Atonement by Ian Mcewan and

¶ … Atonement" by Ian McEwan and "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. Specifically it will discuss how each author uses fiction to deal with reality. Reality is the backbone of both of these very different war novels, but they both utilize reality in very different ways. Briony retreats from the reality of what she thinks she has seen and creates an alternate fiction reality for Cecilia and Robbie that blends her Cinderella dreams with the actuality of their lost lives due to her meddling.

Tim reshapes reality with fiction because Vietnam was a horrible experience that cannot be forgotten, and the only way to survive such a horrible experience is to blend reality with fiction so the result is a bit easier to stomach. Early in his book about his experiences in Vietnam, Tim O'Brien says that much of what happened in Vietnam is hard to remember. He writes, "Much of it [the war] is hard to remember.

I sit at this typewriter and stare through my words and watch Kiowa sinking into the deep muck of a ***** field, or Curt Lemon hanging in pieces from a tree, and as I write about these things, the remembering is turned into a kind of rehappening" (O'Brien 36). And yet, much of the book is filled with these vivid and short recollections of things that happened during the war. Rather than being difficult to remember, it seems the author is saying they are even more difficult to forget.

A literary critic notes, "The tales included in O'Brien's twenty-two chapters range from several lines to many pages and demonstrate well the impossibility of knowing the reality of the war in absolute terms." (Calloway 249). Reshaping the reality of these moments with fiction helps him forget the horror and remember the rest, and it also helps readers get a clearer picture of just how horrible the war was and what a lasting effect it had on those people who had to fight it.

Both authors use fiction as a remedy for reality, but O'Brien's fictions are all based on real people he knew during the war, and so, his novel is even more "real" in its fiction. He writes of characters that stick in your mind and make the entire war experience even more real. One of those was Rat Kiley, and man named "Rat" who is still sympathetic and likable. He writes, "For Rat Kiley..

facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around, and when you listened to one of his stories, you'd find yourself performing rapid calculations in your head, subtracting superlatives, figuring the square root of an absolute and then multiplying by maybe" (O'Brien 101). It is this ability to blend reality with fiction that makes both these novels memorable, and gives them much of their texture and depth, as well. Both authors come clean with their blending of fiction and reality, too.

Briony ultimately tells the truth with her novel, and O'Brien writes about the complexities of war without any of the fictional illusions. He writes, "War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead" (O'Brien 86-87).

It is interesting that Briony includes a large section of World War II in her novel, tying these two works together in many ways. Briony is writing to assuage her own guilt, but there seems to be at least some of that in O'Brien's novel, as well. He seems to be writing about these experiences to help free himself from guilt about fighting in a war that no one wanted, while Briony is trying to get over her guilt for far different reasons.

In her mind, Briony knows that she has acted rashly and without real knowledge. She thinks to herself during the accusations, "She was like a bride-to-be who begins to feel her sickening qualms as the day approaches, and dares not speak her mind because so many preparations have been made on her behalf" (McEwan 159). Her need to recreate Cecilia and Robbie's story comes from her own guilt in sending Robbie to prison, and the realization that she sent the wrong man, and violently disrupted two lives.

She cannot live with her guilt, and so, she has to recreate the harsh reality of the story into something more acceptable to her readers, but more acceptable to herself, as well. This is why she has never written the story, although she has become a very famous novelist. From an early age, Briony has showed an interest in writing, and even at 13, she understands many of the elements of fiction, which also help her replace reality with fiction in the very real story of Robbie and Cecelia.

McEwan writes, "A crisis in a heroine's life could be made to coincide with hailstones, gales and thunder, whereas nuptials were generally blessed with good light and soft breezes" (McEwan 7). Thus, there has always seemed to be an element of unreality in Briony's life, so it would be.