Cross Creek: The Representation of Truth

The simplest way to challenge notions of classic realism in Cross Creek is to refer to the notion of mediation: in other words, any act by Rawlings to recount her memories involves choice and selection, a version of the world, not the world itself. Through this window Rawlings presents a world that is framed, lit, and dressed in ways that impose creative choice on the reader's impression of external reality. Furthermore, we must understand that experience cannot be recaptured. Experience is studied but not presented as the "truth." In such a discourse we can infer that fantasy is the means of exploring what is beyond reality. Memory and experience recreate the fleeting qualities of our existence in such a way that life becomes a phenomenon, and, for us, the text is the transformation of these qualities into an accessible medium. As the text frames its own reality, the "fantastic" is thus an extension of every day life. When this knowledge is applied using the realist form, literary creations become metaphoric structures of a multifaceted representation-experience and memory work together to represent far more subjective and complete detail than the time that passes.

Rawlings's Cross Creek fits these two modes: it is a story that is told from her experience (it cannot be recaptured) and a story that employs her memory (which is subjectively biased, as she explains). Thus, her memoirs are prone to manifest more detail than one would find at the time she presents. Rawlings's logic is recounted in the work: "I have used a factual background for most of my tales, and of actual people a blend of the true and the imagined. I myself cannot quite tell where the one ends and the other begins." The composition of Cross Creek, written so long after the events she presents, gives her time to assimilate her experiences. Time gives her the choice to make a selection on what to tell and how to tell it-to develop her mediative strategies. These are all factors we must consider before doing a reading of Cross Creek and asking ourselves if it represents the ultimate truth.

--Daniel Freire