer, and the deceased chose to volunteer himself. Rat described him as a “number one pal and comrade” (O’Brien 67) many of us have friends. However, we categorized them based on how we have observed them. Those whom we have proved to be truthful are our best friends.
Everything that is done in truth brings a sense of happiness, but those involving falsehood is detrimental to any relationship. Rat said that “the war seem almost fun” (O’Brien 68), this because of the deceased’s dedication and truth. Strong friendships exist where truth prevails, and in most of the activities that people do, true friendship is requisite for self-preservation. For instance, soldiers in war, truth is an important virtue since it is a matter of life and death. In case an individual whom ones think he is a friend does not uphold truth, then his life is in danger because he might not signal you when he sees an enemy approaching. Rat says, “Pretty nutso sometimes, but you could trust him with your life” (O’Brien 68). This shows the extent of truth the deceased upholds making Rat see him as the trustworthy individual whom he believed that he could not fail him whatsoever.
The death of his true friend was like a nightmare to Rat. He says, somebody, he would find it difficult to lose, “he loved the guy, and he was his best friend in the world” (O’Brien 68). Rat poured his heart in writing the letter explaining who the deceased was such a good person who he enjoyed every interaction together. He promised to visit her when the war ends. This is because he had become emotionally attached to the deceased that he felt a sense of belonging to his family, and therefore, he felt that visiting his sister would be an honour to him. True friendship is seen in the lives of Rat and the deceased, the fact that Rat wrote the letter to her sister shows he missed his friend a great deal. However, when the sister to the deceased received the letter, she did not reply, making Rat suffer the more since he had told her the truth, but she could not believe it.
The fact that Curt’s sister did not reply to the letter from Rat is an indication that truth may not be believed sometimes. Many at times, we have told the truth about something but only to find that they are taken to be false. This is detrimental to any relationship because, in your mind, you know that you are speaking the truth, but the recipient claims that your sentiments are false. For Rat, she was disturbed by the action of Curt’s sister for not replying the text he knew that he wrote the truth about Curt Lemon. “In any war story, but especially a true one, it is difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (O’Brien 71). War story is interesting whenever it leads to victory; however, when talking to a family that lost a beloved in a way about what happened to lead to his/her death is usually difficult. This is because they find it difficult to believe.
There is power in truth. In “Allowables” we see that a speaker is confessing to killing a spider, “I killed a spider” (Giovani 1). After the speaker had admitted the violent act, he found peace within himself. The speaker killed the spider because it scared him; however, that should not be the case. The truth in this matter is that we do not have a right to take the life of anything that scares us. In the colonial period in America, police used to kill blacks because they were different from them. Their colour sacred them, however, when the civil rights movement had managed to create equality in America, the whites, admitted that it was not right to take away the lives of the blacks because they were different from them. Truth justifies us to take action that would benefit both parties involved in any conflict. The truth could have justified the speaker from not killing the spider since it resulted in its loss.
Truth manifests itself in our actions. Rat and Curt Lemon were great friends. The virtue of truth built Their friendship. Rat revealed that Curt was such a good friend that he could entrust his life. His death pained him as he thought that he would not find another great friend like him. Rat loved Curt because he could volunteer in activities that seemed very dangerous. When Curt died, Rat took the responsibility to explain the truth to his sister of how the death occurred. However, Curt’s sister did not reply to the text. This angered Rat since he had written a true story about his death. To him, since everything he wrote was true, he was justified to get a reply. In the “Allowables” the speaker came to terms with the truth when he had already killed the spider. He admitted that he should not have killed it because it had scared it and the truth of the matter is that no one has the right to take the life of something because it is scary.