Essay, Fiction, Truth, Troth

This chapter explores the relationship between the essay and the world. To do so, it problematizes one of the very few generally agreed upon definitions or categorizations of the essay: its being classifiable as a form of nonfiction. Childs argues that thinking of the essay as ‘nonfiction’ is paradoxical in view of another frequently identified characteristic of the essay, its indeterminacy. Childs thus proposes thinking of the essay in terms of the ‘as if’, a way of conceiving writing that we tend to associate with fiction. However, for Childs, relating the ‘as if’ – whether in the essay or in that which we unproblematically associate with fiction, like the novel – is not to be understood in terms of something ‘sealed off’ from ‘the real world’ but as something central to ‘human thought and knowledge’ and thus fundamental to the world.