"APO 96225"-Larry Rottman

    People are fickle.  They want to her the truth but then again, they don't want to hear bad news.  Therefore, when the two are one in the same, the human race reaches a dilemma.  Do we want to hear the bad news or is ignorance bliss?  In Rottman's poem, for the soldier's mother ignorance is bliss.  She does want to know that her son is safe, but she does not want to know all the gory details of war.  "And the father wrote right back, 'Please don't write such depressing letters.  You're upsetting your mother.'" (Rottman, 846).  Hence, the son returns to writing letters that are more light in nature for his mother's sake.  People tend to do this almost as second-nature in a social sense.  Someone asks us "what's wrong?", and the answer always tends to be along the lines of "nothing" or "I'm fine".  We present ourselves in a way that undermines the reality to make it easier on other people.  Therefore,  I think this poem has its roots in human nature as opposed to non-fiction.