False Memories In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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In the ted Talk video, Elizabeth Loftus tells her viewers an interesting fact, not all memory is true. It is a proven fact that the brain sometimes has blanks while recalling a memory. The brain subconsciously makes up a false memory to go in this lost memories place. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien tells what the reader thinks are true war stories. While reading the book, the reader soon finds out that this novel is full of false memories. Not only does Tim O’Brien use false memories, but he uses other ways to present the story as well. Tim O’Brien uses the way he portrays his story to explain what he went through and to tell this traumatic story through the story truth and the happening truth.

Tim O’Brien repeats varies scenarios …show more content…

He even tells his reader to not pay attention to the details. In “How to Tell a True war Story” O’Brien states, “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way.”(pg. 67-68) This “what seemed to happen” can be referred to as the story truth. O’Brien is telling his readers that sometimes memories get blurred and the brain can forget what really happened. He later writes, “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness” to further prove this point. (pg. 68) Without the normal stuff being told, the reader would not believe all of the traumatic events that took place in this war. While being compared to the crazy memories, the brain sees the normal stuff as a pointless memory. The brain therefore doesn’t see the necessity to remember this unimportant memory. So, when trying to tell this event later on, the human brain makes up a false memory to fill the lost memory’s place and to make the story seem more

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