O'Brien uses this technique in The Things They Carried, while also explaining through the use of metafiction why people do this. "The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed" (pg. 78). Sometimes things happen to us so quickly, that when we tell the story, it isn't exactly right when it does come down to the cold hard facts, but it as true as anything that we will ever know. Stories are not totally fact, but with interpretation they can lead us to factual events that do occur. O'Brien may have adjusted some details from his actual experience in Vietnam and deemed it a fictional' book, but to him the stories he tells in The Things They Carried are very real to him. And through the use of metafiction he is able to convey this to his
O'Brien uses this technique in The Things They Carried, while also explaining through the use of metafiction why people do this. "The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed" (pg. 78). Sometimes things happen to us so quickly, that when we tell the story, it isn't exactly right when it does come down to the cold hard facts, but it as true as anything that we will ever know. Stories are not totally fact, but with interpretation they can lead us to factual events that do occur. O'Brien may have adjusted some details from his actual experience in Vietnam and deemed it a fictional' book, but to him the stories he tells in The Things They Carried are very real to him. And through the use of metafiction he is able to convey this to his