The Truth About Lying Judith Viorst Summary

Decent Essays
“The Truth about Lying” by Judith Viorst

Summary

In “The Truth About Lying”, the narrator classify s the different kind of lies due to social, peace-keeping, trust-keeping and protective lies. The author explains the reason of lying. Viorst ask her reader’s opinion about those lies after she manifest her own thoughts. At the end of the story, the author concludes that she agrees what her friend said “Others may completely accept the lie I’m telling, I don’t.”
Theme
Judith Viorst wants readers to know the results of lying; although after people told a lie, they have to keep “lying in order to back up the lies that are backing up the lie” (208). The worst thing is the liars have to remember what they said when they lied. An additional effect

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    In the article "The Ways We Lie" the author, Stephanie Ericsson, tells the tale of how frequent individuals lie in our world of today. Hence, she decided then to completely tell the truth for an entire week realizing, lying was somewhat of a natural instinct that many had to do at least once. Furthermore, Stephanie then began to categorize different types of lies in order to justify the reason as to why one would lie in that given type of way. Therefore, she placed lies in categories such as deflecting, white lies, omissions, facades, dismissal, ignoring the plain facts, group think, delusion, and out-and-out lies. In the end, she had gotten fired from her job, added stress to her personal relationship, and hurt others.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This brief and short chapter provides a few rhetorical strategies, beginning with irony. “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth,” and later at the end of the chapter, “"Daddy, tell the truth," Kathleen can say, "did you ever kill anybody?" And I can say, honestly, "Of course not. " Or I can say, honestly, "Yes."…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Telling the truth all the time is nearly infeasible. Stephanie Ericsson’s essay titled, “The Ways We Lie” breaks down the activity of lying into subcategories of the different kinds of lies we tell on a daily basis. In addition, Ericsson’s essay manages to point out the elemental role that lying plays in our lives and our culture. We all lie, whether to abstain from confrontation, spare people’s feelings, conveniently forget, keep secrets, or even to justify our own words and actions. By clarifying the extent into which we all lie, Ericsson insinuates a plethora of ways in which we fib, by listing and describing each lie in its natural element.…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Telling the truth all the time is nearly infeasible. Stephanie Ericsson’s essay titled, “The Ways We Lie” breaks down the activity of lying into subcategories of the different kinds of lies we tell on a daily basis. In addition, Ericsson’s essay manages to point out the elemental role that lying plays in our lives and our culture. We all lie, whether to abstain from confrontation, spare people’s feelings, conveniently forget, keep secrets, or even to justify our own words and actions. By clarifying the extent into which we all lie, Ericsson insinuates an abundance of ways in which we fib, by listing and describing each lie in its natural element.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nation of Lies Why do we lie to others, but expect others to be honest with us? Today in society, lies have embodied the lives of many to the point where it has become a natural part of our lifestyle. Lying has become a natural habit for us, it has become a factor in how we carry out our lives. Whether we may have lied in consideration of how others may feel, or if it was because we did not want to carry out something we were assigned, lying has become so natural to us that we cannot distinguish it from what the truth really is. Lying has become a cultural cancer, as Stephanie Ericsson states in her essay, “The Ways We Lie”, that we have come to the point where we accepted it into our society.…

    • 1360 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lies In The Great Gatsby

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Lies can be associated to anything of any allegiance. They can contrast from small accusations such blaming your dog on lost homework to being busted for having forged a fake diploma. Lies often leave behind a negative effect in the end because the listener will eventually find out. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, the main character wraps himself in lies in an attempt to paint himself in his perspective of perfection causing his gradual and inevitable downfall.…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    And we wonder why we are dissatisfied with lies we inhale like so many pastries: a promise of a happier ending in the story we tell ourselves, to convince ourselves, and we believe everything. Everything was an almost until you did it, until you signed the paper contract that sealed it, and no one felt confident until someone believed it in their importance although we’ve all received it, and hold it at an arm’s length unsure of why we need it because…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most evil people in the world are described as being liars, but does this does not make all lies evil. Everyone lies and surely not everyone in the world is evil. Most people begin to lie at age four, but no one would call an innocent child evil. Many people would argue that people lie because they solely want to be deceitful, but not all lies are as simple as that. Stephanie Ericsson in The Ways We Lie discusses many different types of lies, and why people tell these types of lies.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the war zone, dishonesty becomes important in order to reach one’s goals. People there try to lie so many times so that it becomes a habit that they tend to lie carefully under all circumstances. For example, La Teresa as “a pro” (146) according to Grant is good at lying. She is able to tell “a (not) obvious lie” (146) to the lieutenant while hiding the fact that she is…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people's feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets... Sure I lie, but it doesn't hurt anything, or does it?" (Ericsson, 1992, p, 159). There are certain types of lies in the world that can make us or break us.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson she discusses and breaks down the activity of lying into different kinds of lies. Ericsson goes into great detail of about 10 of them, but there are many more. Some lies are for your peace of mind and maybe still bad for both parties, and some are for the better of someone else’s feelings. Ericsson believes that even if you feel you are perfect, nobody is and still tell lies no matter big or small, we do it and at times are unaware that it is considered a lie. Individuals nowadays get to a point where they are lying and don’t know whether to believe themselves or others.…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although, lying can be used to disclose something with a positive outcome; to give someone a delightful surprise, however most of the time lying never has a positive outcome. In The Girl on the Train, author Paula Hawkins, exposes the reader to the ways lying impacts someone’s communication, creates distance, clouds the truth, forms obstacles and the way which it breaks up multiple relationships. Instead of using lying in a malicious way, it can be used to happily surprise someone. In this way, we can eliminate the negative uses of lying, and increase the positive aspects of it so people are not negatively affected by…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dunbar, Norah E., Katlyn Gangi, Samantha Coveleski, Aubrie Adams, Quinten Bernhold, and Howard Giles. 2016. “When Is it Acceptable to Lie? Interpersonal and Intergroup Perspectives on Deception.” Communication Studies 67 (2): 129-146. doi: 10.1080110510974.2016.1146911.…

    • 1737 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Academic Dishonesty “Lying is a basic human reaction, and this is the class where we study it.” Dr. Renholds pauses. “We lie to keep people safe from nasty truths; just like when your Daddy told you that Fifi went to live on a farm upstate. We call these lies White Lies, and for the most part they are harmless. We use them to maintain the status quo of our lives and emotions.”…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Today people believe that the only way to get out of their daily duties is to lie. Lying is a lie or a false statement that was told to a stranger, a friend, a co-worker, or a family member, and it could be big nor little. Lying can decide who a person is, and it could affect their reputation, their own trust, it's very addictive, and they could end a relationship. In "The Lie," the main character, Lonnie, told a lie to his boss to get time off work, and have time to himself. This certain lie has people wondering, what will this lie do, why was this certain lie told, and had this affected his relationship with his wife, Clover? Lonnie had made up a certain lie about his daughter, she was born nine months ago, and he lied about her health, and that she died later.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays