Essay The Things They Carried

1. Storytelling: Fact or Fiction

Like most of the literature of the Vietnam war, ''The Things They Carried'' is shaped by the personal combat experience of the author. O'Brien is adamant, however, that the fiction not be mistaken for factual accounts of events. In an interview with Michael Coffey of Publishers Weekly soon after the book was published, O'Brien claims: ‘‘My own experience has virtually nothing to do with the content of the book.’’ Indeed the title page of the book announces it as ''a work of fiction.'' The book is dedicated, however, ''to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa." O'Brien himself was an infantryman in Alpha Company and was stationed in the Quang Ngai province in 1969-70. When asked about this device in an interview with Martin Narparsteck in Contemporary Literature, O'Brien explains: "What I'm saying is that even with that nonfiction-sounding element in the story, everything in the story is fiction, beginning to end. To classify different elements of the story as fact or fiction seems to me artificial. Literature should be looked at not for its literal truth but for its emotional qualities. What matters in literature, I think, are the pretty simple things--whether it moves me or not. Whether it feels true. The actual literal truth should be superfluous."

Discuss the implications of "story truth" (fiction) versus "happening truth" (nonfiction/history) using examples from your reading.  What is the significance of the following quote in terms of O'Brien's purpose as a writer of this novel and how he achieves this end using metafiction techniques and a reliance on story-truth?

pg. 236

      "The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow.

      And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life.  Not her body--her life.

      She died, of course.  Nine years old and she died.  It was a brain tumor.  She lived through the summer and into the first part of September, and then she was dead.

      But in a story I can steal her soul.  I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging.  In a story, miracles can happen.  Linda can smile and sit up.  She can reach out, touch my wrist, and say, 'Timmy, stop crying.'"