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What is Metafiction?. Metafiction is a type of fiction which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction.
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Metafiction is a type of fiction which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction. It is the term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. Metafiction does not let the readers forget they are reading a work of fiction.
Some common metafictive devices include: >A novel about a person writing a novel. >A novel about a person reading a novel. (Neverending Story) >A story that addresses the specific conventions of story, such as title, paragraphing or plots. >A non-linear novel, which can be read in some order other than beginning to end. >A novel in which the author is a character. >A story that anticipates the reader's reaction to the story. >Characters who do things because those actions are what they would expect from characters in a story. >Characters who express awareness that they are in a work of fiction. >A work of fiction within a fiction. Using some of the devices listed above, why can The ThingsThey Carried be considered a metaficitonal work.
The Things They Carried: Can you relate? • Imagine that you’re a soldier in the jungles of Vietnam. Like all soldiers, you carry at least twenty pounds (if not much more) of equipment with you as you trudge across the country; this does not include any personal items of any kind. Every personal thing you bring adds to the heavy weight on your shoulders. • Given that knowledge, describe five personal items you would carry with you to remind you of home, ease your nerves, and simply make your situation more bearable. Explain the significance each items holds for you.
All Soldiers Carried • All soldiers carried: pocket knives, wrist watches, dog tags, gum, candy, cigarettes, lighters/matches, rations, sewing kits, 2 or 3 canteens of water, can openers (all about 15 to 20 pounds), steel helmets, fatigue jackets and trousers, jungle boots, steel centered/nylon covered flak jacket, at least on large compress, green plastic poncho with quilted liner, photographs, guns of all varieties, grenades, plastic explosives, USO stationary, pencils, pens, trip flares, razor blades, chewing tobacco, a variety of games, dictionaries • By mission: machete, mosquito netting, canvas tarps, bug juice, 28 pound mine dectector • To blow tunnels: high explosives, wiring detonators
Tangible Weight – Relevance of personal items carried • Jimmy Cross • Henry Dobbins • Dave Jensen • Ted Lavender • Mitchell Sanders • Norman Bowker • Rat Kiley • Kiowa • Lee Strunk
Intangible Weight • “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” (7) • “They all carried ghosts.” (10) • Memories, what others could no longer carry, wounded men, diseases, the land itself, the sky, the whole atmosphere, gravity. (15) • “They carried their own lives.” (15) • “They carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity.” (19)
Euphemism: A more gentle or tactful terms for a difficult, painful, or embarrassing subject. “Friendly Fire” – Fire from those on one’s own side (often resulting in death) “Collateral damage” – civilian deaths from military ammunitions that missed their intended target or were targeted at civilians by mistake “Soft Targets” – civilian areas; cities “Transport tubes” – body bags “Ethnic cleansing” – the violent expulsion of a certain racial group from their own land “Crispy Critter” – A VC nurse fried by napalm “Crunchie Munchie or Roasted Peanut” –a Vietnamese baby fried by napalm
O’Brien tells us that the soldiers are called “legs or grunts” rather than men. Military speech is peppered with euphemisms – that is, terms and phrases that distance us from the fact that real, individual people with families and friends are being killed. • What do you think of this practice? Is it a helpful or harmful manipulation?
Boredom - Spin “Even in the deep bush, where you could die any number of ways, the war was nakedly and aggressively boring. But it was a strange boredom. It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders. You’d be sitting at the top of a high hill, the flat paddies stretching out below, and the day would be calm and hot and utterly vacant, and you’d feel the boredom dripping inside of you like a leaky faucet, except it wasn’t water, it was a sort of acid, and with each little droplet you’d feel the stuff eating away at important organs. You’d try to relax. You’d uncurl your fists and let your thoughts go. Well, you’d think, this isn’t so bad. And right then you’d hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you’d be squealing pigs. That kind of boredom.” (Page 34)
Ways of Coping • Mitchell Sanders picked all the body lice off of his body, put them in a USO envelope, and sent them to his draft board. (Page 31) • Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins played checkers – there were rules, and there was a winner and a loser – always knew where you stood. (Page 32) • Ted Lavender medicated himself – “We got ourselves a nice mellow war today.” (Page 33) • Rat Kiley singing/chanting a rhyme while walking through a mine field. “Step out of line, hit a mine; follow the dink, you’re in the pink.” (Page 33) • Kiowa teaching Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen a rain dance. (Page 36) • Ted Lavender adopted an orphan puppy – Azar strapped it to a mine and blew it up saying, “Christ, I am just a boy.” (Page 36-37)
O’Brien is ashamed to admit that, on first being drafted, his immediate reaction is that he “is too good for the war.” He considers himself “too smart, too compassionate, too everything” – after all, he was the student body president at his college and he has a full scholarship to Harvard for grad school.” (Page 41)What if Vietnam was now and you were drafted? Would you think – even just for a second – that you were “too good” to be shipped off to war? Is there such a thing a Being “too good” for a war?
Upon being drafted, it occurs to O’Brien that there should be a law requiring those who support a war to go fight it – not send others who don’t support it off to fight for them. If you support the war, he might say to the president, send your own sons there – or go there yourself. (Page 42)There is some logic to O’Brien’s proposal. Do you agree or disagree?
For what reasons do you think a nation is justified in using military force against another nation? • -“Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty…” • -“It was my view then, and still is, that you can’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can’t fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead.” (Page 40-41)
O’Brien partly wants to avoid the draft by fleeing to Canada, but he hates to think of losing the life he has built in America. He fears losing not only his parents’ nearby presence, but his parents’ respect. Put yourself in O’Brien’s place. The war is now. You need to flee tonight for Canada, into the unknown, perhaps losing your family and friends forever - or be shipped out in the morning to Vietnam, where conditions are horrific and you know you may easily lose your life. What would you do and why?
Pondering the idea of courage/bravery • “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone.” • “I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile. I was afraid of walking away from my own life, my friends and my family, my whole history, everything that mattered to me. I feared losing the respect of my parents. I feared the law. I feared ridicule and censure.” (Page 45) • “Damned sissy” if he went to Canada. (Page 45) • “You were a treasonous pussy if you had second thoughts about killing or dying for plain and simply reasons.” (Page 45) • “Scared sick” (Page 47)
Tim O’Brien’s decision to go to war • “My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me…I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing.” (Page 52) • “You’re twenty-one years old, you’re scared, and there’s a hard pressure in your chest. What would you do?” (Page 56) • “I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave.” (Page 57) • “All those eyes on me – the town, the whole universe – and I couldn’t risk the embarrassment…in my head I could hear the people screaming at me. Traitor! They yelled. Turncoat! Pussy! I felt myself blush. I couldn’t tolerate it. I couldn’t endure the mockery, or disgrace, or patriotic ridicule…I couldn’t make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassment, that’s all it was...I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to.” (Page 59) • “I survived, but it’s not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to war.” (Page 61)
“I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to….I was a coward. I went to war.” – Tim O’Brien Do you agree that only cowards went to the Vietnam War? Were the brave ones those who found ways to avoid going? What would you do if you were in Tim’s situation? Fully explain your reasoning.
How to tell a true war story “Fiction, O’Brien has said, is a way of using lies to reveal spiritual and emotional truths. It’s also a form of play — and he enjoys playing in the margins of what happened and what might have happened.” - Julia Hanna
Quotes • A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. • You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. • You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. • If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care much for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote.
Quotes con’t • In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. • He wanted me to feel the truth, to believe by raw force of feeling. • True war stories do not generalize…It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe. • A true story is never about war. It’s about sunlight. It’s about love and memory. It’s about sorrow. It’s about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.
● How do you explain Rat Kiley’s cruelty to the baby buffalo and then cradling his rifle and crying as he walks away? ● The narrator quotes the familiar “war is hell” but adds that it is “not the half of it.” What does he mean? ● Why does the woman cry over the buffalo but like the grenade story? ● What is the deeper meaning of his saying that she wasn’t listening? ● What does the narrator mean by saying that the story was a love story and that stories are “never about war”?
