The Disposition Of Truth And Fiction In O'Brien’s “The Things They Carried”

In Steven Kaplan’s essay “The Issues They Carried” published in Columbia: University of South Carolina Press he says, “Almost all Vietnam War writing–fiction and nonfiction–makes clear that the only certain factor during the Vietnam War was that practically nothing was certain” (Kaplan 169). The manipulation of truth and fiction in Tim O’Brien’s “The Factors They Carried” exists in both the stories told and the characters that are described in each and is utilised purposely, evoking feelings of confusion and anger from the reader, but also attachment the reader wants to figure out why O’Brien chooses to blur the line of truth and decipher what is truly accurate and what is not. O’Brien’s style of writing in this collection of brief stories is shown through the comparatively continuous presence of “facts” that are then followed up with statements that bring these “facts” into query. Readers can then query how real the characters and stories are, making the most likely frustrated reader as this question: why play with truth and fiction and what does O’Brien accomplish through their manipulation?

From the starting of the book O’Brien mixes reality and fiction, evident in the dedication and flyleaf of the book when O’Brien claims, “This is a function of fiction. Except a handful of specifics with regards to the author’s personal life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.” O’Brien then follows that statement with “This book is lovingly committed to the males of Alpha Company, and in distinct to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa.” An author will much more than most likely make the dedication out to genuine men and women no matter whether it be close friends, family, or spouses— especially when the author involves “lovingly” in it even so, O’Brien states his dedication and then the reader finds out in the initial couple of pages of the very first story that these described in the dedication are all characters. Following what he said about all characters getting imaginary, why would O’Brien dedicate the book to individuals that are not real—assuming they are not? The reader is then forced to “consider the fictional as genuine, considering that the book is dedicated to the characters who appear in it” (Kaplan 184), because of this waver in truth the reader is also provoked to take into account that the author is an unreliable source of details. O’Brien insists that he is telling the “full truth” (O’Brien 49) but it is made evident from the beginning that he could not be capable of carrying out just that. In the opening pages of the 1st short story, O’Brien tells the story of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and of his photographs and letters that he carried of the girl that he loved. The readers are told that the girl does not enjoy Cross but he constantly was “hoping” and “pretending” (O’Brien 3) “in an effort to turn her imagined enjoy into fact” (Kaplan 185). Cross says “she was a virgin” but then follows that statement with he was “almost sure” (O’Brien 3) of that fact. Nonetheless, on the subsequent page Cross is even more uncertain, he sits at “night and wonder[s] if Martha was a virgin” (O’Brien four) and then continues to wonder who took the pictures that he was doting more than simply because “he knew she had boyfriends” (O’Brien five) but O’Brien does not make it clear how Cross could possibly “know” that. Cross stating a truth and then calling it into question with an additional statement shortly after is what makes the reader wonder if O’Brien can inform the “full truth” (O’Brien 49) in any of the quick stories. The reader is also made to contemplate that O’Brien’s characters could have been designed to mirror “the average soldier’s sense of uncertainty about what occurred in Vietnam” (Kaplan 187) just as they could not stroll positive-footedly through the jungles, readers cannot go through every story in the collection with self-assurance that each and every brief story is told truthfully.

O’Brien’s manipulation of truth and his conscious choices to use fictionality “work to generate a sense of presence for the reader … such generous and explicit details function as counter-narrative to the generalized “happening-truth” in history books, which vacates the particular violences of Vietnam” (Silbergleid 131) her statement criticizes his storytelling in that it borderline diminishes the legitimacy of the life-threatening events that took location in Vietnam. If the things that happen in O’Brien’s short stories are fictional, then was Vietnam truly that undesirable? In Robin Silbergleid’s vital essay, published in Modern Literary Criticism, she introduces the notion of the improvement of O’Brien as a character and does not just address him as the author of these stories, as a result making an angle that seeks to explain why he incorporated the characters of the stories in the dedication. It is this connection of O’Brien as a character that helps readers come to the realization that O’Brien made those characters in the stories human just as he created himself a character, they were so real to him that he included them in the dedication. The improvement of O’Brien’s character is evident in the moments in the text where he refers to the advice of his daughter who does not actually exist. His attachment to the characters is evident in the “generous and explicit details” (Silbergleid 131) that Silbergleid addressed in her crucial essay O’Brien requires the time to humanize each person and makes them tangible to the reader as opposed to just telling the truth — whatever the actual truth may be— and creating every single character a man hardened by war. O’Brien paints a fictitious image that provides every single character depth via the items they actually carry and the emotional burdens they location on their backs. Silbergleid also addressed “the truth” in O’Brien’s writing his stories are “ ‘statement[s] of actual things’ as a work of ‘truth’” (Silbergleid 129), which means that every single circumstance may possibly not be completely precise down to the smallest detail, but it is primarily based on accurate events and individuals and is place with each other in a way that he connects with.

In the story “How to Inform a Correct War Story,” O’Brien opens by telling the audience “This is true” (O’Brien 64), but then goes on to describe the exact same story of Curt Lemon dying in a number of ways, constructing and deconstructing and constructing the very same story once again and again. He tends to make the only truthful piece of data that Curt Lemon died and that there was practically nothing left to say, “Except possibly, ‘Oh’” (O’Brien 84). The way he retells the story over and more than makes the reader query which rendition is accurate, but it also highlights the degree of care that O’Brien is taking in terms of telling Lemon’s story just correct. This tends to make the connection to Silbergleid’s thought of O’Brien’s character and the connection in between the other characters present in the story he sees them as genuine people and takes care to tell aspects of their story correctly and give each of them the “respect” O’Brien thinks they deserve as a character and particular person. “O’Brien uses numerous rhetorical techniques in order to create presence, the illusion of the emotional expertise of Vietnam. Such techniques include the emphasis on detail discovered in story-truth and the strategic invocation of autobiography” (Silbergleid 140). The detail identified in story-truth is evident in the finish of the short story “How to Tell a Accurate War Story” when O’Brien describes the scene when the baby water buffalo is shot repeatedly he takes care to describe each and every shot, where it hits on the water buffalo, and how it reacts to every blow and creates a vivid scene that parallels the discomfort that the soldiers were going by way of throughout their tours in Vietnam.

Tim O’Brien mixes the use of fact and fiction in his collection of brief stories, The Issues They Carried, in an attempt to describe what it was like to be a foot soldier in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam in order to make the readers struggle to locate the distinction between the truth and the fictitious. What Tim O’Brien achieves by means of his use of fiction is the parallel among soldier and storyline, the thought that each and every step the soldier takes could be radically various than the last takes shape by means of O’Brien’s writing style of leaving readers questioning what is correct and what is not and what story O’Brien will tell next. Via his storytelling, O’Brien “takes his readers straight into the middle of the method by means of which details and memory are transformed in fiction” (Kaplan 170) evident in the scene where he repeatedly describes the scene in which Curt Lemon is killed. He tends to make human connections to his characters via the explanation of what every single soldier carries from residence and the emotional baggage they also struggle to carry so that his audience can relate to the stories on a more realistic level than a history book. O’Brien’s storytelling abilities makes the Vietnam War far more tangible than a history book can even though providing fascinating, nevertheless not totally accurate down to the tee, stories that paint photographs and permit for a greater understanding of both the war and Tim O’Brien. As properly as producing each and every story more tangible, O’Brien’s storytelling also permits for the creation of the “illusion of the emotional expertise of Vietnam” (Silbergleid 140) which permits for O’Brien’s readers to far better connect with each and every character on an emotional level, just as he did by producing his own character in the brief stories.