Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried Essay

In The Things The, O’Brien talks a fair amount about himself. It becomes clear that he was affected greatly by his experiences of the war and that he still has to try to cope with them everyday. Also clear is that he leaves whether or not the characters of this book are real or not as ambiguous. He leaves this ambiguous to make the point that the truth of the story doesn’t matter. What actually matters is the feelings his characters make him and the readers feel. He makes this clear by dedicating his book to his characters, by writing a conversation between himself and one of these characters, and by actually telling us that what is factually true doesn’t matter, rather an emotional truth does matter. Also clear is that in order to cope with the guilt from the war, Tim O’Brien writes The Things They Carried.

Tim O’Brien dedicates his book to his characters in order to relieve the guilt he feels for surviving while his comrades died. The first thing a reader sees when opening the book is the dedication in eye-catching italics, which states “This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of

Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley,

Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa” (VI). However, on the first page, the book is proclaimed to be “A Work of Fiction by Tim O’Brien” (I). This seems contradictory, however, as is made clear later in the book the factual truth doesn’t matter to O’Brien. This contradiction is a perfect example of how the characters he creates are figments of his imagination used to ease his conscience. Survivor's guilt is a common phenomenon and it’s no coincidence that most of the people on the list lost a lot more than Tim in the war. One of these character’s is Jimmy Cross, who he creates a fake conversation with.
O’Brien creates the character of Jimmy Cross and creates a meeting with him as a way memorializing his comrades who have lost more than him. Jimmy Cross says that “he’d never forgive himself for Lavender’s death. It was something that would never go away” (51). O’Brien is giving a voice to his comrades that lost so much and would never forgive themselves. He feels guilt that people have to live in constant memory of fallen comrades and thus he creates a memorial for those soldiers. At the end of the same chapter, as Jimmy Cross is leaving he says “And do me a favor. Don’t mention anything about -”, to which O’Brien responds with “No...I won’t” (55). If O'Brien truly didn’t want to mention it he wouldn’t have included this dialogue, however he wanted to commemorate the veterans who can’t tell anyone about what they feel. But there is no actual thing he won’t mention because, as it is a work of fiction, Jimmy Cross doesn’t exist. As O’Brien states, though, the factual truth doesn’t matter.
Whether O’Brien’s stories are factually true or not doesn’t matter because he creates the stories in order to cope with his guilt.

O’Brien explicitly asserts that “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (139). O’Brien, as demonstrated here, is not interested in the physical reality of what happens, rather he is writing from an emotional standpoint. He also directly states “I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories” (61). Writing war stories and guilt are clearly related things in his mind and he writes in order to cope with this guilt. This entire work, every little story, every random detail, and every character is a direct reflection of O’Brien working through his guilt in the only way he knows how:

writing.
Not only is O’Brien affected by the war on a very personal and psychological level, but in order to cope with his experiences he turns to an outlet of self expression, which for him is writing. He doesn’t write a normal war novel, with gruesome details for the sake of being anti-war, he gives insight into the emotions he feels before, during, and after the war. As the author he reveals a lot about himself that he maybe didn’t mean to, and he reveals his inner feelings and by talking about his feelings he is able to cope. What actually happened back then doesn’t matter now, what matters is his emotions about what happened then. That’s why things that didn’t actually happen can be “truer than truth”. What matters to him is dealing with emotions through a self-expressive and creative means such as writing.