In the last class we discussed that The Things They Carried is completely fictional. The stories within the novel are used for entertainment in keeping the reader amused with the plot line. The overall story is based in the time frame of Vietnam, but never once was the war actually mentioned in the novel. O'Brien only uses it as a framework for the interlining stories within the novel, which the main subject matter is love.
The matter within the book is 90% invented. However, O'Brien makes you feel like all that is going on in the novel is real. It is the way he involves the reader in his works that makes it hard to question the line between what is real and what is not. In Cat's Cradle, it was easier to find that line based off the pretext of the book. It stated that everything in the book was a lie, where in TTTC, O'Brien uses a real quote as his pretext. However, his quote about a Civil War instead of the Vietnam, so without the research on would believe all that is in the novel is true.
Both works are a way of reliving a major point in life. Vonnegut is writing his story about the atomic bomb dropping, bringing back the memories people experienced that day, where O'Brien is doing the same with the Vietnam war. Only he is doing through love memories and not "actual" ones.
I totally agree with what you say, for the most part. I think you are completely right about O'Brien, he is telling history, his history. But, I think Vonnegut isn't telling history at all. Vonnegut is playing a game with us, a game with made up facts and people and the only thing we know as true is that there was once an atomic bomb. In The Things They Carried, we know the war happened, we know it is based on a real experience.
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