An excerpt from โJohn Proctor is the Villainโ by Kimberly Belflower.
SHELBY
I mean that's not really how you phrased it to me but okay
so anyway
it's like
your name was made up
your ancestors were like
"ooh there are a bunch of blacksmiths in our family, better call ourselves Smith"
like that's what names are they're fiction
but my body is a fact I live inside of it
MR. SMITH.
were going to have to wrap up this point pretty soon, Miss Holcomb if you could please bring it back to the tex!?
SHELBY.
Abigail was a human being
she like
she existed
that's a fact
but John Proctor is just obsessed with this made-up thing
BETH.
yeah but
his name stood for a lot more
it's like
his reputation
his honor
STUDENT (or IVY).
and Abigail's been trying the whole play to like ruin him
NELL.
nope
he made choices
SHELBY.
exactly!
but hes just pretending like
I dunno like
his fiction is more important than her fact?
Narrative has the power to acquire historical authority on an event. Facts, may tell us what happened, yet narrative determines what those facts come to mean. A fact can exist without being believed, remembered, or understood- meanwhile, a narrative can provide an interpretation of the weight of the truth. The two simply exist in a parasitic bond with one another, each gaining power at the expense of the other. The great tragedy of John Proctor is how deeply he invested his sense of self in maintaining a particular story about who he is. His name becomes a construction he is willing to protect, under the circumstance of hurting another person.
I think one of the many powers of Belflowerโs play lies in the question it poses: Who gets to decide what becomes the truth: the facts themselves, or the story we tell about them? More-so, how do we interact with truth in our day to day lives?
We are all storytellers, governed by the need to make sense of what we cannot control. We intellectualize and curate elaborate narratives to make the incomprehensible bearable, to soothe ourselves from what we would rather avoid. Honesty only exists when the narrative falls, and we are left with the difficult fact of: what we felt, what we said, and what we did.
Simon Martin
AI disclaimer: AI is only used to correct my terrible spelling and grammar.