Norman Bowker was not a real man. He exists solely through The Things They Carried as a fictional character. If we are to take the text as solely what it gives us, there is no need to explore the author’s life and experiences: the text speaks on its own. Norman Bowker thus exists as a sad case of a man returning to a country that seemingly doesn’t want him and he doesn’t belong in. But it is impossible to consider this story without some context behind it. It is essential to understand that many returning Vietnam veterans were forced to live with these feelings.
The pursuit of Norman Bowker as a real person does not matter. Bowker represents the returning Vietnam veteran. They were confused and did not understand that the nation had hated the war and passed this hate over to the veterans.
As O’Brien reflects on the Bowker story, the narrator O’Brien states, “You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain” (158). Although O’Brien may have forged the details, the story itself is true. If a truth can be bolstered by a forgery, then O’Brien believes one should write on.
And thus, we have reached a paradox; the idea that truth can be strengthened by the addition of lies. O’Brien believes that the details are malleable and can be falsified in support of absolute truths. This belief puts us a bit at odds with Cat’s Cradle. Bokononists would have a field day with this one.