Emotion In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The dictionary defines “Emotion” as instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge, storytellers use “Emotion” as a way to get the message across for the reader, in this case that seems to be evidently true. In every story, there lies a purpose; a message. O’Briens purpose for storytelling is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. He shows the emotional struggles and happy times of the soldiers through their journey in Vietnam. It was these events that led to great human emotions. Simply writing facts is easy, but writing so that emotions will be felt to the reader is more important. That is exactly what Tim O’Brien does to make this novel unique. As

it relates to storytelling, emotions are more important than the facts because they emphasize the message the author is trying to convey.
In order for the reader to understand the story, they must feel the emotions and disregard the facts.

In the book The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien tells us how war stories are all mixed up. He explains how it can get confusing and that “In any true war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen become its own happening…”(O’Brien 71). This is important because it draws attention to the moral aspect, it states that the facts start to slowly drift away. As the story goes on, facts can start to fade, emotions are shown more. The occurring events can get mixed up with the actual truth, therefore emotions will be seen more heavily. O’Brien continues to show the emphasis of how a war story is more about the feelings by using repetitive

statements.
The emotions that one feels are always real; whereas, the facts can be interpreted differently based on how one perceives it. Though the facts may not always be true, your emotions can cause you to react in a certain way based on what is being said. When Tim is traumatized by the man he kills, he starts imagining the details of the man’s life. O’Brien uses sensory details to illustrate the emotions he feels, like when he writes “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lips and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star shaped hole…”(O’Brien 124). No one knows whether this is happened to the soldier or if this statement is true, but it can still cause emotion, hence the sensory details imagery. In order to feel any sort of emotion, what is being said does not have to be completely true, in fact it can be made up. The feelings is what truly matters.
When it comes to storytelling, some people think that just the facts matter.

This is not true because in order for a story to progress it must include emotions. Others think that both the facts and emotions are important, this is also not true because a balance is not always satisfying, having more of one is needed in order to connect with the audience. However, both are incorrect, in any story only the emotions matter. A good story, doesn't rely on the facts, it is rather recognized as well as portrayed by the use of literary elements. Facts simply tell you what's there they don't show you the message or the morals of what they story is trying to show. In “Good Form” Tim O'Brien realizes that as readers we are not there, therefore we do not feel the impact the war had. O'Brien then uses Story Truth to make you feel the truth, “I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth” (O’Brien 180). O’Brien clearly shows the fine line between “Story Truth” and “Happening Truth”. His technique for acquiring this sympathy is by creating fictional scenarios that trigger the feeling of empathy to make the reader feel what "[he] felt". This shows that emotions outweigh the factual details in any situation. In the end, O’Brien wants the reader to feel the pain, struggle along with emotion, to gain a better understanding of what he has

experienced.
In any story, emotions carry a deeper meaning, unlike facts. This is because the message that the author is trying to show is more clear with the use of literary terms. As the story progresses, the powerful emotional content grows as the author gets more courage to talk about the horrors that occurred. Slowly, emotions become real because the burden they carried becomes much more serious. In the end it's not about what actually happened vs. what didn't. What is true or a lie. Made up or factual. Emotions are seen either way. Emotions create a sense of being “there” physically, mentally, but most importantly emotionally. Time O’Brien does a wonderful job of making “us” the readers feels as if we experienced everything he went through by causing us to feel exactly what he felt.