Testimony and Fiction

Stephanie Stagg


A testimony is evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something that claims to convey the truth. Fiction is the invention or fabrication as opposed to a fact. In Fiction and Testimony Jaques Derrida argues that testimony and fiction are indeed linked. A testimony has to be proven true and until proven it can be considered fiction. Derrida states that there is “no testimony that does not structurally imply in itself the possibility of fiction” (29). The possibility of a lie allows a testimony to take place if not there would just be proof and a testimony would be irrelevant.

Derrida argues that Maurice Blanchot, The Instant of My Death can be regarded as testimonial evidence, which can be considered as fiction, but not yet proven. Derrida argues, when one deals with a false testimony, or fiction, the event has not actually been experience. The death, that the narrative describes, has taken place even if it “did not take place in what is commonly called reality” (92). The death experienced by the young man as something that “had already arrived, had already been decided, decreed” (52), In Blanchot’s text the young man was not killed thus the death did not take place. But the young man had an encounter with death so in this case the death has taken place, and he is able to testify to it.

It was Interesting to read the detail analysis Derrida took of Blanchot’s, The Instant of My Death, and the comparison between testimony and fiction. Testimony has evidence but no actual proof then there is room for fiction in the testimony until proven a fact.