Why is fiction more important to people than truth?

Answer 1

Kinda expanding on Hot_Asian_Girl's answer, people like fiction because it's controllable, it has definative answers but at the same time it can be interpretive. What I mean by that is that when you get excited over next week's episode, or the next part in a continuing saga before it gets here, you are in anticipation, which people simply don't feel when it comes to tomorrow (most people). The reason why is simple, because it is controlled, the author will reveal to us what happens, where as with reality, it will happen whether we like it or not. We can also find answers in fiction, the author (or script writer, director, etc.) was trying to tell us something, and here it is. In addition, while not truly contradictory to it, fiction can personally touch us, and we can share our different experiences with one another about that, what a poem meant to us, what the heroines ordeal meant to us individually, and it won't be wrong, because it's an answer based on who you are, and what was going through your head as you read/watched/listened to it. You can discuss and dissect it in search of truth, where as reality is so complicated, that we can feel its so overwhelming no one has the correct answer, and anyone that does seem to be right, we find out was wrong, that we can become disillusioned by following false prophets over and over again, but there is nothing in a book or a movie that is a lie. It's a work of fiction, of fantasy, and since we know it's a lie, it can't harm us or betray us, even if it's allegorical we can move beyond that and enjoy it for sheer entertainment value, and ignore the rest, we can't ignore reality like that.

Answer 2

Although you may see an opposition between "fiction" and "fact," fiction and truth are not opposites. That is why so many people, on reading a good novel, come away with a feeling of satisfaction and "rightness": the initial situation, the characters, the way the action develops, and the outcome give the reader a sense of how the world really is: a sense of reality that is equal in depth and conviction (and validity) to the sense of reality that scientists experience in their work.

Dickens's novel Hard Times satirizes those who consider only the material world to be real. Clearly, if we experience curiosity, fall in love, feel grief, or become embarrassed or ashamed, there is more to life than "facts."

A novel provides us a theater of the imagination in which we broaden our lives as we feel curiosity, love, grief, and so forth, and this empathetic journey into the lives of others is not only absorbing, but can also bring us inspiration, healing, and growth.

Answer 3

That depends on the person....

but for many... "fiction" puts not a single demand up the poor lost soul! They can read fiction based on truth all day long and never have to accept their own truth!

Whereas the "truth" if it relates to their life... well that can actually kill a man!

Answer 4

Speaking as a literature scholar, the best fiction is grounded in truth.

There are many great works of fiction that teach us important lessons as human beings.

Answer 5

well, whatever cause happiness to someone will be more important to him or her than that which causes him or her pain.

so, if someone can't stand reality--which is, sadly, most of us--fiction would be more important.

Answer 6

It's not to me...but maybe some people follow this quote....
"Imagination is more important than knowlege."_albert Einstein.

Answer 7

Fiction leaves room for fantasy, fantasy is creative and gives us the freedom to follow whatever path of thinking we please

Answer 8

It fits in with their view of the world - good or bad

Answer 9

Because it's comfortable