In class these past two weeks we’ve discussed “Voices of the Chicago Eight” and “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine”, two works with many similarities. While most of our discussions have revolved around the relatability we might feel as college students with the Chicago Eight or the differences in how the judges held the trials, we only briefly touched on the reliablity of the narratives. Importantly, neither of them is a complete transcript of the court proceedings. “Voices of the Chicago Eight” is a sampling of the most exciting moments in the courtroom (but maintaining the exact words used in the court transcript), while it appears that “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine” takes more liberties to paraphrase the court transcript and inject additional content.
I think it’s worth stressing that neither of these being unedited court transcripts should change the way we are interpreting and discussing them. In class when we have discussed Vinen, it made sense to regard everything in the book as true, and we even were willing to meet it with some degree of skepticism, acknowledging that his personal biases might have detracted from its reliability. As we have read numerous fiction works, we’ve always been heavily aware of the fact that the books are only based on historical fact, being careful to never accept them as the truth. I feel that in our reading of these two plays, we have not met them with the appropriate hesitation. The moments Tom Hayden decided to include in “Voices of the Chicago Eight” (and perhaps even more importantly, those he chose to omit) surely provide us with a different picture of history than reading the entire unedited court transcript would. The same principle can be applied to the Cantonsville Nine, except it should be met with an even greater caution due to the greater liberties taken in adjusting the court transcript
I think we have a tendency to put excessive trust in literature the closer it gets to being an exact recounting of primary source history. However, there is incredible danger in this. Even little editorial changes in the literature of this variety have the potential to sway the opinion of the reader who has let down their guard and meets the text without any skepticism. It’s very possible that Tom Hayden and Philip Berrigan have portrayed history in a very accurate way, but as we discuss this literature it is crucial to discuss it as what it is, literature and not precise history.
As I was reading your post, I really resonated with your idea that we can’t trust these authors’ writings about the time and experiences that they had as being 100% factual because there can be so much bias and influence of the author’s personal experiences/beliefs on their writing. This came up for me when reading the Voices of the Chicago Eight because something that I thought when reading the play was whether the trial was actually as crazy and theatrical as Hayden portrayed it to be. While we can all agree that the trial had very theatrical elements, just how much of the bland, typical court jargon and proceedings were omitted? How much of the trial was actually filled with “boring” things? I don’t know much about the trial and so as I was reading I kept wondering if what Hayden was presenting was the fullest picture of reality and what actually happened during the trial or whether the trial wasn’t actually as crazy as we think it to be. I’m sure that with proper research I would be able to figure out just how much of the trial was “normal”, but I have realized that it is important to constantly analyze just how reliable/biased a source can be and how to make sure to use resources to get the fullest picture of the situation and time.
I agree with your point about there being a danger in believing literature as history. Many times while reading the two plays I had to remind myself that although the authors of both Voices of the Chicago Eight and Trial of the Catonsville Nine were a part of their respective trials, the transcripts in the plays were not 100% fact and history.
However, I disagree with your comment about The Trial of Catonsville Nine being more paraphrased or less factual to history compared to the Voices of the Chicago Eight. I think that due to the comical and chaotic nature of the trial of the Chicago Eight, there was more editing of the actual transcripts that Hayden had to do to make it a cohesive play. It seems as though Hayden omitted all the civilized parts of the trial and left all the exciting parts of the trial for entertainment purposes. But again, I do not actually know what facts Hayden chose to omit in his play. Additionally, the fact that half of the Voices of the Chicago Eight is the trial, and the other half is Hayden’s personal monologue, made me more skeptical of what to believe because it was purely his opinion and memories, which are not always reliable. It seems because The Trial of Catonsville Nine was much more civilized, there was less editing for Berrigan to do.