Truth in "The Things They Carried"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the theme of truth and the lack of truth in Tim O'Brien's fictional story about the Vietnam war. The paper looks at the message, delivered in O'Brien's story, that we should never trust what the government tells us about the war because no one knows for sure what really happened. To further illustrate the truth theme, the paper contrasts O'Brien's approach to truth depiction with the approach of Oliver Stone in "Platoon". While acknowledging that there are similarities in both authors' approach to truth depiction, the paper points out that there are significant differences too.

From the Paper:

"In most war stories, the main purpose of authors and directors is to represent the truth by building their works on universally known facts. Most of them try to stick with facts to lend more credibility to their fictional work. They would get inspiration from some real events and then mould them creatively to add their own views and ideologies. However in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", the author has no such objective in mind. Instead he urges his readers to question the so-called truth that authorities give us. We are repeatedly reminded of the fact that this work is pure fiction that nothing is real and not a single event mentioned in the story ever took place in reality. The words "real" and "really" have been used frequently in the story to convince the readers of the authenticity of the details of every version and they are then quickly called into question little later."

More papers on Truth in "The Things They Carried":

• Book Review # 75424 : "The Things They Carried"
• Book Review # 75602 : "The Things They Carried"
• Analytical Essay # 65510 : "The Things They Carried"

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