The Instant of My Death/Demure

One thing that stuck out to me in Blanchot's story and Derrida's analysis was the nature of fiction as a whole because when one thinks about fiction, the basic implication is that it’s something made up, a story about characters that never existed. Writing fictional novels or stories gives the author the ability to be more flexible because, simply put, if he or she wants to add or subtract something it’s easy to do since the story isn’t real. However, fiction doesn’t necessarily mean fake. Sure, there are plenty of things that are “based on a true story,” but what about when a work of fiction isn’t just based on a true story, but is a totally true story by itself, is it really still fiction? The Instant of My Death seems to be a work of pure fiction about a young boy that manages to escape death during WWII. Although there wasn’t really any boy and nothing in the story actually happened Derrida mentions in Demeure that Blanchot, his friend, once told him about a real life situation that inspired the story. If a story is written as a way to represent real events, then, in a way, it blends the line between fiction and non-fiction. This is a fairly common occurrence showing that just because something may fall under the category of fiction, doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t true.