Things They Carried: A Literary Analysis

A war story can be told many times over and still hold its value. A true war story shows the entire picture with all components no matter how obcene they might be. A true war story never fails to tell the truth about the hell that is war. When defining truth one must first differentiate between happening truth and reality. Happening truth is the actions that actually took place at a certain time. Reality is the general truth that encompasses all. Truth is a fact about reality that allows us to look back and see that an action actually happened. When looking at truth in “All Quiet On The Western Front” and “The Things They Carried” one must separate fact from fiction. In “The Things They Carried” a character said, “If you don't care for obscenity then you don't care for the truth.” which goes back to what was said earlier about not censoring any parts of life so that the truth can be seen. In “All Quiet On The Western Front” this is shown by going into detail about the harshness that war can …show more content…
Factors include things such as a person’s ideals, morals, religion, fatigue, and dogma. When people believe a certain way such as in religion they may interpret things differently from an atheist because the religious person may think that their religion is directly impacting them, for example a god may be speaking to them but in reality they are schizophrenic. An atheist perhaps would interpret reality from a more scientific point of view. When looking back at the recon team the factors that made them hear these noises are quite aplenty. The recon team could have been suffering from a lack of sleep and in turn would start imagining things. The team could have also been falling into the stress that war can put on people, however there are many other unknown factors that could be used to determine what really