Engl 4300 Essay . The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. In many respects, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried concerns the relationship between fiction and the narrator. You separate it from yourself. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever.
Stories are for joining the past to the future.
Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Through making these comments, the narrator is not only justifying the intent of The Things They Carried, but he is also providing clues to the content, structure, and interpretation of the novel. None of the anecdotes in this novel demonstrates complete closure, except perhaps in the case where the character was killed. Even then, however, that particular loss had an impact upon the lives of the people who have survived. Even the end of the novel itself is indefinite and without resolution.