The Things They Carried/Cat's Cradle

Our discussions in class have brought to my attention several similarities between The Things They Carried and Cat's Cradle. First is the possibility of both authors writing themselves into their respective texts. In TTTC, this is quite apparent as the author and the narrator share a name. Tim O'Brien the author was a Vietnam veteran, in his mid 40s when he was writing his book about the war, with a wife and two children, just like Tim O'Brien the character. In CC the parallels between author and narrator are more subtle, but still prevalent. Although the narrator begins by saying "call me Jonah," he then says that Jonah is not his real name, which means his name very well could be Kurt. When "Jonah" encounters a stone angel with his own last name carved into it, we do not learn what the name is, only that it is German, which leaves open the possibility that the name could be Vonnegut (he was of German descent). Vonnegut and "Jonah" both hail from Indiana, both were members of the Delta Upsilon fraternity at Cornell, both are writers, both are skeptical of religion. So, in both TTTC and CC, biographical facts of the authors line up with those of their narrators.

Another interesting similarity between the novels is that they both claim in some way not to have meaning. In fact, both books tell the reader directly that their contents are untrue. While I think that in both cases the reader is meant to understand that the books do in fact deliver a message, their claims not to are almost what drive the texts. In TTTC the characters discuss how the stories they tell have no morals or lessons to teach, that they are simply stories. O'Brien the narrator even says that there is no such thing as a true war story, and that after twenty years of telling stories he still cannot find their meaning. And of course in CC, we are immediately confronted with "nothing in this book is true," which leads us to question both the author's and the narrator's intention behind everything they include in the book. Also, Bokononism is a religion based on lies, further blurring the line between true and false, truth and lies within the context of the story.

I think both novels use these tricks to highlight some themes of the class: how do we define truth/reality? Why does the truth matter? How can we be manipulated to believe certain truths? I wonder if other texts we read will continue to follow these patterns.