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Fact And Fiction In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O’Brien; in this novel, O’Brien explores a blurred line between reality and fiction. This subjection of truth to storytelling is a major theme throughout the novel, which means that telling war stories objectively makes the story less pertinent. This theme shows that O’Brien is not attempting to tell a war story, but to just talk about the experiences he had while at war. He shows that any facts throughout the novel are not as important as the stories and experiences he tells of, and how what the war meant to the soldiers and how it changed them. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is an autobiographical fiction novel which investigates the obscure line between fact and fiction with his characters …show more content…

This Tim O’Brien is a reflection of the author, Tim O’Brien’s, actions throughout Vietnam. This helps show how O’Brien blends fact and fiction in the genre of autobiographical fiction. He also does this by having other characters named after people he actually fought with in Vietnam. Documentation can prove that the real Tim O’Brien could have fought with the real Jimmy Cross or the real Mitchell Sanders in Vietnam.
…still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way. She’s not the embodied Linda; she’s mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was. Her real name doesn’t matter. She was nine years old. I loved her and then she died. And yet right here, in the spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her as if through ice, as if I’m gazing into some other world, a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all. (O’Brien 232)
The stories that he tells about these men could be completely fictional, again blurring the line between reality and fiction. The author contradicts himself and also blurs the line further by dedicating his novel to what the reader later finds out to be characters in the

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In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried the narrator, Tim O’Brien, often blurs the lines between reality and fiction. As a young soldier, O’Brien recalls the Vietnam war including the sounds, sights, and his emotions, while 20 years later he again shares his feelings and experiences of the same event. This same event, however, is told differently in order to help him cope with the emotional pain of war. The details become blurry as the pain is too great to endure.

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In Tim O’Brien’s “The Lives of the Dead”, no one can die; everyone can live on in stories. This short story is about how to keep people alive through stories. In the war Tim has to cope with an abundance of death; this reminds him of Linda, his first love’s death. The guys in war with Tim would pretend the people never died telling jokes about the people who have died both the dead north Vietnamese and their fallen comrades.

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This phase out of the book The Things They Carried, shows how important a detailed description is. Having read the fictional story about Tim O’Brien’s experience in the Vietnam War, can really set off that emotional connection because it makes you feel like you are really

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O’Briens novel The Things They Carried is a unique text because each chapter tells an individual story. The work also becomes misleading because the chapters are told from different viewpoints. Rather than O’Brien using a traditional flow of chronological order, he tells the stories of his comrades to appeal to the reader at different times in the book. The reader can also begin to question O'Brien's reliability and truthfulness because of his uncommon style. The purpose is O’Briens way to cope with his experience in the Vietnam War; he retouches each memory individually depicting the story of his tragic experience at war.

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This story is a success because it features components of what O’Brien says is a true war story. This certain short story includes, embarrassment, love, memory, and, shame. This story perfectly depicts the theme of one's conscience versus the society around them. It portrays this theme because it is the perfect example of the fight between what he believe is right and what society believes is wrong and is “unpatriotic” while what he believes is wrong and unworthy of such violence, yet society believes is right. According to O’Brien, in order for war stories to be true they must possess at least some of the elements from his specific definition.

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The physical damage and emotional depreciation that the characters go through in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, support the themes of the story by showing the traumatic effects the soldiers endure as a result of the war. December 1, 1969, changed lives of many people because it was the date that renewed mandatory service. The US draft for Vietnam brought many young boys into new surroundings and sent them crawling with an invisible enemy. Their normal lives were forever changed. No longer surrounded by familiar faces, their new homes were now foxholes, forcing them to stay alert at all times.

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This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

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In The Things They Carried, the author and narrator, Tim O' Brien seeks to go beyond simply telling the stories he has to tell about his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. He wants to tell the audience a true war story, and dedicates a chapter, aptly named "How to Tell a True War Story," to giving the reader a better idea of his idea of how a war story should be told. O'Brien's recounting of the story of the baby buffalo epitomizes his view of telling a war story by implementing the concept of blurring truth and fiction which recurs throughout the book and exemplifies how it could enhance the reader's interpretation and understanding of the events and ideas that the author wants to convey, which go beyond a simple retelling of a war story,

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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