Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The illusion of aliveness: truth and reality in O'Brien's The Things They Carried

by Mike Peeters, junior English and Information Systems Technology major at Silver Lake College

Of all the things that have advanced thanks to our evolution, our level of sentience is perhaps the most influential in the developments of art and literature. Because of it, we are able to interpret our surroundings through our senses in a way that allows us to interpret the moments in life that capture our attention. However, if you were to present a situation to a group of people, say three individuals, would they give you the same story if asked?

This question has received an incredible amount of attention with law enforcement going from handing convictions out like candy to cases where the only evidence is that of the eye-witness
testimonials going to the complete opposite where most judges and juries dismiss such evidence while demanding evidence that is physical and measurable. Now while to some that may sound absolutely crazy, the reasoning is simple and Tim O'Brien captured it in a beautiful manner in his book, The Things They Carried.


To summarize, the plot of The Things They Carried revolves around O'Brien's experiences both
surrounding and during his participation as a soldier in the Vietnam Conflict. However, rather than
publishing it as an auto-biography, O'Brien instead chose to write it as a memoir. In other words, he wrote the book as a hybrid between fiction and non-fiction where the general setting of the book is true and various moments presented are true. However, certain individuals and events are either entirely made up or modified extensively. Now while his choice to write it as a memoir was done, in part, to preserve the anonymity of those he served with, he chose this method because to him, his memories were merely fragments of a perception that failed, at times, to understand what truly happened. Within the text, he stated, "The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness."

Considering the power of this statement, one cannot help but to feel as though the beliefs at their very core are being challenged. Are the things we see truly what they are or are we seeing what we want to see or what another wants us to see? If our perception is but an illusion, can we truly say that there is such a thing as non-fiction literature sans for those books that objectively lay fact after fact on each page? Even within the realm of fiction, what does this imply when a writer tries to create a character whose identity is nothing like like their own? Is it possible to emulate or do we concede ourselves into thinking that we are capable of emulation?

Ultimately, these questions challenge the very core of art and literature. However, I find these questions to be incredibly healthy questions to ask, because they assert the need for responsibility be it in portraying an accurate depiction of a character whose persona is completely foreign to the author or in any attempt an author may make to report upon an event or idea that they are familiar with.

In regards to responsibility, if a writer or even a reader keeps these questions in mind, they should carry with them a sense of prudence that requires an attentive and observational mind. Furthermore, it should bring the question of what implications a work may have. Is this work going to make people aware of an issue? Could this work bring harm to another or rather, could this work bring a much needed understanding of another?

Ultimately, there should be no question that each individual has their own perspective. Now while technology has allowed thousands to look through a single lens, it cannot stop each, individual mind from having a different interpretation of what they see. With that said, it has to then be accepted that in comparison to the event presented through that lens, that some perceptions are going to be wrong while some are going to be right with all of the remaining being scattered somewhere in between the right and the wrong. Therefore, at least to me, it seems only responsible that when one is writing, that they either make it clear that they are speaking solely from perspective or that they are taking the time to do the research needed so that they can gain more information from the perspectives of others so that they can present a truer picture.

*The conflict in Vietnam was never officially declared a war by congress.

No comments:

Post a Comment