Academics
Discovering the truth in fiction
Mary Gibbons '08, English major and
Dr. John McDonald, Professor of English
Undaunted by the slippery question of what’s fact and what’s fiction in literature today, Mary Gibbons, spending her summer examining where fact and fiction merge in the writings of J.M.Coetze and Virginia Woolf. Gibbons has been awarded a $3,000 Provost Grant to pursue the literary study under the direction of Dr. John McDonald, professor of English.
Gibbons is examining the fiction of J.M Coetze, through his novels Elizabeth Costello and Disgrace, in light of the non-fiction work A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. She is looking at claims of truthfulness made in the fictional works and at how they might differ from claims made in non-fiction. She is discovering that, contrary to expectation, there is truth in fiction and fiction in so-called truthful accounts.
“I’m interested in the mix of fact and fiction as a way to avoid the more emphatic claims that demand you believe a particular thing,” Gibbons said. “I just discovered Coetze, and I’m frantically reading everything he wrote,” she added. She hopes to publish an article on her research in a scholarly journal. Much of it is already written, she said, and is currently titled, “Claims to Truth.”
Gibbons plans to go to graduate school after finishing Saint Michael’s in May 2008. In the meantime, she will be studying abroad in the fall at Oxford University. She also finds time for sports and service. She is a runner on the varsity cross-country team, and she volunteers with the MOVE (Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts) program.