Actuality In Tim OBrien's The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, is about several short stories following O’Brien and his squadron in the Vietnam War. In the book, theme of truth gets brought up frequently. Specifically, the book delves into the difference between “happening-truth” and “story-truth”. O’Brien elaborates that “happening-truth” is about the legitimate feelings and emotions felt by those that was apart of the event while, in contrast, the “story truth” is the objective truth of what had actually happened. This theme gets alluded to in multiple places throughout the book. It is referenced when O’Brien mentions how he made up some details of Curt Lemon’s death, when he admits to not actually killing a man near My Khe, and the way the soldiers cope

The first three words of the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” are, “This is true” (67). Although Tim O’Brien begins this chapter with such a bold and clear statement, throughout the chapter he has the reader thinking and confused when he contradicts himself by stating things such as, “In many cases a true war story cannot

     In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien explores the relationship between the events during a war and the art of telling those events. O’Brien doesn’t come to a conclusion on what is a true war story. He writes that one can’t generalize the story as well. According to O’Brien, war can be anything from love and beauty to the most horrid

O’Brien knows this. He does not shy away from long, thoughtful passages that explain the basic realities of battlefield life. Look at In the Field, when Jimmy Cross tries to think of what precisely caused Kiowa’s death. “You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going into it... In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever” (O’Brien 169). This passage articulates the immediacy and constant danger of war. Every moment, every river or rainstorm could mean death. That is what Lamott might call “meat-and-potato truth” to the soldiers. A concept so poignant can easily transcend words, and if O’Brien had had any reluctance to delve so deeply into how the Lieutenant thinks, it could have been lost in translation. Only through O’Brien’s intimate musing comes a shadow of enormous reality, the “meat-and-potato

O’Brien’s unification of fact and fiction is to illustrate the idea in which the real accuracy of a war story is less significant than storytelling. The subjective truth about what the war meant and what it did to change the soldiers is more meaningful than the technical details of the

Many may question the true meaning of love. However, there is not an exact description. According to Merriam-Webster, The full definition of love is “a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties-maternal love for a child (2): attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests”. Love played a role in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the platoon leader. While stationed in the Vietnam, Lieutenant Cross was infatuated with Martha. He used his memory and imagination to escape from the scenes from the war.

The exaggeration that O'Brien expresses in his story, also known as hyperbole, gives the reader a feeling of speaking with a man that just experienced the war of his life an hour before you two are speaking. The emotion is

     How does death affect the behavior of people? Although death affects everyone's behavior differently, knowledge of one's imminent death is a main force behind behavioral changes. This knowledge causes emotions that motivate people to act in ways that they normally would not. In Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried,'; the knowledge of death and its closeness causes the men in the story to alter their behavior by changing they way they display power, modifying emotions to relieve guilt, and by exhibiting different actions to ease anxiety.

Telling a war story will be changed for everyone depending on their experience and the different wars they been to. In The Thing They Carried telling a true war story is different because O’Brien says that it needs to be a heroic and noble and very specific “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seems to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed” (pg.67-68) it shows how O’Brien wants to impress the audience with his stories that makes one wonder if it is real or not. He wants to sound heroic which makes part of the purpose of the story, his side

"The difference between fairy tales and war stories is that fairy tales begin with 'Once upon a time,' while war stories begin with 'Shit, I was there!'" (Lomperis 41). How does one tell a good war story? Is it important to be accurate to the events that took place? Does the reader need to trust the narrator? In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien examines what it takes to tell a good war story. He uses his own experiences in Vietnam in conjunction with his imagination to weave together a series of short stories into a novel.

The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.

However, as the reader is to realize soon, by having his fictional characters tell stories and then recant the truth of those stories, O’Brien certainly calls into question the possibility of ever telling a true war story. The result of

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story written about the Vietnam War. The title has two meanings. The first is their duties and equipment for the war. The second, the emotional sorrows they were put through while at war. Their wants and needs, the constant worry of death were just a few of the emotional baggage they carried. During the Vietnam War, like all wars, there were hard times. Being a soldier wasn’t easy. Soldiers always see death, whether it be another soldier or an enemy. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien explores the motivation of solders in the Vietnam War to understand their role in combat, to stay in good health, and accept the death of a fellow soldier.

“Only the dead have seen the end of war”-unknown. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he tells us what a true war story is. Throughout chapter 7, he writes what he believes is a true war story. It’s through evil, disbelief, embarrassment, and hidden meanings in Mary Anne’s trip to Vietnam that we know what a true war story is. The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is a perfect example of a true war story.

The factor that influenced the author in his decision to publish this novel was his desire to share his stories with the world. Stories can be told different ways, depending on how a person chooses to remember it. Each chapter refers to a different soldier and time period in the war and is not told in chronological order. O’Brien had a lot of regrets about the war that still haunt him and are the things that he “carried” all the way to today. He has faith that storytelling is the best way for him to negotiate the pain of death and war.