The Illusion of O’Brien

What did they really carry? In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, O’Brien describes the horrors of war and the effects it had on himself and others. One technique that he uses is called “meta-fiction,” which is defined as writing about the act of writing. It makes the reader really think about the novel’s authenticity. Another technique he uses is story-truth vs. happening truth. Story truth is what the writer feels like happened, in turn being more effective in portraying emotion. Happening truth is what really happened, but it might not feel as drastic for an outside reader. Because of the frequent use of meta-fiction, the reader begins to question what is true and what is storytelling. In almost every story, there is a hint of happening truth vs. story truth, which are easily mixed up or too believable. One example of this is Norman Bowker due to the fact that the story is written from his perspective, not from O’Brien’s. 

The use of meta-fiction impacts the readers understanding of Norman Bowker. Bowker was a soldier who served with O’Brien in the Vietnam War. After the war he couldn’t keep a job or talk about his experiences in the war to anyone. A mix of those two things and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), caused Bowker to take his own life. Before he did, he had asked O’Brien to write a story for him, and a little bit about him as well: “I’d write it myself except I can’t ever find any words, if  you know what I mean, and I can’t figure out what exactly to say” (O’Brien 151). In this story, “Notes,” O’Brian is told not to use Bowkers real name. Although a small detail, this mixed with the other uses of meta-fiction in the chapter makes the reader question lots of things. “Is Bowker his real name?” “Is this story true?” “Is Bowker even real?” All questions O’Brien himself wanted to invoke in the reader. But, does O’Brien even know himself? This question is very important because it makes the reader question what is story truth and what is happening truth. 

Story truth is vital in an instance when the writer himself cannot recall some of the events that happened. “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head” (O’Brien 218). This quote is O’Brien describing how important story-truth is, as he wants to evoke a special kind of emotion similar to one felt by O’Brien at the time. As stated, the ‘spirits’ are the result of the story, the story truth. In instances like these, it seems as though O’Brien telling us about the story that he is writing makes him unsure of reality vs. storytelling. Another example of this happens after O’Brien tells the reader about the man that he had killed. After going into great detail about the dismemberment and happenings of the story, he later goes on to say “It’s time to be blunt. I’m forty-three years old, true, and I’m a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot soldier. Almost everything else is invented” (O’Brien 171). In saying this, he admits the storytelling in his novel. He does this just enough for the reader to question almost everything that he says because he has become an untrustworthy narrator. Because of all the questions raised, we begin to question O’Brien himself. 

O’Brien will portray a story, and then tell the reader that more than half of it was made up. “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (O’Brien 80). He deliberately tells the reader this to confuse them. But, that is the intention. He wants us to know that whether or not the story is true, it’s real. Like the story when he killed someone. He tells us that yes, it was a lie, but he was there, so he might as well have killed the man. This is the effect of story-truth. It can evoke feelings in the reader that some other stories might not be able to. It can also highlight the importance of a certain story. This is seen in the story where Kiowa, another character who served with O’Brien is killed. “Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead” (O’Brien 70). This quote is important due to the fact that O’Brien first tells this story in first person, antagonizing feeling of sorrow in the reader, but later tells us that it was another character goes through this story, and O’Brien was only there. 

O’Brien’s main intention in his use of story-truth is to elicit an emotion or feeling similar to one felt by him and his peers while they were out in the field. It can especially recreate a feeling of disorientation and confusion, emotions many soldiers feel. This is especially important in regards to story truth vs. happening truth, and can make the lines between them very blurred. Not only does O’Brien successfully blur the lines, but he metaphorically draws some new ones just to make the reader think a bit harder about a story. O’Brien’s use of meta-fiction in the The Things They Carried take the reader into Vietnam with the soldiers, and then bring us out, changed and re-born.