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The Power Of Fiction In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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The Power of Fiction in The Things They Carried
Tim O’Brien, a veteran of The Vietnam War, and his experience has provided the literary world with a book called The Things They Carried. The book was written with a specific focus on the truths and false-truths of the Vietnam War and the stories that follow. These truths tied into untruths are continually highlighted by multiple uses of hyperbole seen throughout O’Brien’s short stories. This reveals the stories to be lies, but lies with the purpose to tell a story with a meaning that is backed by truth, the true feelings of the soldiers, displayed as a means of experience for readers. Tim O’Brien intends to pull the readers from truth as a way to help readers fully understand the real feelings that the perilous war created. Showing the creation of a new reality through his style of fictional storytelling-- soldiers thoughts being the truth-- rather than telling the facts of war is because the facts are not efficient in displaying trauma. Whereas, fiction is the most powerful way to expose the truth to an audience because to live sanely in the war, a new reality had to be looked through. As a result Tim O 'Brien 's fictional stories provide us with a lens, giving readers a way to see the same reality as the soldiers did while also bestowing the opportunity to experience rather than listen.
Throughout, Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories in the book The Things They Carried, Tim forces readers to question whether these

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