Discovering the Best Way to Tell a Story

Calloway, Catherine. “’How to Tell a True War Story’: Metafiction in The Things They Carried.” Critique 36.4 (1995): 249. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 30 Nov. 2010.

In her critique, Calloway expresses her idea that the issue of truth is the root of many of O’Brien’s stories in The Things They Carried. Calloway states that “a war story can be viewed from many different angles and visions.” She explores these various angles and concludes that The Things They Carried is ambiguous and difficult in determining what’s true and what is not. An example she uses is the way the opening page of the novel says that everything is fictional and is then dedicated to the men of Alpha Company a few pages later. Calloway says that this uncertainty leads “the reader to wonder if the men of Alpha Company are real or imaginary,” which adds to the novel’s ambiguity before it even actually starts. This ambiguity is what creates questioning for readers that are trying to discover the “truths” of the novel. It is difficult to learn and understand what is true and what is not, however, because O’Brien’s “tales become stories within stories or multilayered texts within texts within texts.” According to Calloway, these layers upon layers add to the ambiguity of the novel. Calloway points out that the way O’Brien’s novel is about the process of writing, not just about what the text says and creates for readers, also adds to the ambiguity. By writing about the process of writing, O’Brien creates confusion. This confusion is brought on because O’Brien will tell a story, which seems true, and then in his next chapter, will write about the process of coming up with the story. This leads readers to ponder whether his stories are true or are just written from his imagination. Putting truth, questioning, and the many other layers of O’Brien’s novel aside, Calloway says, in the words of Tim O’Brien himself, that the best way to tell a true war story is “just keep on telling it” (91), no matter which view or vision you have of it.

The focus of Calloway’s article is about the way O’Brien uses truth to create fictional stories and how these two completely opposite view points are linked. Calloway’s suggestion that O’Brien uses uncertain “truths,” because truth is often mistaken for fiction, can help readers understand why O’Brien emphasizes the importance of truth in relation to storytelling. One way The Things They Carried connects fact and storytelling is the way O’Brien uses truth to create fictional stories. This can often create confusion for readers and lead readers to question which parts of the novel actually happened and which parts O'Brien made up. Calloway states that “the reader has to piece together information, such as the circumstances surrounding the characters' deaths, in the same manner that the characters must piece together the reality of the war.” Because things continuously need piecing together, it could be assumed, from what Calloway said, that O’Brien may have wanted readers to have to piece together what is truth and what is fictional storytelling and find the line separating the two. Also, according to Calloway, understanding O’Brien’s use of ambiguous truth is something similar to the idea that storytelling keeps the truth and actual, real events alive. Calloway says “fiction is used as a means of resurrecting the deceased.” This quote suggests that there may be another link O’Brien uses between truth and storytelling. Either way, O’Brien has created a definite link between the two, according to what Calloway has written in her article.