The Things They Humped

"How To Tell A True War Story" was a chapter that gave this entire book, despite what it's title page says (A work of fiction by Tim O'Brien), credibility. The subtitle “a work of fiction” is paradoxical to the actions and thoughts of characters in O'Brien's book, most especially the character/narrator Tim O'Brien himself. The paradox: The Things They Carried is a narrative composed of war stories where things don't seem to end up happy and morally correct- our author calls it "a work of fiction." But our character Tim O'Brien says that these moral wrongs -from the unreturned letter to the unnecessary slaughter of a baby buffalo- are what makes a war story true ("A true war story is never moral..If a story seems moral, do not believe it.") This would suggest that O'Brien as the author is telling a set of stories that are very real, and very true. In a greater context, the immorality of everything going on in this book, lends credibility to Tim's narrative as a true war story. By asserting that his book is fictional but demonstrating and explaining indirectly through the characters in his narrative otherwise, we can believe his story is really true....