Monday, February 17, 2014
Truth in Fiction
Having just finished "Cat's Cradle," I decided that it might be important to read the pretext of "The Things They Carried." Sure enough, I found another contradiction quite similar to the paradox in Vonnegut's pretext. The title page states that this is "A work of fiction by Tim O'Brien." Just a few pages later, there is a statement from "John Ransom's Andersonville Diary" which states, "...Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once, and to all other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by one who experienced them to the fullest." Is this a paradox to say that a work of fiction could be truthful? I believe that the truthfulness and actuality of a work of fiction is based in emotion - the stories may not be things that actually happened, but the raw emotions are and can only be explained truthfully by someone who has experienced them.
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I also found it very interesting that Tim O'Brien would choose to use that quote for the pretext. John Ransom's Andersonville Diary is a nonfiction book about the civil war. I wonder why O'Brien decided to take a quote from a nonfiction book to open up The Things They Carried, which is a work of fiction. How does this quote about truthfulness from a nonfiction book relate to these fictional stories? Like you mentioned, I think O'Brien is making us question what exactly makes stories truthful or not. O'Brien would most likely argue that even though his stories are works of fiction, they contain a lot of truth in them in the way they make the readers feel.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange that O'Brien chose a quote relating to a war story of the Civil War, especially considering his attempts to distance his character's experiences from those of the glorified war stories of old. I think the quote further lures the reader into the notion of a classic war epic, only to make the snap back to fiction more dramatic, more poignant, and more enlightening. Once revealed, the lies behind O'Brien's novel pile up as the reader tracks back for evidence and culminates with the ultimate deception, a disguised quote lauding a book written 100 years prior: even what was once truth bent into a lie.
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