Metafiction Analysis Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
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Metafiction Analysis of The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien’s recent novel on the experiences he went through and stories he gathered during the Vietnam war encapsulates Catherine Calloway’s definition of metafiction by creating this fictional work that “self consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality”. Throughout the book, O’Brien brings up little things that make you think whether what he’s saying is really true or not. One of the most interesting metafiction he brought up was the one of Norman Bowker. O’Brien elaborated on Bowker’s story on when he got back home from the war, he had this burden he carried of not having enough medals. In the beginning, Bowker expressed his wish that his dad would call him up and tell him not to worry about the medals, however that never happened and when coming back home, he tried to tell his dad even with six on his chest, he was still missing one important one. The silver star that signified he saved a life of one of his beloved friend. His dad tried to tell him six was enough,…show more content… She was given the opportunity to join him in the foreign land and she took it, however it was not to the best of her interest. Out of all the stories told throughout the book, this one gave me the most creeps, mostly due to how I related to her in the beginning. Mary Anne Bell was curious and was interested in learning the many things the much older and more experienced soldiers knew. She liked exploring the parts of the forest she otherwise would not have been given the opportunity to see if not for her boyfriend. How she turned out in the end, with the necklace made of tongues and the Vietnam forest swallowing her spirit and her becoming one with the