Unraveling Reality: Examining War through Metafiction

The War between Fact and Fiction In Vietnam from 1962 to 1973, the United States was involved in a war like no other we had ever fought. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes stories that take place before the war, during the war, and after the war. O’ Brien wants to find the true story. O’ Brien uses metafiction, fiction that draws attention to itself as art, to create surreal scenery and humanize many factual occurrences (Wikipedia). As a result of this both story-truth and happening-truth are both present. O ‘Brien relives the war as a storyteller, making himself a fictional character to objectify his war experience. He relies upon “story truth” to depict the Vietnam War, acknowledging the difficulty involved in showing

In The Things They Carried, he writes, “ Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.” (O’Brien 38) Stories last throughout history, through deaths, wars, and centuries. Throughout The Things They Carried he writes it is “dedicated to the men of the Alpha Company” yet on the title page we read: “ This is a work of fiction.” Except for a few details regarding the author’s own life, all the incidents, names and characters are imaginary. The use of fabrication is necessary in order to add O’ Brien’s experience in a manner that is entertaining but still truthful. Sometimes the author has to fabricate to get the reader to really feel what is happening in the story. O’ Brien writes in The Things They Carried, “ I want you to feel what I felt. I want to know why story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth.” The attention he wants to gain from the writing process is an attempt to truthfully convey the lasting images of the war, while still having fictional elements. The effect of fictional elements add the feeling that the readers are present in the war, that even though they may be false stories they make stomachs drop and hearts