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It's tempting, almost instinctual, to call Sister Ursula’s writings in Richard Russo's "The Whore‘s Child" the subplot of the short story. Yet her submissions to the college writing class take center stage, with the comments by her professor, her classmates, and herself serving as their frames subordinate to this story is that of the unnamed professor, her comforter and parallel. The subplot of the professor (who is also the narrator) provides more commentary on such topics as truth vs lies, deception of the self, and deception of others. When the professor first speaks to Ursula, both reveal part of their views of deception: the former says that all storytellers are liars while Ursula assures him that her "whole life has been a lie" Ursula's statement, of course, is truer than she knows; she may originally mean it in the context of her convent‘s open cruelty despite its caring visage, but by the end, she sees that her father was not who he seemed.
Because she tells the story in ignorance, she tells, as the narration describes it, a "willful lie," showing self-deception.
Let's return to the professor's statement and story His belief that lying is a sort of 'way of the world‘ continues even in his quips (”I'm sure you don't mean that," "l was bitten by a nun as a child").
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“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”
He himself, by having an affair, attempts a silent lie of continued devotion to his wife His subplot shows a pattern of outward, fully-conscious deception that pervades the way he interacts with everyone, so much so that it becomes his truth as a writer, for whom lying, he says, is a way of getting at not ”our own truth" but ”the truth." At least, this is one interpretation, Could it be that "the truth" is what is and has been real, and that only by writing can one discover what really happens - as is the case with Sister Ursula's story?
Truth, Lies & Deception in Richard Russo's The Whores Child. (2023, Feb 21). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/truth-versus-lies-deception-of-the-self-and-deception-of-others-in-the-whore-s-child-a-short-story-collection-by-richard-russo-essay
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