In creative nonfiction, a writer may philosophize and add insight, telling a reader what the scenes and stories being so vividly chronicled and re-created mean both to the writer and to the world. This reflection is not mandated; scenes often speak for themselves. But in creative nonfiction a writer may step away from a narrative for a short time to ponder the meaning of a scene or to help readers understand the essence of the story being told.
John Edgar Wideman’s essay “Looking at Emmett Till” tells the story of Till’s murder—he was kidnapped by a group of angry white men in 1955 in Mississippi—and describes the impact of the event on Wideman’s life. We learn in the essay that as a teenager in Pittsburgh, Wideman, who was the same age as Till, saw photographs of Till’s body in Jet. The photographs and the murder have haunted him ever since, and even as an adult, he tells us, he periodically experiences shockingly vivid and frightening dreams in which he is being chased by a monster whose face he “can’t bear to look upon,” a face he has come to believe is Till’s.
Midway through the essay, Wideman postulates that Till’s murder “was an attempt to slay an entire generation. Push us backward to the bad old days when our lives seemed not to belong to us. When white power and racism seemed unchallengeable forces of nature, when inferiority and subserviency appeared to be our birthright, when black lives seemed cheap and expendable, when the grossest insults to pride and person, up to and including murder, had to be endured.”
Here Wideman pauses to reflect, to add context and meaning, and to share his ideas about the symbolic impact of Till’s assassination. He adds information and connects Till to the present-day murder of James Byrd in Texas, which, he says, reminds us “that the bad old days are never farther away than the thickness of skin, skin some people still claim the prerogative to burn or cut or shoot full of holes if it is dark skin.”
Reflection relates to focus; a writer must stay on point. And reflection is not merely an opportunity for writers to editorialize. It is not exactly the writer’s opinion the reader is seeking; rather, the reader wants to be able to understand and appreciate the ramifications of the narrative and the information embedded in it. If the writer can then help readers think more about the substance of the story, thereby making it more universal, reflection will enrich the reading experience.