This is not the first time I have read The Things They Carried. With that being said, this is the first time I have read The Things They Carried after starting
this class. I read this book keeping this new concept of an “unreliable
narrator” in the back of my head. O’Brien is much more straightforward than
Vonnegut. He is also writing about the Vietnam War, which actually happened,
whereas Vonnegut wrote about a clearly fictional plot including a substance
that destroyed the whole world. Therefore, I deduced that O’Brien was at least somewhat trustworthy. I did some
research on O’Brien to determine his credibility.
Side note: When I typed research, all I could think about
was the Cat’s Cradle reference to
research. Ya know, when you are “re-searching” for something. Weird.
Anyway, from good ol’ reliable Wikipedia, I found that
O’Brien was a Vietnam War Veteran. Also, he did go to Macalester for his
undergraduate degree and then Harvard University for his graduate diploma, like
he boasted in his book. Ok. His story checks out. But then why are we reading
it? He has to by lying about something!
Upon further reading, I stumbled upon a chapter titled Good Form. I do not want to spoil this
for anyone who has not read this far yet, but this chapter describes how to
form a “good story”. O’Brien states that
the stories in the book actually occurred but some are embellished to make the
reader feel as if he were actually in Vietnam with him. “What stories can do, I
guess, is to make things present” (172). It appears this book is in-between
fictional tales and non-fiction war stories. O’Brien does not tell us when he
is embellishing these stories, but does indicate many of the events actually
happened. Earlier in the book, Mitchell Sanders scolds Rat Kiley on his
improper story-telling technique, saying that he is ruining the flow. The storyteller
is a very powerful person. He has the power to manipulate the readers. It is up
to us to decide what is true, and what is added for effect.
I think you are touching on a cool point of how truths to some people aren't necessarily true for others. The prologue states "Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once." It's interesting to think that truths are dependent on everyone's past experiences.
ReplyDeleteI always find this topic funny, the idea of embellishing a story so that it sounds better. I have a friend here who tells the funniest stories. She'll have an entire table in commons crying from laughter at dinner. The part that kind of stinks is that we've all come to realize that a majority of her stories have never happened. Or they happened, but it was a much less exciting or funny event. At first this really annoyed me, the fact that she thought she could lie to us all the time. But eventually I came to terms with it, and I actually like it. Her stories are still hilarious, you just have to know in the back of your mind that it's not true. Once you come to terms with that, it's fine. The same goes true for O'Brien. Just because these stories aren't true, doesn't make them any less valuable or meaningful than if they were.
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