Fact Verses Fiction in OBriens The Things They Carried...

Fact Verses Fiction in OBriens The Things They Carried 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 OBrien 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. First, the reader must understand just what makes a good war story. The protagonist of the novel, Tim OBrien, gives us his†¦show more content†¦In the chapter Speaking of Courage Norman Bowker claims that he is responsible for his friends death. However, in the chapter In the Field OBrien places the blame on an unnamed young soldier who started the enemy attack by turning on his flashlight. Which story is true? Does it matter what is true? According to Jim Neilson, the story of Kiowas death evokes the notion that for the U.S. Vietnam was a quagmire; his drowning functions almost emblematically to suggest Americas deepening entanglement in southeast Asia (193). Whatever the meaning behind Kiowas story, it certainly fits the requirements for a good war story: there is nothing redeemable in it. Maria Bonn sees the three stories about Kiowas death (Speaking of Courage, Notes, and In the Field) as exemplifying OBriens relentless investigation of how to tell a true war story (para graph 39). When you look at all three of these chapters together you can see the progression from what is imagined to what is true or is it the other way around? With Tim OBrien, it is never clear. The chapter Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is another questionable narrative. The reader learns in the first paragraph that the narrator, Rat Kiley, is not known for his accurate story telling ability. Rat had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement, a compulsion to rev up the facts (OBrien 89). The protagonist, TimShow MoreRelatedPostmodernism in Literature5514 Words   |  23 Pagesnovelists he often criticized. Surrealist Rene Magrittes experiments with signification are used as examples by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Foucault also uses examples from Jorge Luis Borges, an important direct influence on many Postmodernist fiction writers. He is occasionally listed as a Postmodernist though he started writing in the 1920s. The influence of his experiments with metafiction and magical realism was not fully realized until the postmodern period.[2] Comparisons with modernist