Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way we …show more content…
From there, we used Napalm left and right as a method of crowd control. O’Brien alludes to the fire and damage as entertainment in “How to Tell a True War Story” stating “it’s all fire. They make those mountains burn” (71). The lives of the dead are normally not a spectacle, but to Tim that is exactly what it has become. If death really is a manifestation of entertainment to him now, then it is a drastic shift in his “cowardly” personality. Even today, we have veterans from many wars terrified of fireworks for their similarity to gunshots and explosions. Sgt. Matthew Thomason, a veteran of the Afghanistan war states, “[I] got used to falling asleep to the lullaby of gunfire…could tell what kind of weapon was being fired just from the sound” (Military). We see that O’Brien’s mental state was one actually found in the battlefields. Amusements are both questionable, and fluid in their definitions. Horrors to some, become normal to …show more content…
In The Things They Carried, O’Brien’s story-telling method is an attempt to show that the lines between fiction and reality are often not that far. Even though the names or details may not be fully accurate, this does not change the fact that they are a reality for many. Additionally, he challenges the importance that we place on war and links it to a storytelling aspect because he’s pointing out that not every story has a moral to it. With tragic events, we typically want some sort of meaning behind them, some sort of assurance that the incident was not for nothing. However, this is not always true, as a character “Yeah, well…I don’t see no moral”…“There it is man”. (O’Brien 13). The former is a response to acknowledging a soldier’s death, and the latter is another character’s refusal to believe it was for no reason. One may feel lost without meaning and modify their story to have one. It’s typical to want a great story to tell, something that captures attention. It’s also normal to cope with our problems by telling slightly modified version of stories, like Tim O’Brien
War-caused distractions, misinterpreted reality and limited control due to the human condition appear frequently throughout the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien, as a narrator describes his struggle with storytelling during and after the war. The constant challenge to determine reality versus personal perception arises in his memory. Some uncontrollable factors associated with recalling events include imaginative interference and uncertainty resulting from the human condition. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, telling story-truth, rather than happening-truth, is necessary, as no replica can be as genuine as the original.
The soldiers’ experiences serve as a coping mechanism and as a way to honor the men who served. One of these men, Norman Bowker, who was struggling with Kiowa’s death and its affect on him, asked O’Brien to write a story about it. As O’Brien contemplates the memories and the task of depicting this event, he wavers between the significance of writing the factual or the emotional truth, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate if from yourself. You pin down certain truths.
Tim O’Brien’s definition of a true war story is not at all about war but the embarrassment, love, memory and sorrow. In the novel, The Things They Carried, a series of war stories about the Vietnam War, the author Tim O’Brien supplies a definition of a true war story. He states, “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone. Not my parents, not my brother or sister, not even to my wife.
Although Tim O’Brien was against the war, he was still there to support his the other soldiers. One example of this was how after Kiowa was killed, the rest of the platoon paid respect to him. “The men stood quietly for a few seconds. There was a feeling of awe. Mitchell Sanders finally nodded and said, ‘Let’s get it done’, and they took hold of the legs and pulled up hard, then pulled again, and after a moment, Kiowa cam sliding to the surface,” (167).
Tim O’Brien’s incredible work, The Things They Carried, depicts the gruesome story of the Vietnam war, and gives surreal accounts of the events that took place. However, O’Brien does not do so not through concrete facts, but instead through fictional storytelling. O’Brien believes that the facts of war are not what matters in determining truth, but instead that a “true war story” moves the reader, allowing them to feel and understand the experiences of the soldiers who lived it. In the chapter titled “Good Form” O’Brien admits that the only truth to his story is that he was a foot soldier in Vietnam at the time of the war, and that everything else written “is invented.” However, in this chapter O’Brien also explains his reasoning behind using
His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole. I killed him” (O’Brien 172). The purpose of a story-truth is to make his readers see what he saw, his memory, and whichever truth is told alters the answers to questions. Without them, there would almost be no point in asking questions, because there would be no truth to tell, all memories would be a
Over two million people lost their life to the Vietnam War. Two million, wives,husbands, mothers, fathers, children, and siblings gone; and what do we have to show for it. The Novel, “The Things They Carried” is written by, Tim O’Brien. The book takes place in the vietnam war and shares some stories of the brutal and hard times the narrator and his platoon went through, and the even harder battles they will face after they’re home “safe”. I have picked out two characters that stood out because they relate to our topics, “Families Bring Comfort and Conflict”, and “Defining Moments and Finding My Way.”
The book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’brien shows us how a true war story should be told. This book follows a platoon of soldiers fighting in The Vietnam War and reveals the truth about war through their struggles. O’brien argues that “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it.
Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.
The Power of fiction in The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien is a veteran of The Vietnam War and his experience has provided the literary world with a book called The Things They Carried. This book was written with a special focus on the truths and untruths of the war and the stories that follow. These truths tied into untruths are continually highlighted throughout most of the short stories integrated into this book by multiple uses of hyperbole showing the stories as lies, this is an attempt to tell a story for meaning, displaying the feelings of the soldiers as a means of experience for the readers. This confusion forces the readers to stray from reality causing a further understanding of the real feelings that the perilous war created, showing
Rat Kiley weeps after these events unfold. After witnessing this O’Brien describes war as “hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.”
The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, written by Steven Kaplan, questions if there is any sense or meaning derived from what happened during the Vietnam War and how that could be conveyed to those who have not experienced the war. Literary critic, Philip Beider’s, writes “most of the time in Vietnam, there are some things that seemed just too terrible and strange to be true and others that were just too terrible and true to be strange. ”(American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam 4). Kaplan believes that by destroying the fine line between fact and fiction, fiction can often sound truer being, presented as meaningful.
War was so much more than just war to O’Brien and he able to share this through his writing. " But this is true: stories can save us. ... in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (page
O’Brien goes into great depth in this small quote on how loss of innocence and war can affect people in the war. The quote “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t” shows how war is so different from what any human experiences at home. After that small quote he follows it up by bringing up how you have to use normal stuff to show how crazy these things are and how much of a pole it can have on somebody during a war. The way that war is treated for many is mostly the mental part that is struggling. But for many "War is hell, but that's not half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love.
Author Information The author, Tim O'Brien served in the United States military from 1968 to 1970, during the Vietnam War. The unit he served in was involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre. When his unit moved to the area of the massacre the place was very hostile to him and and his unit. According to him, the book The Things They Carried had a contrast between what was really happening, and the story part of the event. He is considered to write stories using Verisimilitude, the blur between fiction and reality in philosophical terms.