Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/2.16.lc.4
Istina koju su nosili: autentičnost i otuđenost u romanu The Things They Carried
Jasna Poljak Rehlicki
Tomislav Berbić
Abstract
This paper explores the philosophical elements present in Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried (1990), with particular emphasis on the concepts of authenticity, alienation, and truth, which assume a distinctly existential dimension throughout the text. Although O’Brien’s work has frequently been examined through the lenses of ethics, war poetics, and the problem of truthfulness, the philosophical dimension of his writing has received comparatively less attention. Through a comparative reading of the novel alongside selected philosophical insights, primarily those derived from Nietzsche’s philosophy, this paper demonstrates how O’Brien portrays the experience of everyday wartime life as a space of tension between individual authenticity and enforced dehumanization. The analysis shows that motifs of alienation, fragmented subjectivity, and the search for meaning emerge as fundamental elements of the narrative, while the concept of truth is revealed as fluid and closely connected to narrative strategies of testimony and storytelling. The paper, therefore, seeks to illustrate how O’Brien’s prose, through its exploration of the psychological, emotional, and moral burdens of war, engages with certain existential and Nietzschean concerns and offers new literary articulations of these concepts.
Keywords
alienation, authenticity, truth, Nietzsche, O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Hrčak ID:
349042
URI
Publication date:
23.6.2026.
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