The Story Truth and the Happening Truth in the Novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
In our world, there are two ways of telling a war story, the story truth and the happening truth. Story truth is something that is made more real and is not how it actually happened. Happening truth is the exact truth and nothing different. In the book “The Things They Carried”, author Tim O’Brien, illustrated these two ways of truth very well. He uses both but do not say when, which leaves it up to the reader to find out which one it is. Leaving the reader to do this, can make it easier for the author to mess with their mind. Also, in the two movies “Black Hawk Down” and “We Were Soldiers”, story truth and happening truth are both portrayed. Both of the movies show a war story that can make you believe that it is a story truth or a happening truth. Because O’Brien showed in-depth detail of what a war story is, I believe that “Black Hawk Down” was more of a happening truth than “We Were Soldiers”. In the movie “We Were Soldiers”, there were many places that could be considered a happening truth. Places that hold deep meaning and places that show the truth rather than a made up version. Throughout the whole movie, it is hard to believe any of this actually happened. Which is what makes it a true war story. “In many cases a true war story cannot be believed”, before you realize that all of it is true. This story shows how a true war story can make you believe that it is not true or make you want to think that it is not true. A true war story is something that makes you believe that all of it is not real because of the real and exact truth that it portrays.
It makes you believe that there is no way any of this actually happened. But in reality, all of it happened and it blows people’s minds when they find that out. Not just because it’s all true but that it actually happened. “We Were Soldiers” is a happening truth movie that portrays all the bad things that happened, making it feel fake, when it was actually 100 percent real. In the movie “Black Hawk Down”, it was apparent that it was a story truth rather than a happening truth. During the movie “Black Hawk Down” it showed us what a happening truth story was like. It showed all the ups and downs but it did not give off a moral in the end. The end was just plain and simple and “A true war story is never moral”. It showed all the feelings and looks of a happening truth story. In some cases a true war story can not be believed, but this movie was believable in every way. The way the story was told, made the viewers believe what was going on. And the viewers believing it is what made it a happening truth over a story truth. “Black Hawk Down” is a story truth movie that shows us how a war can really be. Making us believe it to be true when it is not true at all is what a happening story truth is all about. “Black Hawk Down” is a more story truth story than “We Were Soldiers”. “In the end, of course, a true war story is never about war…” it is about the things that are inside and things that do not involve war. “We Were Soldier” is just that. It wasn’t really about the war that they fought, it was about the struggle for life, love, and the things that they were afraid to do. These things helped prove that it was a story truth story. The movie showed these clearly when Colonel Moore gave his speech, right before the soldiers went off to battle. “Black Hawk Down” was just the opposite. It showed the struggles of war and nothing but war. It showed all the pain and all the sorrow. It showed the agony that it brought to others. The movie had no moral, it only showed war at its finest. The movie “We Were Soldiers” and the movie “Black Hawk Down”, they both showed what it is really means to be a happening truth story and a story truth story. They both showed what the brutality of war can bring and what our imagination can bring forth. Which is a happening truth story inside itself.
