In the chapter "Notes" O'Brien throws a serious curve ball by explaining his reasons for writing The Things They Carried. The reason it's so confusing is because O'Brien is clearly calling attention to The Things They Carried as a fictional work, but at the same time, we're left uncertain if the narrator of this chapter is Author Tim O'Brien or Fictional Tim O'Brien. As I said before, both are authors. Both have published "If I Die in a Combat Zone" and "Going After Cacciato". So which Tim are we listening to as we read this? Is this an interjection from the author or another fictitious element of the novel?
The author also says, several times in several chapters, "I'm 43 and a writer now", calling attention to his role as a story teller, while simultaneously making us wonder which Tim O'Brien we're dealing with.
O'Brien also references his other works several times throughout the book. First, Fictional Tim O'Brien acknowledges that he authored the novels "If I Die in a Combat Zone" and "Going After Cacciato". Also, in the final chapter of the book, O'Brien references a story in which a soldier named Stink Harris, originally a character from "Going After Cacciato", wakes up screaming to a leech on his tongue. There is also an exchange between O'Brien and Alpha Company's Norm Bowker in which Norm comments on serving as inspiration for a character in "Going After Cacciato", despite the fact that Norm was fictitiously created by Author Tim O'Brien almost a decade after "Going After Cacciato" was published (or so we think).
Monday, April 25, 2011
Narration and Style
The narrative style of TTTC is conducive to metafiction because the chapters are not chronological, highly ambiguous and have abrupt shifts in narrator from chapter to chapter. Stories about Curt Lemon's death and the man O'Brien killed could easily be neatly packed into one chapter that answers all of the readers questions, but O'Brien intentionally spreads the information throughout the novel and forces the reader to do the dirty work in piecing together events, because he doesn't want to neatly package these events. He is refusing to give the reader a cohesive, black and white account of these events because he wants his audience to infer their own truths, not accept his.
The narrator also shifts several times from Tim O'Brien to the other members of Alpha Company, and even at one point, to the Vietnamese soldier that O'Brien "killed". O'Brien questions the reliability of every narrator in the story, including himself, while still maintaining that their accounts are all true, because whether or not these narrators are being factual is irrelevant. By introducing so many unreliable narrators, O'Brien is yet again challenging the notion of truth and forcing the readers to figure it out for themselves.
The narrator also shifts several times from Tim O'Brien to the other members of Alpha Company, and even at one point, to the Vietnamese soldier that O'Brien "killed". O'Brien questions the reliability of every narrator in the story, including himself, while still maintaining that their accounts are all true, because whether or not these narrators are being factual is irrelevant. By introducing so many unreliable narrators, O'Brien is yet again challenging the notion of truth and forcing the readers to figure it out for themselves.
Reality vs. Fiction: How To Tell a True War Story
One chapter entirely dedicated to the notion of truth is "How To Tell a True War Story" which covers the death of O'Brien's friend Curt Lemon, as well as a story that another platoon mate, Mitch Sanders, tells O'Brien.
Let's start with the death of Curt Lemon.
Lemon is only introduced momentarily in the begging of the story as "the dead guy". There is initially no real explanation of how he died until several chapters later. O'Brien prefaces the story of Lemon's death by telling us that what we are about to read is exactly true, but contradicts himself several pages later noting that he has told the story of Curt Lemon's death "many times, many ways." Again, O'Brien is really driving home his message that truth is a sensation and not an event.
Lemon dies, according to O'Brien, by tripping a landmine while playing catch with a grenade with another soldier, Rat Kiley. Lemon's death is detailed in aftermath, with gruesome description of pulling his remains out of the tree he was blown into, but O'Brien remains fairly ambiguous about how exactly Lemon tripped a booby trap, saying only that he heard an explosion and saw Lemon "consumed by light."
O'Brien's pattern of unreliable narration and lack of detail leads us to question, did Lemon really step on a mine, or did the grenade that he and Rat Kiley were playing catch with accidentally detonate? What version of the truth are we getting here, "happening truth" or "story truth"?
Then there's Mitch Sander's story to Tim.
Sander tells fictional Tim about a couple soldiers on a stealth mission up in the mountains. Their job was to camp out for 7 days and 7 nights and report back anything they saw or heard. On the fourth night, the soldiers heard signing from the jungle. They heard an entire orchestra of mama-sans and papa-sans, a glee club, too. The noise was inescapable and maddening, so the soldiers called in for backup and they decimate the jungle - no mama-sans found, no orchestra, no glee club. But Sanders insists that they were there.
A couple nights later, Mitch tells Tim there was no orchestra. No glee club, either. But even though the story was fabricated, he insists that it was still true. How? The soldiers went a little nutty up there on the mountains alone and started hearing things. They really, truly believed that there was an orchestra and a glee club. In response to stress, fear and lonliness, their mines fabricated the entire event - a delusion. But even though they heard this music in a state of delusion, they still heard it. The glee club may have been in their heads and not in the jungle, but it was still somewhere, and to them, it was real.
Let's start with the death of Curt Lemon.
Lemon is only introduced momentarily in the begging of the story as "the dead guy". There is initially no real explanation of how he died until several chapters later. O'Brien prefaces the story of Lemon's death by telling us that what we are about to read is exactly true, but contradicts himself several pages later noting that he has told the story of Curt Lemon's death "many times, many ways." Again, O'Brien is really driving home his message that truth is a sensation and not an event.
Lemon dies, according to O'Brien, by tripping a landmine while playing catch with a grenade with another soldier, Rat Kiley. Lemon's death is detailed in aftermath, with gruesome description of pulling his remains out of the tree he was blown into, but O'Brien remains fairly ambiguous about how exactly Lemon tripped a booby trap, saying only that he heard an explosion and saw Lemon "consumed by light."
O'Brien's pattern of unreliable narration and lack of detail leads us to question, did Lemon really step on a mine, or did the grenade that he and Rat Kiley were playing catch with accidentally detonate? What version of the truth are we getting here, "happening truth" or "story truth"?
Then there's Mitch Sander's story to Tim.
Sander tells fictional Tim about a couple soldiers on a stealth mission up in the mountains. Their job was to camp out for 7 days and 7 nights and report back anything they saw or heard. On the fourth night, the soldiers heard signing from the jungle. They heard an entire orchestra of mama-sans and papa-sans, a glee club, too. The noise was inescapable and maddening, so the soldiers called in for backup and they decimate the jungle - no mama-sans found, no orchestra, no glee club. But Sanders insists that they were there.
A couple nights later, Mitch tells Tim there was no orchestra. No glee club, either. But even though the story was fabricated, he insists that it was still true. How? The soldiers went a little nutty up there on the mountains alone and started hearing things. They really, truly believed that there was an orchestra and a glee club. In response to stress, fear and lonliness, their mines fabricated the entire event - a delusion. But even though they heard this music in a state of delusion, they still heard it. The glee club may have been in their heads and not in the jungle, but it was still somewhere, and to them, it was real.
Reality vs. Fiction: "The Man I Killed"
In distorting the boundaries of truth, O'Brien does this most significantly when talking about the man he killed. Throughout the book, spanning literally a length of 80 pages, O'Brien slowly pieces together the story behind his allusions to "the man I killed". This is easily the most confusing element of the book, with FOUR different versions of the story being presented, all of them conflicting, and "all of them true", according to O'Brien.
There is the first version, in which the events leading up to the Vietnamese soldier's death are not discussed, and we're brought into the aftermath - O'Brien describing the dead soldier that lay in front of him, saying simply that he killed him, no further explanation.
There is the second version, where O'Brien recounts an ambush and details up until the second before he kills the soldier mentioned in the previous chapter - except, this time, the soldier's body is never recovered after the ambush, and we're left uncertain as to if he died or got away.
There is the third version, where O'Brien is only a bystander, and another member of alpha company throws the grenade that kills the soldier. But O'Brien feels so guilty watching that grenade be thrown that he considers himself the killer none the less.
Finally, there if the fourth version told from the perspective of the Vietnamese soldier, not O'Brien, who narrates the events of the ambush up until his death.
after each version of events, O'Brien immediately discredits himself, saying that what he has told us is not true. He then discredits himself further, saying that claiming the stories were not true is also untrue. O'Brien does this to draw a line between "happening true" and "story true", because he wants to emphasize that truth is a feeling and not an event. His message is that regardless of what actually happened that day, he killed a man because he did nothing to stop it, and the guilt he carries with him is truer and more real than the events that objectively determine whether or not he killed a man.
There is the first version, in which the events leading up to the Vietnamese soldier's death are not discussed, and we're brought into the aftermath - O'Brien describing the dead soldier that lay in front of him, saying simply that he killed him, no further explanation.
There is the second version, where O'Brien recounts an ambush and details up until the second before he kills the soldier mentioned in the previous chapter - except, this time, the soldier's body is never recovered after the ambush, and we're left uncertain as to if he died or got away.
There is the third version, where O'Brien is only a bystander, and another member of alpha company throws the grenade that kills the soldier. But O'Brien feels so guilty watching that grenade be thrown that he considers himself the killer none the less.
Finally, there if the fourth version told from the perspective of the Vietnamese soldier, not O'Brien, who narrates the events of the ambush up until his death.
after each version of events, O'Brien immediately discredits himself, saying that what he has told us is not true. He then discredits himself further, saying that claiming the stories were not true is also untrue. O'Brien does this to draw a line between "happening true" and "story true", because he wants to emphasize that truth is a feeling and not an event. His message is that regardless of what actually happened that day, he killed a man because he did nothing to stop it, and the guilt he carries with him is truer and more real than the events that objectively determine whether or not he killed a man.
Reality vs. Fiction: Tim O'Brien the Author vs. Tim O'Brien the Character
O'Brien's favorite device in TTTC (The Things They Carried) is without a doubt the play on truth and reality.
Lets start with Tim O'Brien himself:
O'Brien not only authors the book, but serves as the "fictional" protagonist within it. Both author Tim and fictional Tim are forty something Minnesota natives, drafted into Vietnam, who attended Harvard grad and authored several books. The only disparity is that fictional Tim has a 9 year old daughter named Kathleen and author Tim does not. This is where we first jump down the reality vs. fiction rabbit hole..and it's going to be a deep hole.O'Brien's use of his real self as a fictional character sets up the reader to immediately begin to question TTTC's status as fiction. This uncertainty is elevated by the dedication at the beginning of the book that reads:
"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"
So wait..what just happened here? Is Tim O'Brien writing a fictitious combat novel or a memoir? Is fictional Tim simply based on author Tim, or are we on the middle of author Tim's elusive autobiography? If this is a work of fiction, why is there a dedication to people that don't exist?
ahhhh, metafiction. How you confuse and disorient with your sneaky, sneaky devices.
Lets start with Tim O'Brien himself:
O'Brien not only authors the book, but serves as the "fictional" protagonist within it. Both author Tim and fictional Tim are forty something Minnesota natives, drafted into Vietnam, who attended Harvard grad and authored several books. The only disparity is that fictional Tim has a 9 year old daughter named Kathleen and author Tim does not. This is where we first jump down the reality vs. fiction rabbit hole..and it's going to be a deep hole.O'Brien's use of his real self as a fictional character sets up the reader to immediately begin to question TTTC's status as fiction. This uncertainty is elevated by the dedication at the beginning of the book that reads:
"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"
So wait..what just happened here? Is Tim O'Brien writing a fictitious combat novel or a memoir? Is fictional Tim simply based on author Tim, or are we on the middle of author Tim's elusive autobiography? If this is a work of fiction, why is there a dedication to people that don't exist?
ahhhh, metafiction. How you confuse and disorient with your sneaky, sneaky devices.
The Things They Carried - - An Introduction
Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" is the fictionalized account of Alpha Company, a platoon of soldiers stationed in Vietnam in the late 60's and early 70's during the war. What makes O'Brien's work unique is the way it defies its own genre, giving little lip service to the events of the war itself, and instead making the novel about the psychological experience and aftermath of war. The typical combat novel plot structure is abandoned; there is no cohesive series of events, no real emphasis on their mission or objectives in Vietnam and, most interestingly (to me at least), almost no references to combat unless it plays a significant role in the character development of one of the members of alpha company.
This is just the begging of what makes The Things They Carried a contemporary work of meta-fiction. One of the most important aspects of the novel is the way that O'Brien systematically attacks your brain with conflicting notions of "truth", as we'll see later. There is also the manner in which O'Brien violates conventional narrator levels, obsessively calls attention to "The Things They Carried" as a war story, and leaves readers shuffling back dozens of pages at a time, desperate to figure out if they've missed something, or simply fallen victim to O'Brien's intentionally ambiguous story line. As we'll see, "The Things They Carried" is overflowing with the literary devices of metafiction.
This is just the begging of what makes The Things They Carried a contemporary work of meta-fiction. One of the most important aspects of the novel is the way that O'Brien systematically attacks your brain with conflicting notions of "truth", as we'll see later. There is also the manner in which O'Brien violates conventional narrator levels, obsessively calls attention to "The Things They Carried" as a war story, and leaves readers shuffling back dozens of pages at a time, desperate to figure out if they've missed something, or simply fallen victim to O'Brien's intentionally ambiguous story line. As we'll see, "The Things They Carried" is overflowing with the literary devices of metafiction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)