Truth In The Things They Carried

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Truths are concepts that are not simply recognized, but that are to be discovered or created. One person's truth may be seen by another as a lie. What is the difference between an unnoticed myth and an unrecognized truth? The difference between the two lies within the eye of the beholder. For Tim O'Brien, the author and narrator of The Things They Carried, truth equals what the reader thinks happened and what really happened. Whether or not it actually happened does not matter; something can happen and not be true. In The Things They Carried, “Good Form”, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” and as well as “The War Prayer,” the truth may or may not be involved; truth is what you believe it to be.
The difficult association between the occurrence of war and storytelling is told through the eyes of Tim O’Brien; he explains that a true war story has a supreme adherence to offensiveness that provides a sense of pride and …show more content…

It is hard to say which one is believable because according to O’Brien it doesn’t matter if it is true or not, as long as it feels real. In “The War Prayer” they are celebrating to come home as heroes but also praying for reassurance that they come home safe, this would not be considered true because who would be celebrating war from the beginning; nothing about war is to be celebrated. As for “Dulce et Decorum Est” a more surreal side of war is shown with things that readers can relate to, as the poem is in the point of view of the soldiers, as is The Things They Carried; making readers sympathize for the things soldiers go through showing that it is not sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. That is a sense of truth, a poem to match to the novel’s criteria of a “true” war

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