If anyone has ever read the play "Who's affraid of Virginia Woolf" you will understand my title perfectly. The first page in the first chapter of The Things They Carried talks about how Martha is learning about Virginia Woolf. Well this is a coincidence this name is brought up. This play is a play based on lies.
I personally have never read The Things They Carried so I am excited to see in the end what the twist is. With what we have read so far I want to believe in some of it and hopefully, like the babywater buffalo, others are made up stories. I think to really understand this book I'm going to have to read it a second time and go back and have those, "ohhh I get it now" kind of moments. My history teacher in high school was a Vietnam vet so some of the stories he told us in class seem similar to what O'Brien tells us.
O'Brien lived through this and being an author has the ablity to tell a story and make the reader wish it was true. Sometimes, at least in my view, people are naive and they will people in what they what to believe even if you have hard factual evidence infront of them. Some people just don't want to believe what is really going on. Sometimes it makes for a better war story. No one really can say what's fact or fiction unless you are witnessing it with your own eyes.
I don't want to go through this novel questioning the whole time is this true? Or did this really happen? I feel that will take away from the stories. Obviously I will make my own assumptions but that's all they will be. I'll never really know what is the truth or what was a lie. All I will have after reading this novel is my view on how I percieved it and how I personally reacted.
(Note: "afraid" is spelled with one "f.")
ReplyDeleteI liked the immediate connection you drew b/w TTTC and the play; however, the post overall was a bit hard to follow given what I assume are simply proofreading errors. I do agree with your final paragraph, that reading the novel constantly questioning "is this true" is precisely what O'Brien warns us could be devastating to the power of stories (assuming, of course, that you mean "happening truth" and not "story truth").