Meredith Hopkins

A.P. U.S. History

Professor Carlson
June 11, 2017
The Reality of Fiction

Accounting for subjective interpretation, or perhaps subjective misinterpretation, it might seem a

reasonable conclusion that there is but one ‘truth’ corresponding to every one event. The age-old

question of the sound made by a tree falling in the woods when no one is around raises the issue

of human subjectivity having an impact on ‘objective truth.’ When people recount past

experiences, the ‘truth’ of the event is open to distortion, thus creating a ‘new truth,’ or what Tim

O’Brien regards in ​The Things They Carried as a type of story truth.1 O'Brien uses this

contrasting nature between the narrative truth and the actual truth to help support the claim that

not all stories must be factual to be true. He uncovers the need of soldiers to utilize story truth to

help cope with and recover from the brutal and deep-rooted memories of serving in the Vietnam

War.

While it is easy to consider all claims but the truth to be false, it is a common practice for

those suffering with PTSD, or other similar disorders, to be encouraged to formulate and abide

by alternate truths in order to deal with their individual emotions. According to psychologist

John Wilson, “What counts in treatment of posttraumatic states is not that much what has ‘really’

happened in a victim's past, but how a victim has experienced it. Therefore a clinician should

focus on his advocacy and treatment activities on the emotional truth of the experienced events.”2

This “emotional” truth that is created serves as a preferred replacement over the trauma of the

1
​Tim O’Brien, ​The Things They Carried​ (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 77.
2
​John P. Wilson, ​Cross-Cultural Assessment of Psychological Trauma and PTSD​ (Springer New York
2011), 125.
actual truth and often helps war veterans recover from their scarring experiences. O’Brien

repeatedly stresses this concept throughout ​The Things They Carried​, analyzing the extent to

which a “true” war story can or cannot be told. He states, “In any war story, but especially a true

one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen

becomes its own happening and has to be told that way.”3 When the happening truth of a story

becomes distorted due to the altered perception of the individual, the new story becomes the

reality of the situation. O’Brien stresses that while this account may not be historically accurate

as to what happened, because it is the interpretation of the witness or survivor, the new story

should be regarded as the genuine truth.

Despite the described truth of a narrative story, it is important to realize that the extent to

which a war story is “true” can never be accurately determined. Weather or not an outside

individual accepts a war story as truth is based on opinion; however, there is no denying the

presence of some distortion in all war stories. “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence

your sense of truth itself, and therefore it's safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever

absolutely true.”4 O’Brien outlines the complex interpretation of the truth through the telling of

his own stories, attempting to explain why some war stories seem different than expected. His

most powerful example comes when he describes a story he heard from Mitchel Sanders. After

explaining that the men on watch for seven days started hearing music, Sanders says, “This next

part [...] you won’t believe. [...] And you know why? Because it happened. Because every word

is absolutely dead-on true.”5 O’Brien realizes that Sanders wanted him “to feel the truth”6 rather

3
​Tim O’Brien, ​The Things They Carried​, 67.
4
​O’Brien, 78.
5
O’Brien, 70.
6
O’Brien, 70.
than question its accuracy. Similarly, when people hear war stories, they often do not know what

to believe or how to react because they constantly question their accuracy. But, in an alternative

view, when a veteran tells a story from actual experience, his/her personal perception has every

right to be regarded as true. This derives from the emotional force of the individual's experiences

that causes them to subconsciously alter reality to form their own interpretation, thus there are

even “true war stories that never [literally] happened.”7 Moreover, this resulting narrative truth

should be regarded as more accurate than the happening truth, for not only will an emotional

interpretation help the individual recover more quickly, but it will also help others to understand

the extent of the trauma and brutality they have faced.

Consequently, psychologists often try to help trauma victims formulate their own

emotional or narrative understanding of certain situations. To do this, a “clinician must be able to

make a distinction between the historical truth and the emotional truth of traumatic events that

took place in [a] client’s past.”8 When a war veteran comes to peace with a narrative truth for

their experiences, they can recover more quickly. At the end of the novel, O’Brien reveals that he

too relies on the story truth of his past: “I'm skimming across the surface of my own history,

moving fast, [...] and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I

realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story.”9 O’Brien realizes that he no longer

fully grasps the happening truth of all the events that occurred in Vietnam. Instead he takes this

blurred reality and is content with relying on his own emotions and personal story as factual. By

7
O’Brien, 80.
8
​John P. Wilson, ​Cross-Cultural Assessment of Psychological Trauma and PTSD​, 125.
9
O’Brien, 233.
doing this he helps himself recover and return to life as normal, essentially saving his life with

his story.10

After analyzing the differences between concrete events and how people tell the story, it

seems that the “truth” to any given event is open to change under the individual’s interpretation.

The extent to which the story is truly factual is irrelevant when considering the way it helps

veterans heal faster and allows outsiders to understand the level of emotional trauma that they

experienced. In other words, the truth that the eyes see and the truth that the heart feels are two

completely different things, and often it is difficult to know which one should be believed.

However, everyone knows that “listening to your heart” is generally the better option, and the

emotional truth to a story has a stronger bond to the heart than the eyes. Thus, the next time a

tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to notice if it made a sound, it is easier, and more

supportive of recovery, to simply accept that it did.

10
​O’Brien, 233.
 Citations

John P. Wilson, ​Cross-Cultural Assessment of Psychological Trauma and PTSD​, Springer New

York 2011

Tim O'Brien, ​The Things They Carried​, New York: Houghton Mifflin,1990