The biggest question that everyone has been asking after this play is “What is real versus what is fiction?” Honestly, I’m not quite sure how to answer that. If I were to guess the intentions of the author, I would say that the events that transpired were real in the context of the play. The boy did shoot himself. The girl did drown. No one was really ever the same since. The characters may have known their stories, but I believe that they became a reality once the stories were actually told.
However, I really think that we are asking ourselves the wrong question. Instead of wondering what is reality and what is fiction, I strongly believe that we should be asking ourselves to define the difference between the two. What makes something real versus made up?
The way that I see it is that characters on a stage are brought to life. They are living and breathing with complex thoughts and hopes and dreams and a story, just like anyone else in the world. The only real difference between them and us is that they can only be brought to life through an actor while we don’t need any of those crutches to live out our own stories.
The question that I would most like to pose is just because something is a work of fiction, why can’t it also be real?
Hi Jillian,
I think what makes something real versus made up is all a matter of the perspective of the person answering this question. I think we all have a choice of how to define such abstract concepts as ‘reality’ or ‘fiction’ and thus, it is perfectly acceptable for one person to believe the characters are ‘real’ (whatever being ‘real’ means to that person) and for another person to believe the characters are totally made up. In this scope of abstractness, I say: anything goes. So, believe what you wish, but have a workable definition to base your beliefs on.