Research Paper on:
Relationship Between Truth and History

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the events of art cant reach us with the same emphasis - and only the best art can break through. This is particularly true in fiction, although sometimes outstanding narratives  can help clarify historical points or gives us a glimpse into the news of the day in which theyre based. J.M. Coetzees  novel Disgrace fits into this category (Coetzee, in fact, won the prestigious Booker Prize for the novel), setting fiction against the reality of the struggles of post-Apartheid Africa. By the  same token, Caryl Churchills play, Cloud Nine, also presents something of the flair of the mores of 19th century England, although her backdrops and presentations were someone more abstract and  artistic than were Coetzees in his novel. What this paper will attempt to do is to prove that Ondaatjes belief was right - that while hard reality makes it into  news stories, only outstanding art can teach us something about history. Well demonstrate this by discussing how Coetzee and Churchill have managed to paint of picture of the times in  which their stories were based, although their works are fiction. Well start first with Coetzee and Disgrace. Set in post-Apartheid South Africa  (which could mean anytime between the early 1990s and today, Coetzees "spare" novel (as some critics have called it) concerns David Lurie, a twice-divorced, 52-year-old white professor of communications and  Romantic Poetry at Cape Technical University (Penguin Putman). Coetzee first paints a picture of a man who is slowly moving into a mid-life crisis - while he considers himself "happy"  (through his teaching and his weekly visits to a prostitute), he turns his life inside out with the perusal of one of his students, Melanie (Penguin Putman). He pursues her,