O'Brien and His Religious Motivation

Vernon, Alex. "Salvation, Storytelling, and Pilgrimage in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 36.4 (2003): 171-188. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 9 Dec. 2010.

Alex Vernon has strong thoughts on the idea that there is a lot of religious motivation behind O’Brien’s work in “The Things They Carried”. He believes that Tim O’Brien’s idea on truth is “more spiritual than factual” (171). As far as the structural format, Vernon believes that “The Things They Carried” and the Bible have a lot in common. Vernon describes the structure of this piece especially that of "Spin" and "How to Tell a True War Story" to be episodic and “ Psalm-fragmented” (171) . He states that O’Brien uses storytelling as his way to change events in the past and develop a new kind of truth. In “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien blurs the line between fact and fiction. Vernon believes that O’Brien’s purpose for storytelling is his way of discovering how to deal with his guilt and burdens. Vernon states that O’Brien “hopes to recover a little of his pre-war innocence, his faith in himself, everyone else, and the future” from storytelling. He also believes that storytelling is O’Brien’s way of “creating a religion of writing fiction as a means of transcending the horrible "happening truth" of war” (171). O’Brien uses storytelling as a motif throughout the book, “The Things They Carried”. Darkness is the only thing that the war offered O’Brien and writing about his “stories” to once again to discover the light in Vernon’s perspective. Vernon states “O’Brien seems to want us to read “The Things They Carried as a literary analogue to the New Testament” (171). Vernon compares O’Brien to the religious figure and storyteller, Jesus.

Vernon has a religious point of view in which has led him to the assumptions of O’Brien’s purpose with storytelling. This source is an important one to read before answering the research question because it allows the reader to see and develop a different understanding of O’Brien’s purpose behind storytelling. This source ultimately raises more intelligent questions that will lead to a better understanding of their piece as a whole. This source poses the idea that there may be some religious motivation behind O’Brien’s storytelling and what he is trying to do with it. After reading this source, readers can now develop deeper thoughts on O’Brien’s role as a story teller and what he is trying to do. By using religious motivation readers may begin to think of O’Brien as a prophet or maybe even someone whom is trying to convert them. Vernon’s religious point of view brings several different ideas of which deal with O’Brien’s role as a storyteller. This source was important to this project because Vernon used ideas that are familiar to the majority as a whole and brought a lot of different thoughts to the mind that are associated with religion.