I saw this theme in my own experience when I was writing my narrative essay. There were times when I did not use the exact truth because I wanted to convey what it felt like, not necessarily the truth. I think that we all do this sometimes when we tell a story to our friends. Even this can relate back to the book and how the men would often exaggerate their stories, particularly Rat Kiley. This was on display when O'Brien said, "For Rat Kiley, I think, 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." (85)
A research question that I had for The Thing They Carried was: What might Rat Kiley have been suffering from psychologically in "Night Life"? I was mainly curious about this because Kiley's behavior was extremely severe, so I figured there must be a name for it. I am also interested in psychology so I was curious as to what this type of behavior would clinically translate to. While researching this, I found three main candidates: delusional disorder, brief psychotic disorder, and schizophrenia.
Delusional disorder matches up with Kiley's symptoms of voices from bugs and seeing people dead. In psychology, these are delusions and hallucinations, both of which are a part of psychosis. Psychosis is essentially the loss of touch with reality. Delusional disorder matches up at the surface, but the timeline and behaviors do not match up. The other two candidates - brief psychotic disorder and schizophrenia are definite candidates, matching up with symptoms, duration, and age. It is also important to note that Kiley may have been experiencing substance-induced psychosis, as many men used drugs while living the night life.
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| What psychosis looks like/feels like. |
I found WebMD to have the best information regarding this topic because it had organized details on psychosis and many psychotic disorders.
Sources:
"What is Psychosis?." WebMD. n.d. www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/what-is-psychosis#1 Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
"Mental Health and Delusional Disorder." WebMD. n.d. www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder#1 Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
"What is a Psychotic Disorder?." WebMD. n.d. www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/mental-health- psychotic-disorders#1 Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
"Schizophrenia: An Overview." WebMD. n.d. www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/mental-health-schizophrenia#1 Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
"What is Brief Psychotic Disorder?" WebMD. n.d. www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/mental-health-brief-psychotic-disorder#1 Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
I really like your research question! I think that you answered it in a great way too. You explained with comparing the book and your online resources which made it very easy to follow.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your idea about how the real truth is not as important as the story itself. When we read a story, we see and feel what the writer intended us to experience, and I think that is one of the great things about writing. I came across this quote, by Stephen King: "Fiction is the truth inside the lie." I thought this goes along with your post.
ReplyDeleteYour research question is really interesting! I never thought about that until I see your post. Learning about that what actually happened to Rat Kiley helped me understand how deeply does the war change people.
ReplyDeleteI like how you related your question to characters in the novel, rather than a broad understanding of the war. This knowledge of what is actually happening to these characters during these times is something we can feather look into to deeper understand the interpenetrate how and what happens for him.
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